Today I have chosen a topic that I've used several times before, "Me Final Step to Our Perfection." That is a very broad and very vague topic but my theme will center around rejection.

Obviously most of you have personally experienced and know the difficulty of the fact that this society and world expect certain things from us. We all have tried desperately to achieve certain things in our lives to become worthy of our calling. In many ways what we strive to attain is a certain achievement: to be in the position where the world or society looks at us and says we have accomplished. We want to be recognized for having reached a certain perfection based upon our ability.

That recognition is very important to all of us. We strive to attain that realization by trying to understand and gain dominion over our selves, to utilize our own abilities and to perfect them. We want to show the world, "I am somebody because of what I have achieved based on what was given to me."

This process is not easy. It is difficult to achieve things that the world can recognize as your perfection. A lot of sacrifice and dedication is necessary. An absolute devotion to achieving your own perfection is necessary.

But all that aside, the reason that I have chosen the topic of rejection is that rejection plays a large part in this process of perfection. Obviously you can say that because there is a certain ideal of what perfection is, then there must be certain boundaries. When boundaries exist you must accept the fact that there will be rejection. When you do things beyond the boundary, they have to be rejected in respect to the realm of perfection. If you want to stay within the realm of perfection, rejection becomes a part of the perfection process.

Adam was in the position to fulfill important things. He was to perfect God's true love. In order for him to achieve this great task, the first thing he had to do was reject himself. He had to reject his own desire and the things which would impede him from working within the realm of God's ideal of creation. Adam was introduced to certain ideas other than God's, which then provoked him to think selfishly about his own desires and things that would be physically beneficial to him. At that moment when he was tempted, if he could have rejected centering on himself and thought instead of Heavenly Father, the Fall would never have occurred. I'm not saying that Satan played a part in the perfection of Adam, but perhaps his position of tempting Adam could have aided Adam to take responsibility to become the counterpart of love to God by being in the position to deny himself and reject his own selfishness.

In order for God Himself to choose the ideals of love, He had to reject His own selfness. He rejected selfness, therefore He longed for the realization of true love. Adam was in the position to reject his self, just as God rejected His selfness, to yearn for love, and to accept the will of God which is manifesting love.

One of the most difficult things in our lives is rejection. Everyone wants to be accepted. No one wants to be rejected, but that is an integral part of perfecting ourselves. When you look at Jesus Christ, during his forty day fast, he was tempted by Satan. Satan told him to turn the stone into bread. He took Jesus to the temple and told him to jump off and he took Jesus to the highest mountain peak and looked down at the kingdom of man and told Jesus, "Bow down to me, if you do all you see will be yours." Obviously Jesus rejected that temptation. Satan asked him to eat something. Satan stressed the point of centering on the physical body, saying the most important thing was bread. Jesus told him you don't live on bread alone but by the word of God. Through all these things, Satan was tempting the physical presence of Jesus. Ultimately Jesus rejected his physical self. He rejected Satan's offer of dominion over the physical world because he knew he would achieve that later centered on God.

Satan tried to provoke Jesus into rejecting God, while at the same time tempting his physical self. He wanted Jesus to do away with the union which would ultimately realize the ideals of love. Satan wanted Jesus to think about himself. Jesus was successful in facing temptation and he rejected Satan by denying himself.

When you look at Father's life, there are many things that we can talk about. The important thing is, before Father first received confirmation of the Principle from spirit world, he was rejected twice. Think about it. Father was chosen. Although he was chosen or predestined to realize or conceive the Principle, he was rejected twice. The important thing is that Father strove on. Although he received rejection from spirit world two times he persisted in the sense that he never gave up hope and continued to try to understand God. He prayed tremendously and shed tears and tried to really love God. He physically endured many difficulties studying and going over the Bible again and again. Many people give testimony that the Bible Father had was filled with notes. Every line and every page was marked and underlined thousands of times. It was falling apart. Won Pil Kim told me this when I interviewed him for the video I'm making. He said Father read his Bible so many times it was literally falling apart. The paper was so thin from his hands touching the pages for many hours over so many days.

