ORDER NUMBER
78-09-03
We find in the world that some people are born as men and others as women. A person may have an image of being someone else and wish he could have that life instead. For instance, some women wish they were born men and some men wish they were born women. Some Africans wish they were born as white men somewhere else. But no matter what we wish to be born as, we must live through one generation of life and the path of life that one generation experiences. There are as many different life experiences as there are different faces.
In every life there are many ups and downs but mostly we like to stay in the mainstream and live an adequate life. What is the horizontal line or path that a so-called right kind of life would follow? Everyone tends to find a standard of conduct for his life and thinking through the law of his nation or the standard of his society. We can only develop and improve, however, if we have a higher vision than the requirements of the law. It is not enough to just follow the do's and don'ts of the law; you must have some ideal.
Are there more don'ts or more do's? Are there more things you want to do but can't, or more things you don't want to do but must because they are your responsibility? Why? Obviously it is easier to do whatever we are not supposed to do, and people have a tendency to do those things all the time. There are more don'ts because good things are more difficult to do. As a result, the one who has a high ideal and who lives a good life doesn't have much to do with the law or need to worry too much about whether he is following it.
In this situation it is relatively easy to lead a bad life but not too easy to lead a good life. If you ask people if they want to lead a good life or a bad life, however, obviously no one will say he wants to live a bad life. From grammar school through college everyone encourages you to do good things, and as your education increases you are encouraged to do higher-level things. It is like climbing a tree; the higher you go the more difficult it becomes. This is the kind of life we are living on earth now.
Once you are born and finish your span of life, you cannot get a second life or try again. If you cannot accomplish today, perhaps you will have one more chance tomorrow, but once you die there is no second life or second chance. We must make the best of one life.
Does anyone volunteer to be born? We simply find ourselves born in spite of ourselves. Some unthinking people say, "Well, 1 am born. That's that" and never think about anything else. Of course, no one can hold you responsible for being born, but once you are here more and more regulations and demands and responsibilities are bestowed upon you.
For example, in every country when you reach a certain age you must go to school for a certain number of years. Not everyone wants to go to school but they must nevertheless. Why? Whether voluntarily or because we are compelled to, we go to school so that we can better perform our responsibility to society. Whether we like it or not, we have responsibilities as human beings, and in order to perform them better we must go to school.
Can anyone control the timing of his death? No one can plan ahead that he will die at a certain time and then die on schedule; there is no one like that. Nevertheless, even though each person is destined to die he keeps thinking, "I won't die. I won't die" and then one morning he is dead. Like birth, death has nothing to do with desire. lt. is human nature that even on his deathbed a person will believe he will still live a while longer. lt. is human nature that just as we can'' help being born, we can't help dying. We are each responsible for managing our one generation of life, however. Once he is born, a person has ambition and wants to do this and that thing, but there are also some things that are given to us to do by our circumstances.
What should a man do while he is alive? Is hi; responsibility just to keep eating and living? Without exception animals eat to keep alive and naturally the, fight when there is a scarcity of food. This seems tc be the natural law. Men think they are better than the animals, but what's different? Animals give birth to offspring and care for them as much as some people care for theirs, and even more. The nation of England has existed for hundreds of years, but if you look a~ the bees you see that their world is more harmonious; than England's. The bees and ants cherish their queer more than the British people do. The working bees and ants labor much harder than British subjects.
Do bees and ants cheat while working? Do they go some place else to nap, or pause to hide from the rain under the shelter of a tree? They work as their instinct commands them, and there is never even the slightest irregularity among them. When we think of the standard of the bees and ants as compared to the human standard, are we any better than the animal world? We can only conclude that we aren't. Men often fight each other but in the long run there is no gain from it. But animals gain something even when they fight because they give birth to better offspring. There is more conflict in the human world but no gain from it. I gather that every one of you likes to eat good food. Would animals like tasty food, too? Then what difference is there between you and them? You like to sleep when you are tired and animals also take a rest when their bodies demand it. You like to play and so do the animals.
How can you live thinking that you are born to struggle and have contradiction with other beings? Is that a happy man or a man doomed to misery? Think how miserable you would be believing you were born to be defeated. When we think about these things, what do we find in man's world that is any better than the animals?
What is man born to do in his life? A woman would say, "I am born so that eventually I can marry a man." A man says, ''I am born so that when I grow up I will be married to a woman." When you list the important events in your life surely making the right marriage is one of them, but when you go to school are you taught that your purpose is marriage? Even though it is important, no woman studies about man or man about woman.
Once we are married, another important thing is giving birth to children. Everyone wants to have safe childbirth, but does every man study gynecology so that he can assure his child's safe delivery, or take a month or a year to study about children? We don't study about children, even though they are very important.
How can a husband and wife live together harmoniously? After getting married and having children, the next stage is to have a happy life. Happiness becomes a very important element, but where is it found" Does it come when a man and woman are connected together? Even though a man and woman get together, each has all different levels and specifications. A woman might want a husband with a round rather than a long face and one who is not too skinny but a little fat. She might even have specifications about the color of his eyes and the shape of his ears and nose. By the time she rules out this and that, what is left in this whole wide universe might be one tiny spot! When she really finds out the chances for fulfilling her specifications are that small. she al-post suffocates wondering how she is going to find such a man.
Having such a limited view is like living in a small one-room apartment that you can barely fit into. Maybe you enjoy it today, but how do you know you will like it ten years from now? Probably you will hate it by then. Each person knows that his own standard of beauty or desirability goes up and down from year to year. Last year he thought that one thing was the best; this year he thinks the reverse is better. A woman married to a shorter man might wish all throughout her life that she were married to a taller' man. E Even action goes in cycles of up and down. You can't really establish what you like because you don't really know. In your mind, do you think you will be different from my general description?
If there is an ever-changing standard within each person then what can we say that happiness is? Where does happiness really lie? Between man and woman? No, we cannot say that. Suppose a woman is really lucky and finds a mate who matches her ideal, thinking this man is what all the women in her lineage have looked for over the generations but never found. Can anyone guarantee that her happiness will last one full lifetime? Usually such an "ideal'' marriage doesn't last long; often the husband dies after a few months. He may go out in the morning healthy and happy but be brought back dead. This is not difficult to imagine. Every day people are killed by war, but more people are killed by car accidents, so how can we be sure that, even though we may find a happy marriage, it will last? Is there any guarantee?
When you look at life realistically, even to think about happiness is insane, and to search for happiness and the ideal is irrational. Life is so capricious that there no guarantee in this world. When we really think seriously we know that there are many things we cannot change. Even though we may have good marriages, there is no guarantee we will have good offspring. I have seen that many seemingly good marriages in this world have produced bad children. Although there is hope and an ideal at the beginning of a match, ultimately the partners may wish they had not married at all. Many women feel they should have stayed single and wish they had never had children. We said we go to school to become responsible, but if we can't be responsible for our own happy marriage and for the best children, what can we be responsible for? Why should we go to school for fourteen years?
The governments of nations are the same. Of course, officials try their best according to their consciences, working very hard and patriotically dedicating their lives to the country, but when a country goes in the wrong direction how can they help it? A country's destiny, as with an individual's, is not controllable. There are no guarantees.
Now we come to think more clearly about what is good and what is bad. How can you look for what is permanent, unchanging good and what is definitely bad at all times? Take the example of my house. In order for my house to be a good one what should it have? What if it is a good house now but it may not last very long? It has to have a good foundation and be made of durable materials because whether or not a house will last must be the first requirement. Even if a house is beautiful, if it shakes when you kick it then no one can say it is a good house. When you check for quality you also look for good paint and other material that won't fade away in a year. Even if the roof is nice, if it begins to leak in five or ten years then it is no good. The best roof is the one that will never leak as long as the house lasts.
If you find a good man and analyze him, he will be one who won't always change from one mood to another. In that one respect he will be different from other people, and you can say, "I like him. His face has a distinct character." That characteristic of goodness in a man comes most]y from upholding a standard of morality and a uniqueness of character. Then why is this also the description of a good house? Why is it good for a house to be lasting and unchanging and unique? Because then that one house can serve as a standard to measure all other houses. When you have a standard you can measure, but without it you will never be more than vague in your understanding.
If you were light, would it be better to be light from an e electric bulb or light from the sun? The sun has unique characteristics. Does everyone respect the sun because it acts capriciously and may shine today but not tomorrow? We are sure the sun will stay this year, but next year will it hide some place else'.' We can depend on the sun because it doesn't change. Therefor`, we can say it is good. We could go on and on with a variety of examples. The sun doesn't reflect anything but gives away its own light. What about you? Car you give away light on your own? Even if you did, are you guaranteed never to change? Will you remain the same through eternity?
What seems good at one time can be bad at another, so what is goodness anyway? When we consider this we know that unchangeability is necessary for something to be good. Let us consider jewels. The nature of treasure is such that it doesn't change. Why is gold a treasure and why does everyone value it? It is unchanging and its unique color lasts. Science has discovered that diamonds are made of common carbon, so what is precious about diamonds? '-heir hardness is unique and no one can match it. They also reflect light in the most brilliant way we know of. The smallest light reflects brilliantly in a diamond and that property will last for millions of years. We can come to the conclusion that men like diamonds and gold because their characteristics are unchanging and eternally unique, and humans are looking for something that resembles their own characteristics. People have not analyzed this, but this is the reason they value gold and jewels.
A pearl is not even hard, and if it is scratched once it retains a permanent mark. A pearl has a unique characteristic in that it shines with the most noble assortment of colors. You want to look at it again and again and never get tired of it. There is a reason why mankind has cherished these articles as treasure for thousands of years.