Father made tremendous sacrifice. The thing is, he was grateful, even for the rejection. Although he was chosen, he was still grateful, he never gave up hope. He never felt discouraged because he was being rejected. He absolutely committed himself to God and just persisted. He accepted the rejection and by overcoming that, he has risen above his self. When you are always conscious about yourself, the most fearful thing is rejection. When you are arrogant or self-centered you can't deal with rejection. But in order for you to perfect love you must realize the importance of being rejected. This is the beautiful aspect, although it is difficult. If you can't rise above that you can never perfect yourself. Father understood that. Father understood the importance of being grateful for being rejected.

Those of us in the Unification Church have been rejected by this world ever since it was established. In one incident after another we have been rejected left and right. Father literally had been rejected by the world. Our lives are filled with rejection. And many of you, even after you were blessed, in many cases you were rejected by Father. Many of you have persisted on without losing hope or your commitments. But some of you have drowned in your own self pity because you have been rejected.

I look at myself and I look at the things Father has always made me do and the things that I have tried to offer to Father. I always try to present myself in the best light. I have certain ideas and based on those I try to project myself. Everything is based on good intentions. Many of those things have been rejected. When I was a young adult it may have bothered me in that moment, but in retrospect all of that really is a part of love. Because of his persistence in demanding certain things, and because he rejected me when certain things were not in accord with principled standards, it was a true gift. The mere fact that he rejected me insures me of the secure future of a principled world. He can't accept me and whatever I do just because I am his son. No, the ideal world exists upon the principle of love. So in order for me to attain and dwell in the ideal world, I must accept the fact that I will be rejected if I go beyond the boundaries. And there is that principle, a standard and boundary. If I go beyond it there has to be somebody, some mechanism, some process by which things will be rejected. Because of that process my future is secure, as well as yours.

This process of rejection is not something negative, but we always think of it as negative. Who likes to be rejected? It's difficult to even reject your own things. In trying to create my own things I go through a rejection process. It's not easy. When you are rejecting your own thing it is difficult, but to be rejected by someone you don't know or have nothing to do with is worse. Of course that is just speaking figurative, you have something to do with everybody. Once I accept the fact that I must reject certain things then I can move on closer and closer to my perfection.

We have to understand that we have the possibility to perfect ourselves, but we don't start from the formation stage and arrive at perfection immediately. We grow into perfection. So we start from imperfection and grow to perfection. There are a lot of things that you have to do away with. Especially living in the world we live in. If you don't accept the fact that rejection of certain things is good, then you can't do away with the reality we have to change. This certainly is not an ideal world.

Homosexuality is based on sexual desire. An attraction can be there and be natural but they translate it into sexual deeds. They commit the attraction but translate it into sexual action. That's wrong. They must reject those kinds of thoughts. Just because I see with my physical eyes and feel things based on my physical desire, that doesn't give me the right to commit the wrong action. There are people out there who don't give a hoot about people's lives. Everywhere I go, people have to follow me for security reasons. It's not a safe world out there. People cannot really control themselves. There are people out there who do not understand the concept of rejection. They don't know what to reject. They completely disregard the fact that rejection exists for a purpose. Because out of all the possibilities we have to desire what God desires, based on our own volition. We have the ability to choose. We have the ability to create a lot of things, however it is our responsibility to reject the things that will impede the creation process. We must choose the things that will bring the realization of God's kingdom. That is our responsibility.

Ideally speaking, I shouldn't be standing here. You would like it if only the American guys come here to speak, right? What do you get out of me? That's the ideal way. The reason I say that is because I stressed the Cain and Abel relationship many times. It is very important that we understand that concept. The bottom line is that through the Cain and Abel process certain things are restored, and that is the position of subject. Based on selfishly desiring the subject's position, man fell. This was a physical fall. Man and woman acted upon that very distorted idea and committed themselves in fallen physical action. Therefore you need a physical foundation to restore the physically committed sin and selfishly desiring the position of subject.

When Cain and Abel make their offering to God, another important things is that although Cain represents the satanic side, by birthright he is in the position of subject. But they are both making the offering to Heavenly Father, so the important thing is that they have to be centered on God. Although Cain is representing Satan's side, they are both centered on God. This is very important. What happens is that by birthright, Cain has subjectivity over Abel who is the object. In order to restore the W which is selfishly and falsely desiring subjectivity, Cain must, through his own will, surrender his subjectivity to Abel. Thus Abel becomes the subject and Cain inherits the ideal object position from Abel. Because of this, the restoration of subjectivity is occurring on a physical platform. Restoration can be physically attained. It has to be substantially done based on a foundation of substance. Naturally surrendering one's own subjectivity to the God-centered position becomes the condition to restore the false subjectivity.