We often talk about what is real and what is false. If w say something is genuine, what does that mean? We are referring not only to its external form, will come ;o like me and center on me as a focal point. Recently I have come to be a center of world attention and everyone wonders what I am doing. As the leader of the Unification Church I have unique characteristics. I don't change because of rain or snow. Let the rain come and the snow blow once in a while; they are supposed to. But that has nothing to do with me. I don't change.
Now you know that this is the secret. If you gather your unique characteristics and try to perfect them then you will last and last and never change, even when you go to spirit world. If you are like this, you've got it made.
Compare yourself to diamonds, gold and pearls. Do treasures exist for themselves or for others to appreciate? Gold does not exist for its own sake but for others. Iron is a rather soft metal, but if you have a diamond on the tip of an iron drill there is no material you cannot penetrate. Each treasure has its own characteristics.
What is the precious characteristic within ourselves? What is the treasure within a man? Is it his eyes or ears? Is it life? Is it knowledge or influential power? These are only relative and you can live without them and still be happy. Life and love are most important, and love is more precious than life. Life is just as eternal and both seem to be just as important but love is definitely more valuable. When you say "happy" the sound is very good, but when you analyze the things that seem to bring happiness you usually find they are not worthwhile.
Why is love much more precious than life? You must know that love is very precious because men and women have value only when they have love. Love can make a treasure out of a man and a woman. No one can argue that diamonds and gold and pearls but to the uniqueness of its characteristics. When these are there, you can be sure something is real. A fake article may look the same as the real one, but it will lack one of its essential characteristics.
Who is a good person? Take Doris Orme, for example. She has her own characteristics and no one can be exactly like her. That feature is very attractive and should last without ever changing. If she is one way in the morning but different in the evening, however, then her attraction is not one of genuineness. Then she needs to further develop her characteristics.
Are you a good man, a good woman? Why do you pause so long and make such a face, as if this were a painful question? These qualities of goodness have existed all along and are the center of man's spirituality. Now we know what the standard is. Knowing this standard is a more important thing than life and death, but why don't people think about it and try to explain it? Do you understand clearly what is good? So far people have thought of goodness only in vague terms. Are your eyes good eyes or bad eyes? Eyes have their own ability to see and if the eye is healthy its perception never changes. Ears have the unchanging characteristic of hearing. The mouth and the hands also have their own unchanging characteristics. I want you to know how to see what the good is in everything.
How can I know what I am supposed to become? I must choose one way of life but what is it? I must retain the uniqueness which I and other people recognize in me and it should not change. This sister happens to be an English woman now, but if she were to go to Korea would she change into a Korean? Certainly not. Deep inside she still retains her uniqueness and does not have to change. Likewise, the gold mined in England might be different from the gold found in Korea, but if the gold from England is exported to Korea, does it change? It stays the same, and the Koreans will value it as much as the English do.
What about me? I started in Korea and went to America. Did I change in America? No, I stayed the same. Even though I go to other countries I do not change according to what country I am in. One look isn't enough to tell, but if people begin to study me they will see deeper and deeper and people of all races are very precious, but in the presence of love a person becomes more precious than any of them. Would you prefer to have the man you love or have the most precious jewels in the world? You would choose a loving husband because once you and he become completely, ideally one, the whole universe will move around you and God will surround you. All the objects of the universe will pay attention to you. Love is a million times more precious than diamonds and it certainly has the energy to move everything, even God and the whole universe. That means that if two people in love spin around and around, God will be drawn to them in spite of Himself.
Love has an immense, immeasurable value and this explains why everyone is struggling to find love. Is love nice, but just a temporary thing, or does it last? True love is eternal and unchanging. It is unique because only love can make a treasure out of everything. Because love has these three essences, it is good.
After we are born we have to pursue something in life. Is accumulating diamonds the most important thing for us? Is happiness finding the most productive gold mine so that we can have more and more gold? Is it going to sea so that you can collect endless varieties of pearls? You know that pursuing love rather than these treasures is true happiness.
How do you pursue happiness? You are born to love. We clearly have responsibility for love and we spend even half of our lives educating ourselves in order to be able to bear that responsibility. How fantastic and wonderful it is that man is born to be responsible for love. How do you feel to hear this? Exhilarated, or sad and miserable? I can tell by seeing your faces.
Can anyone agree with a man who says that his responsibility in life is to study and study to gain a Ph.D.? You would rather live in a cave than in that kind of ideal because study alone is suffocating. Let me ask a question of the sisters who have an education. Suppose there were two candidates to be your husband-one a respected Ph. D. who is just like a stone statue, and a factory laborer who looks just like a potato but who really burns with love and would dedicate everything for the sake of ideal love. Whom would you choose?
Now you definitely know that love is the center of your life. If you invest everything into love, will you regret it some day? When you decide to give yourself to love, even the most difficult road is a happy road. If you are assured that you will eventually have true love, even your life no longer matters. You can risk your life over and over again and still want to do even more.
Would you ultimately be happy or unhappy if you pursued that love with all of your time and energy? If you have found real love and then someone comes along and tries to seduce you, would you give even your life to preserve your true love? You would want to die first because true love is eternal and unchanging.
Is God good? Why? He is absolute, unchanging and unique. Once God sets His goal He will not give up or change but will endure and endure. Since God does not change, once man makes a promise to God then even his life should not matter. Even if our lives are gone but our promise is fulfilled, we gain everything.
Are Unification Church members good people or bad people? Even if the rain pours down on you and you receive much persecution, you don't change but go on and on, and like the pearl you shine with some unexplainable and noble light. Some people say you have the clearest eyes they have ever seen and such a peace and joy within yourselves that they just can't understand where it comes from. There is one sister who has such an incredible look that people can't believe she has suffered for ten years. Yet she is ready to go even stronger each successive day in search of persecution.
This is the one thing people have difficulty understanding about us. They look at the Unification Church style of life and say, "Oh, in ten years he will definitely be finished." But no, we go on and on and are never exhausted and even gain more power. Why? Because we are finding the path of true love under God.
Love is the only force that can put everything in order both vertically and horizontally, and not only that, it makes a big circle and penetrates everywhere. We must realize that everyone wants to be dominated by the most perfect love. Do lovers embrace each other from a distance or as closely as possible? Why do they move around rather than standing still? Since the universe is revolving, they also revolve. When you are blessed you will experience how a husband will embrace his wife so hard that if he is a strong man he might even break a couple of her ribs and then she will have to go to the hospital! W~11 she say her husband is a bad man? No, she will have no regrets even if her bones are broken.
When I practice this way of life of love I look like a crazy man and people call me insane, but I have no regrets and I am the happiest man in the world. I am a man of success too. The world has been here for thousands of years but I am the first one who truly cultivated it. If you set out to love God and mankind in a crazy way, take no heed of what people think. I have loved Koreans and Americans and Japanese without any reservations and now I am loving Europeans the same way. I live the way I do for God because this is the happiest way, the worthiest and most valuable way I know. What is your evaluation? Do you think it was wise or foolish of me to take this way?
If we are truly following this way of love then why does God not lift the persecution from us? God lets persecution continue to make sure that His people won't change no matter what happens to them and that they will go on for eternity and retain their love for Him and humanity. God has been disappointed by many, many people. Since God is only good He doesn't know any evil and so He has trusted everyone, but He has been betrayed every time. Even though I have proven myself many times, God still wants to make completely sure that I will never change. The people outside our Church see only the persecution that comes to me, but at the same time God is constantly giving more blessings to me. While I am persecuted God continues to give His blessings and love, and when I realize this then there is nothing to fear.
You may think that gold is precious, but the best way to really know this is to put it into the fire. Only then will you know it is unchanging, for when the fire is out the gold is still the same. Though people persecute me, when they see that I never change they will understand how precious I am.
We must come back to the value of our own lives, for the possibility of being born is only a small one. We must make the best of being born and dedicate ourselves accordingly, and then everything, including God, will recognize that we have lived wisely. This is the best way of life possible. Many people seek happiness and the ideal, but we are in happiness and the ideal because we live to be responsible for real, true love. Is it stylish or not, nice or not?
What about asking Adam, the first ancestor who failed, "'this is our lifestyle. Do you approve of it or not?" Do you think Adam would say yes or no? Imagine that thousands of generations from now we ask one of our descendants whether someone who lived as we do now was wise or foolish. He will answer just as Adam did.. What about God? Will He say He knows of a better life than that? If you can ask anyone, including God, whether the best way of life and the most precious thing to pursue is this love, his answer will be yes.
Why are you born? To be responsible for true love. Only in true love can you find true value. Nothing else, not money, possessions, power or knowledge, is of value. We talk very much about heaven, but heaven comes only after we experience this love in the physical world. Then the spirit goes to heaven.
How do we apply this to our lives in a practical way? We must know for sure. A woman has her husband, who is in the position of God for her. Then who is the king of all the universe and all creation? In the Second Coming the lord will be the king of the world, and similarly, the husband is in the position of the lord himself. In everyday life English wives should consider their husbands as kings and they will be queens to their kings. Would such a wife be unhappy living with a husband in the place of God Himself and of the lord himself?
God's love travels around the universe through this relationship. Your husband stands in the position of God, lord and king and you are his queen. What more could you wish for? When your see your husband you can rejoice as if you were seeing almighty and all-loving God, as much as though you had been waiting generation after generation to see him. A wife will be the only queen to her husband and he must try at her like the queen that the whole country cherish s. Each of you is like the spouse of God and should regard your spouse as king and queen. Just as everyone wants to get close to God, so should you keep this love and desire in your life.