John the Baptist was physically in the subject position to Jesus. John lived according to the Old Testament scriptures. He completely knew the Hebrew tradition and he was revered by the Jews. His life was a complete dedication to God. He abstained from all physical forms of indulgence. He abstained and lived according to the Law. He was a great prophet.

In respect to his standing with the Jews, he was in the subject position. He was more established than Jesus. In order for Jesus to restore the position of subject and object on a physical level, somebody having this physical subjectivity on a horizontal level had to come to Jesus and surrender his position and subjectivity through his own will. That condition would have become a condition for restoration. That process would have been magnified to the world level. Once John successfully completed his surrender, what would have happened? The disciples of Jesus and John would have created a tribe. Based on that tribe, they would have gone to the nation of Israel.

The nation is subject to the tribal position. The nation is more established and larger. Based on a unity centered on Jesus, the tribe would have gone out to the Jews and converted them. If the Jewish nation, being in the subject position on a horizontal level, could have naturally submitted themselves to Jesus, they would have created the foundation to restore the nation substantially. If this was magnified one more time to the united nation of Israel centered on Jesus, they could have gone out to the world and prepared the world to ultimately surrender its subjectivity to the objective position of the Jewish nation. This would have created the essential condition to restore the world on the world wide level.

That is what we are trying to achieve. This is what Father is doing. When Father lost all the spiritually prepared Christian denominations, he had to lay the condition of indemnity for forty years. Within those forty years he established the Unification Church. In the beginning it was like a little tribe but now we're expanding. We're at a physical stage where we can really stir up the nations of the world. Of course the next phase which must occur is the unification of Korea centered on True Parents. We're at a stage where we have great means to influence people. so it is important that physical, central conditions of restoration be realized on every stage: individual, family, tribe, national and the world. So the unification of Korea is absolutely important and essential to unifying the world. What you are doing in America is preparing for the day when Korea is united centering on True Parents. The world can unite centered on a Korea centered on True Parents.

That is why what we are doing, the medium in which I am trying to work, is so important. Communication between people, giving them certain information, communicating the truth, is very important at the present time. Soon the time will come when we have to unite with Father centered in Korea. Do you understand? We have to prepare ourselves.

Even in this Cain and Abel process, rejection is absolutely an important part. Cain must reject his birthright, literally his position of subjectivity over Abel. He has to reject that. What Adam rejected was the possibility to unite with God and obtain God's perfection, because his selfish desire was more than His desire to unite with God. So Cain must now reject his position, reject his self and commit himself to a greater cause and reality which is God.

When you look at this Cain and Abel struggle, even in our own lives, as we try to perfect ourselves, rejection plays a great deal of importance. I'm not saying God made the reality such that Satan had to tempt Adam. Satan's temptation was not a part of the formula for God to realize His ideal of creation. The rejection is part of the creation. It didn't have to be Satan. Rejecting selfness is the key. Satan, in a way, had to play the role of artificially creating an environment where Adam was forced to reject the temptation, which he failed horribly. But the important thing is the rejection. It is something important which we must realize if we are to perfect ourselves. If you are an artist, you know the rejection process is critical in perfecting works. The way we perfect things is through a period of growth.

Think about it, when we grow we observe many things. We are very attentive; especially during the teenage years you keenly observe many things. But there are certain things we have to reject. Everyone is unique and within man there are plus and minus characteristics. As a man the plus side is more dominant. But some might be on the borderline. Understand? They may just be .001 percent more dominant on the positive side than on the negative side. I might feel attracted to men sometimes, but so what? That is a brotherly attraction. There is nothing wrong with it. However when you walk down 42nd street, or the old streets of Rome, there are a lot of things going on; mind boggling, horrific things. You can see these things walking down New York streets. Everywhere you look you are stimulated, but unfortunately to the wrong direction. No wonder people are confused. You are literally force fed the wrong concepts and images which provoke people in the period of growth. You're meant to observe and learn. That is how a body grows, through observation, into perfection.