This love is the starting point and the ending, and both look the same. What is the difference? If a man loves his wife this much he will love his country, the world and also God like that. If you reduce a large crystal to a smaller size it still retains the same shape and characteristics. If you reduce the size of the world of love, its shape is still the same. If we live in the physical body like that on earth then when we go to spirit world will we become completely one with God or not? We will become one with God because love has no boundary. It cannot be stopped but can go anywhere it wants to go.
When you meet your husband and ask where he came from, he can actually say he was sent by the lord to meet you with a load of love. God said, "You go to your wife," so he went with a knapsack full of love. When that emissary of love comes with his knapsack, you welcome him no matter how he looks because you know you are never worthy of him. The person who doesn't feel that way isn't qualified to marry anyone.
If you preserve this mainstay of love then all kinds of associations of love will develop: You will love your country just as the king of that country would love it. As the lord would love the creation, so would you as the king love your own people. If we love just that way then wherever we go is the world of love.
We find that God, the lord, and a king are not three separate entities, but one, a trinity. Parents are synonymous with God and the king, as Jesus was supposed to be. If Adam and Eve hadn't fallen, they would have been our parents, our king and queen, our lords, even our God. We must find those real parents, real lord, real king and real God now, within our lifetimes. This is why we say that the child of filial piety, who loves his parents more than his own life, is worthy of going to heaven. Because of this principle the royal citizen can go straight to heaven if he loves his country as God does.
If the human ancestors hadn't fallen then all mankind would have automatically lived like this and not needed to learn it in school. But because of the fall, everything was shattered and God has had to restore everything to the original position. Therefore, you have been hearing that in order to go to heaven you must love your parents and country, the world and the universe. The family cultivates on a smaller scale the same type of love which is expanded to the national level, world level and universal level. If we are determined to go the straight way in that direction then we don't have to worry about the other things because they will all be included. Unification Church members c re not living even for the sake of the family and the country but for the world and the universe.
Where does our inner power come from? By loving our' parents as much as we can we become more and more capable of loving the world and God. Everything, I have been doing is designed to show everyone :hat this is the way for mankind to live. Each person must love his parents and be a son or daughter of filial piety. Once you gain this new knowledge you c an go witness knowing that you have a real connection with parents, and then you can love your brother with the attitude, "My brother, I am coming because God wants me to." The whole universe and every person is your brother and sister, not just in idea but in reality. You must feel that love as the real reason why you go out to witness.
When you white members meet a black person you must think how long he has been lost and in search of God and parents. Seeing the color of the black man's skin, you can feel as though it was burned by the sun's rays as he wandered, searching for parents. You must feel he must have gone without food and ~ he right kind of treatment for many days. You can teach him what life is about so that he can be responsible for love.
Mankind does not know that all people are brothers and sisters, so how can they love each other? We have to teach them and prove that they are brothers and sister). This is why we teach the Divine Principle. When each of you knows this deeply enough you will one day burst into tears, embracing each other, crying, "I did not know you were my brother. " You can F 'ray to experience that.
Teaching this is actually the True Parents' responsibility, but since they physically cannot reach all the billions of people in the world you are going out to tea, h in their place. If your supreme purpose is love, can you give up when you meet with persecution? With the right point of view, resistance will only intensify your desire to bring your brother. Let persecution work to encourage you even more to bring your true brother and sister to the bosom of their Parents.
This is what Christianity is all about, teaching everyone to gather all their brothers and sisters together as though they were their own physical family. Even if a son leaves his father alone to go out and search for his brothers and sisters, his father will not blame him and say he has done wrong. Likewise, if a husband and wife are happily married but the husband feels he must go out to find his lost brothers and sisters, will the wife say, "No, you must stay with me and forget about them"? She cannot say that.
Even if they sacrifice their own married life, when each one goes out to meet his own brother and sister God will find more that is precious in their home. There is a good reason for this: Once a husband and wife are blessed and consummate their marriage they are inseparable, even if one dies and they don't meet again until both are in spirit world. But if they don't find their brothers and sisters here on earth, there is no way for them to find them once they go to spirit world.
This is why you go in search of brothers and sisters more than trying to stay together as husband and wife. If you don't then when you go to spirit world and your brothers and sisters say, "Where were you when l was astray," you will be without any explanation.
This is not a one-time thing we are talking about; it is simply the way we each must live and the purpose of happiness will be found there. Once everyone understands that this way of life must prevail in the husband and wife relationship and the vertical relationship between God and man, then we will have heaven on earth.
Why is everyone in the Unification Church chased out? It is so that each of you can develop your uniqueness to the point where you can go on and on without changing. To insure this, I give you internal persecution and you are chased out. In order to be unchanging you must confront a situation where you can easily be changed. If you go through that without changing then it will be because you have become like forged iron that has become steel.
If universities had originally existed with this ultimate purpose then their students wouldn't be going the wrong way. What good does it do to have ten Ph.D.'s? Would it help you as a basic human being? Certainly we must learn a more essential knowledge, which is the Divine Principle.