So the primary being's responsibility is so crucial. It was his deed which created the first environment. That is why the Fall had a tremendous effect in human history. It was devastating. The first reality which was created was absolutely wrong. It just gave birth to more sin that man has committed.

It is a very serious thing. It is important to understand why rejection exists within our reality. What do you think? From now on when you get rejected, be grateful. What I want to tell you, my theme today, is be grateful for your being rejected.

I know one thing, you will grow as much as you allow yourself to grow. So know the reality of rejection. At the same time, know that the concept of love is eternal. When you look at certain physical phenomena it is pretty interesting. For example, menstruation. What's the matter? In order for you to give life, you must shed blood. When you stop shedding blood, there is no more life in you. That is very poetic. God is very artistic. Why do women shed blood? Man is the initiator of life, but woman bears all the suffering. God is the creator, the subject over man, the ideal subject in the relationship of love. Nevertheless, for His creation to be perfected, man must suffer the consequences of perfecting it. Who is the object of love? In that sense it is a very poetic illustration. Very symbolic. We love symbolism, women love it a little more than men because they are object to men. A diamond ring means much more to women than it does to me. I don't give a hoot about diamond rings. They are always bothersome, why do you want to stick something on your finger? I hate that. They are constricting. But the thing is that these kinds of sacrifice are the essence of giving life.

What is self sacrifice? It is rejecting one's self. Rejecting one's own reality. I'm just introducing a little different approach to looking at things. I feel that rejection is a very important part of perfecting ourselves. If we can be in the position where we can accept rejection with no problem, nothing will stop us. That is the kind of understanding we must have in order to change this world. So we have to accept the reality of rejecting our selfness. That is why I always say no matter what you do, especially the good things, forget about it. Do away with it. Consider. you are an eternal being. And you have to give and take with God forever, and you're going to say, "Okay I gave to you, now you give back to me, one. Two, I gave to you, now you give back to me, three. . . " just to count off, " nine hundred ninety nine thousand and ninety nine I gave to you and now you give back to me. . ." That's crazy. You just have to give and forget and then move on. Feel that, "I am an eternal being. I want to possess eternal love. Therefore I can give forever." You should think like that.

It is very difficult because you want to count. When you want to start counting, you are then dwelling in your own selfness.

That is the way. You start from selfness and you realize greater things, a greater reality, a greater you. That is how God thinks too. Based on His selfness, He thought of something greater, which is the concept of love. God wants to dwell within that concept of love, so that is where man's perfection lies. He wants to perfect love forever so He started from Himself, and He wants to perfect a concept of love which is greater than Himself. You too, everybody in this room, we start from self-awareness, we are all aware of our own selves, but from selfness we have to go to unselfness and realize the greater reality which is love. That is what you have to do. Whatever you do, if it is going to assist you to realize the ideals of love and to reject your own selfness, you should promote that.

You all know I like hunting. That is the only thing that stimulates me physically. But even simple hunting. . . many times I catch a deer and I want to offer it to Father. I want to cook it up and serve it to Father. From the point of my desire to the point of actually putting the venison on the plate and offering it to Father is a pretty long process. It's a pretty long process to offer Father a piece of meat. Big bucks especially have very keen senses. So if you are lucky enough to be facing a big buck, you've got one chance and you've got to make that chance count. If you are really lucky, you might get a second chance, but normally if you miss a deer, he's gone. He's in the next county. In order to make that shot perfect, you have to practice. Be sure when you make that shot that it hits where it counts. If you gut-shoot a deer, it will be very tough to track him and you might never find him. They can still live for twenty four hours. Normally you have to wait for a deer a long time.

Sitting in a tree, especially in the winter, gets very cold. No matter how thick your clothing, you can't wear it too thick anyway because it gets so cumbersome you feel like the Pillsbury dough boy. You can't even draw a bow. Once you get up the tree you freeze after thirty minutes because you have to stay as still as possible. You can't move because they detect you. Especially during the winter when there aren't many leaves. You're just a big lunk sitting up in the tree and if you move things can see you from miles away. So you have to sit like a part of the tree, become a piece of the tree which means you can't move. Your fingers and toes freeze, but under those circumstances you have to be able to draw. I don't use any mechanical devices in drawing, so I have to make sure my fingers are warm enough so I can bend them to draw the arrow back.

When you see the buck, that is another story. If you ever entered any kind of contest, you know the feeling. You want that prize. It's your turn, you're in front of twenty judges and hundreds of people, and your heart beats tremendously. When you see a buck coming, your heart starts to beat and you have to keep absolutely still. Your heart is beating a million miles an hour -- yet you have to keep still and let the arrow go. It has to count. Many times, if it isn't an ideal distance, you have to take into consideration the angle of the shot and strength of the wind. You don't run into ideal situations often because branches obstruct your shot path. An arrow can be deflected even by a small branch. So it is a very difficult thing even to put deer on a plate. There's a lot of deer around, but it is very difficult. Even when you get one, you have to gut them properly, making sure you don't pop the bladder. If you pop the bladder, the urine soaks into the meat. I'll eat it, but I don't want to serve that kind of meat to Father. For us it is no problem.

So we have to gut it properly and obviously those hands that prepare the deer, once I get it to them, have to take special concern while they are preparing the food for Father. So even preparing the deer meat for Father is not an easy thing. Of course there is certain luck involved, but you have to prepare a lot. Many times it is very tiring. Your hand blisters as you train to become a good enough shot to go out there and kill something. I'm that kind of person. I get a kick out of having that kind of absolute dominion over creation. Some people say it's the ultimate form of aggression or subjectivity. Screw them. If I can just love them, more than any kind of knowledge or authority, it is an ideal thing. Even physically I get a kick out of that. I don't get a kick out of authority. I don't get a kick out of being knowledgeable or having money.

It really puts you in a humble position to go out to nature. When you're sitting up in a tree, no matter how great you think you are, if the wind blows, you shake with it. And if you fall, you're dead.

Especially women, think, "Oh the poor dear Bambi!" I hate Disney! (Laughter.) There's a lot of deer out there. If you don't utilize them they die anyway. In any given spot there is a limited amount of food. If deer overpopulate, the deer die. That's why game management allows hunting. They can make money and they can manage the population. What is wrong with deer becoming part of you? You're allowing that little critter to become a part of you.

What's this got to do with rejection? Well, when you're sitting up there you have to reject certain deer. I try to pass up small deer. That was a little silly, but the important thing is try to be grateful for all the rejection that you might have received from Father. He only means well. He wants you to perfect yourself centering on Principle. So you can really appreciate the fact that sometimes you receive rejection. That is for your self growth. It is for your own benefit. We have to prepare ourselves so that we can be ready when the time ultimately comes to unite with Korea centering on True Parents. Your position as a tribal messiah in America is very crucial. You have to go out to society now and make a difference. Make change, communicate with people. Re-establish the ideal subject/object relationship. You have to put yourself in the position to naturally receive subjectivity from this society, from America.

We've got quite a bit of work ahead of us, but once we unite centering on a clear vision and the right foundation, the right medium, we can change this world. Our video studio will be ready by the end of this year. We are just learning and trying to deal with the financial situation. It's pretty rough and it's been delayed a little bit, but we want to finish by the end of the year. Once we have all these things ready, even in New York City, they will be absolutely controlled by Father's people. We can start doing things. It's a great beginning. I want you to give me a lot of ideas. There are so many things that I want to do. For example, I want to make a documentary about the evolution of the portraits of Jesus Christ. When you look at the early paintings, as time moves closer to the present, his image changes. From black hair in middle east type of portraits, to blonde hair and blue eyes. That says a lot about Christianity. There are many things on many levels we can use to stimulate people. Make them think. That is the key.

Another thing is that Satan always uses those tactics. He infiltrates certain groups and he starts throwing around a lot of ideas and makes people think That is Satan's strategy we have to utilize. He does it first. We have to make people think on their own. So obviously we have to provide a right kind of setting in which they can think properly. So we need a clear understanding and a right medium to that people can think and bring changes within themselves.

The future is bright. It is very exciting. You guys should just do it on your own. Let's try to really offer America to True Parents and Heavenly Father.

Reject yourself. You have to start from there.