If all sorts of people, from the nobility to the beggars, scorn and persecute you but you ask them why they do that, they will reply that they don't know. If you were doing this for your own sake, you would quit, saying, "I would rather be miserable than go through this.'' But since you are doing it for their sake, you can't quit. This is still the best way of life imaginable regardless. Even if you don't physically succeed 100%, you will have established enough condition SD that later in spirit world God can say, " While he was on earth he lived for the sake of others and not for himself."
Each of you must look around and find the right course for your life so it can be said later that you lived not for yourself but for the sake of other people. If there is such a way, then we must plunge into it. Single girl' who are over thirty, are you exhausted? Even though you think you are living the way of sacrifice, some stranger must be willing to testify that you did it. This country must recognize that the Unification Church is a selfless entity, and that the members worked for everything except the selfish cause. If England says that, it is notarizing us. I have told you how to live and work in home churches, and if you do that then people will say you really did good things.
Nowadays mayors are coming to meetings in the evening to testify about us and say that this Unification movement is very necessary in England. Even if we don't finish heaven on earth physically, their testimony will later be taken in heaven to liberate all of us. There are plenty of internal reasons why we are doing this 'work. Now London has no reason to object to us and soon all of England will say the Unification Church is a good church. Then Germany, France and Holland will all hear about it.
Satan has gotten the first word and convinced many people that I am a bad man. To worldly people are Reverend Moon and the Unification Church good or bad? It really doesn't make so much difference what other people say. Just because they say we are bad doesn't mean we will become bad. Are we absolutely good or maybe bad?
This is a cynical and ironic world. People accept their doctor's word as truth when they are sick, but perhaps when he was in medical school he was on the verge of flunking because he had a part-time job, or he wasn't so smart or even wasn't so healthy. His teachers might have thought that he would never be a doctor, but once he passed his medical examination no one questioned his ability. In the same way, no one thinks now that Unification Church members will be kings, but God will make sure you are kings in the future. Even people who see that my standard is high often think I don't know the real world. Certainly to God's ears it makes no difference what they think. When the peoples' minds change like the weather that melts snow overnight, they will say, "When did I persecute you?" It's typical human behavior.
We are planting true love and as long as God supports that effort, true love will always be harvested. It can never be taken away because God won't allow it. What is our desire and our ambition? No matter how difficult the reaping is, are you going to be true men or false men? The true man is the one whom God can approve of. How can God trust anyone when all throughout history He has been betrayed? He will test you for many years and if you remain faithful then he will say He can trust you.
I would like to be sure that each one of you can be trusted even if you have to go through a fierce war a thousand times before being given blessing. When all the women have genuine love and faith, those qualities can never be mistreated but will be passed on to some noble man. In the same way, when the men deeply love the True Parents they could never be given worthless women as wives.
First I want to make you into public figures and people who love the world. That is the proper qualification to get married. My only wish before you are married is for the world to persecute you more. Are you sad when I also persecute you, thinking, "Oh, Father, isn't it enough that the world persecutes me?" Once you realize that this is the road to true love, then you have all the more reason to be grateful.
Up until today you were inclined to complain, but after you have been educated should you continue to complain? Once you understand, you are burning with hope and your only regret comes if you don't have enough power to follow through. You can sacrifice everything for this love because it's worth more once you get to the goal. Those who welcome this, raise your hands.
As if all this previous testing wasn't enough, once a couple is married they are separated for three years. Who ever heard of this? Is God so cruel as to make you suffer like that because He gets enjoyment out of it'' God would keep people separated even after they are blessed in order to have them learn even more about unchanging love. When you think in that way, is it good or is it bad? When feelings of love emerge they can be channeled into love for the world. You can think, "I will love the world first, but I will never forget the urge of love I had and I will go back to my spouse."
We can see how this was so even in Jesus' time. Jesus loved the world first, was persecuted and died on the cross, and then later came down in search of a bride. As a personal qualification he wanted to love the world first, and after he became successful he planned to search for his own family. In this fallen world do you think it is necessary first to go through tests and persecution to be sure you love the world and then go back to your eternal family? If there was a way to avoid this I would, but it is absolutely necessary. Through this course you will be in a better position :o love your wife as a queen and your husband as a king. Only after going through this will you feel that way toward your spouse.
A million people will live in a million different styles, but some are better than others. Which would be more valuable: occupying the peak of love, the peak of money or the peak of power? Love is a simple word but it includes everything. Love means longing too. Unification Church members are really in a very longing state. A wife may be in one place and her husband at the opposite end of the world, and for three years they are longing for each other. You say love is simple but often everyone forgets it.
My walk this morning is about one age or one life span. During our one lifespan we've got to do something, so what goal would we like to be proud of reaching? Money? Power? Knowledge? We want to reach higher than that to true love: That is the position of king and queen. Was Jesus a smart man or a foolish man to pursue this? How about God? We can be no smarter than God and Jesus. The smartest ones said they want to pursue love. You say you are smart if you feel the same as Jesus and God and love is your ultimate goal.
Let us consider what happens in the life of the average man or woman. They are born and their parents have to change their diapers while they are young. When they are about three they can go to the toilet by themselves. At six they start school, and by the time they graduate from college they are 21 or 22. Usually a person is not sure about what he is going to do or where he is going to get a job that is adequate. Sometimes he has a moment of ambition and idealism but it doesn't last long. Usually he feels insecure. He may even try to kill himself or he may turn to drugs. I was told yesterday that when a boy and girl reach the age of twelve but they aren't interested in kissing, they are considered abnormal by today's standards. Even teenagers feel pressure to keep up with their neighbors and friends and date even if they don't want to. Once they reach their twenties they are expected to think about marriage.
They want to look happy but they know very well that they are only miserable. It's a dreadful thing. At one time or another it feels as though marrying would be like going straight to hell. Some intuition warns them, but nevertheless everyone does it. Then they have a baby or two and are oppressed with the burden of supporting them. Each man feels some ambition, but after forty or fifty years go by he no longer feels that. He feels crushed instead. The peak of the average person's life is forty and after that it is impossible to think about the world or the nation very much. If there is one exception it is highly unusual.
What about the Unification Church? We give up school and our families in order to join, even though in their own way our parents really love us. We are trying to reach the fantastic goal of loving the world before settling down. How different this is from the worldly way of thinking. In the everyday wood girls and boys can hold hands and no one will question it, but here in the Unification Church you don't hold
even one hand for three to ten years. Then you might feel, "Why do we have to resist human nature?"
We don't just follow this lifestyle mechanically; we have an ultimate objective which is very strong in our minds and keeps us going. We have a definite purpose for living this way and we are confident we will win. .\re we nation-minded or world-minded? That doesn't mean that we aren't nationalistic; it is because we love the nation that we become world minded. B fore nationalism we are for familyism and we respect the family very much. If we didn't love the family very much we could never love the nation or the world. Man must have an ideal and direction to live by, like the rudder on a ship. If we didn't have this ideal then the best we could do would be to love only this one nation of England.
Do you understand how precious and advanced you are? Our goal is nothing short of heaven. There are thousands of universities but they have never seen worldism of this quality. Since the world has no apparent hope or happiness, sooner or later everything will conclude in despair. Life is interesting when thin ~s are going well, as when a man meets a pretty girl and gets married, when he is happy in his job and he has a couple of children, but as time goes on even couples who seem happy encounter conflict in their lives and when they die they are in despair. Life is on y one scene of a spring dream, they say.
What about us? We go along these same paths but do we lie in despair or with faces upturned, much closer to the goal? We stay on the main road of true love all our lives and during this time we will have families too. Even though the process is difficult, once we reach the goal all those hardships become a precious memory. Then we are living in the ideal, having reached it in the world of love, and we will live eternally in that established area of love which is centered around God.
This is the pride and the value of a human being, the ideal of creation we talk about in Divine Principle terms. Without this quality in man, how are we different from the animals? What kind of life would you have led ii you had not joined the Unification Church and the path of love?
You c an imagine what my life was about. I have the same life span as the rest of mankind; I won't live two or three hundred years. What have I achieved from my childhood until now? The world is witness to the fact that no young man in any country will obey another man. Does he listen to his parents or teachers or pastor or king? Does anyone obey or understand anyone else? But regardless of their country or color, when young people come to the Unification Church they learn the deepest truths about history and their own lives. When couples in our Church get married they may never have seen each other before, but once they are married they know their future is absolutely secure. They may not even speak the same language, but they know a deeper communication. We are happy but when other people try to understand us it doesn't make sense to them. Then they say it must be brainwashing. That is painful to hear and if it weren't for love we could never continue this way, could we?
No matter how difficult our work is, we keep on doing it. The Church doesn't pay salaries or even give much praise. Usually I tell you to work harder and endure more persecution. You don't even get one holiday out of the year, yet still you stay and follow because you have felt love here and that's better than living an easy life. Even after you change drastically and come nearer to God, you don't realize it unless you remind yourself how you've changed over the years. We talk about heartistic revolution but you don't always perceive how you have improved. Imagine a person who is in a most precious position but doesn't know it. How can he see that he is good?
You may have had reasonable happiness in your life, but what about your offspring? The world is getting more and more wicked. What makes you sure that our children will live even as good a life as we did? It's very obvious that our second generation will suffer more than we have unless something is done. We are in the historical time that comes only once. Are we only superficially happy, or are we grateful enough to try continually to understand more and more deeply?
Am I a smart or a foolish man? Thinking or unthinking? I speak only after I have consistently thought everything out. The longer you observe me, the more clearly you can see how consistent I am. If I had applied that same principle of consistency to a Ph.D. course, I am quite confident I would have acquired a dozen Ph.D.'s. If I had put all my effort into becoming president, 1 could have done that too.
Evaluating the work I have done according to worldly standards, I feel I have accomplished a hundred times more than any Ph.D. course could have prepared me for. I weighed what would be the best way of life, the shortest way to happiness, and I chose this way You are not being told to go this way haphazardly. This is what I have realized after many tests and much thought. I never had peaceful days, but ever, year faced persecution to an intense degree. Why wouldn't I have gone an easier way if there were one? Ease or difficulty is of no consequence; this is by far the best way compared to all others. It was not difficult to choose this way.
If there had been a better way, I would have packed up a long time ago and left the Unification Church. Now you judge: was my decision wise or foolish? Can you explain why? I have heard members say, "What a good road this must be if a person like myself could find such potential for loving parents so much." ''hat you are so inspired to love parents so directly and deeply, more than you ever imagined before, if' one indication that you are on the path of true love. What transformed you? When you think about that, then you know that what I did and what I pioneered was absolutely the best way of life.
Do 1 move your mind directly? No, millions of people in spirit world come down to help set your thoughts right. With so many people on earth, why is it that when I set a certain direction spirit world helps with that direction? Why doesn't it listen to the President of America or the Queen of England or to the Pope' It is because I live in unison with God's direction. You are in search of the world of love and so is God. That is His whole purpose of being.
When the two poles of a magnet meet each other they cannot help but be attracted to each other. In the same way there is definitely a link between the spirit world and Unification Church life. It is completely rational because both are connected to the path of love. Every creation, and God as well, has to come in the same direction and help this love to become established.
The more you reflect the mind and heart of the True Parents, the faster everyone will respond to us. If you keep going, you will bear the same fruit as the True Parents' tree, smaller perhaps, but nevertheless of the same quality. No matter how much we suffer, we are not the unfortunate ones. Even if we drop dead on the street, no one can say we were unhappy. This is not an analogy but reality.
Think about the people who are 80 years of age and who come to understand this will of God on earth, but have only a few years before going to spirit world. Compared to them you have a brand new life. What can they do that is worthwhile? The majority of you are unmarried. Once you marry and have a family your span of activity greatly decreases, but now you are in your prime and free as the birds. This is the best time for you, and if you continue on the path of love no one can diminish the value of the life you have led. All historical credit is with you. Old men often look back and say, "If only I had known that when I was young." Now we know how precious this age is and how to achieve what we are supposed to accomplish. You must keep realizing your value.
God knows best and this is why He sent young people to the Unification Church. He knew that once they realized their own value they had the greatest potential. You don't have to worry about your past or about children; all you have to do is think about the True Parents and the mission. We have been talking about many precious things, but actually the most precious thing of all is to dedicate the prime time of your life, all the energy of your youth, for the sake of true love. Once you turn that way, even your flesh and blood will become enriched and you will become a beautiful person. You will be the incarnation of love and will be blessed with your ideal spouse.
The chance for my life and yours to overlap is one in a billion and yet you have now been together with me for 120 days. The fact that we are persecuted and even beaten up will become a matter of greatest pride. It is never a source of regret.
In light of this would you complain or think about old boyfriends or girlfriends? Even though you are inspired while I am speaking, will you forget your inspiration as soon as you go out to witness? Hasn't it been that way in the past? While I am in view your
aspiration is great, but when you don't see me you are easily tire,) because you don't know enough. From now on don't think that you are independent from God, from me or from mankind. This is a joint effort and God s very much involved with you, as am 1. No matter where I am or what I am doing, I am doing the same things you are doing. If two people go together they can help each other, but spirit world doesn't help so much. If you go alone you have no one working together with you, but many spirit men will be helping you. Often it's better to be alone and this is why we have to be brave and daring to do anything. Love can never go wrong.
When you are desperate and shout out in search of love then I will appear beside you in a vision and talk to you. Why do I have to come if you call out for me? I go this same way and I have done the same thing toward God. This can happen all the time and this is why the Unification Church is a religion that no one can eradicate. As long as your line of love is attached to me then the frequency of your love is the same as mine. This is not only a dream but the reality of the very age in which we are living.
You know how fast electricity travels. I happen to be in London now and at least 300 people can benefit every Sunday like this, but when members everywhere meet for Sunday service they are spiritually connected to me because of love. Then God can come to them and listen. This is the way the spirit world operates.
Do we have reason to feel that? That's our power. When. you are charged with this confidence and the power of love, you can shoot yourself out to the world like a cannonball and hit someone. No matter how high he may be, even if he is the president of a college, bump into him spiritually and he'll capitulate. The stronger you shoot the arrow of love the deeper the point goes in. If you aim properly then it will be more effective and you won't lose. Think deeply about this and try it. Those who will do so, raise your hands. God bless you.