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1: What is Peace?
1.1 The true meaning of peace
The achievement of peace (pyeonghwa) refers to a subject partner and an object partner being one with each other. The Chinese characters for pyeong and hwa mean "horizontal" and "harmony" respectively. The subject partner does not come into conflict with the object partner, but harmonizes with it.
Peace carries the meaning of becoming horizontal and harmonizing. It cannot be accomplished alone. Subject partner and object partner can experience joy and happiness when the vertical relationship is in unison with the horizontal relationship. Everything must be complete and satisfactory. Only then can we call that peace. Peace itself is insufficient. An ideal must show spherical motion, not just stay within a horizontal dimension. It should have a three-dimensional nature. When we call someone an ideal person, he must have an ideology for the future. In other words, that person is not living just a two-dimensional life in reality, but, having a certain ideal, his life has a three-dimensional quality. An ideal cannot operate merely in a horizontal plane.
What is peace, then? It can be represented by a level state without any creases or wrinkles, in which everything is harmonized. When everything is one hundred percent harmonized, a circle will be formed. When soil is mixed and rolled on this, it will soon be rounded into a perfect sphere.
The world of peace has neither walls nor boundaries. It is flat, smooth and harmonizes in the morning and evening. Fathers, mothers and the neighborhood would be in one accord. There would be no friction between white people and black people.
Are we happy alone? We feel joy if we love each other, standing on the same level with our partner. Can there be freedom when love is excluded? Love has unlimited freedom. We can even take pride in becoming a leader who chastises others with the motivation of love. You have to be aware of such a truth.
Good people, families or nations can be linked horizontally among themselves on an equal footing. Equality, namely peace, exists here. Pyeong from the word pyeonghwa (peace) has the meaning of even, flat, horizontal. Without pyeong, even if hwa (harmony) exists, peace will soon disappear. You must never forget this.
Though the seven colors of a rainbow are distinct, they merge to give white light when spinning. What is the meaning of white? It means victory, peace, and harmony. White people have been controlling the world, but they do not stand together as one, being unable to harmonize.
Why do we have sadness and misery? When we move toward the vast universe with our mind and body having achieved unity in a peaceful situation, and when we become one with the living environment, the universe will offer us the necessary protection. The universe will protect us if we accomplish a realm of interaction in which we can be interconnected and coexist. If we act contrary to that, however, the universal force will certainly expel us. This is how sorrow can arise.
1.2 What would a world of peace be like?
Heaven and earth were not created in a realm of uneasiness or fear, but they were created with joy, happiness and satisfaction. That is why God's joy can be found at the place where we are connected heart-to-heart with Him, even if it is Satan's hangout. The history of re-creation begins at the place where God feels joy through us. That moment is when we receive tremendous grace from God. A person who feels joy surging and flowing in his soul, and grace filling every cell of his body, no matter what others may say, or even when facing Satan's threats, will feel peace in his heart.
We long for an ideal world where the purpose of creation has been consummated, a world transcendent of the world of consciousness. I yearn for a world where I can feel endless peace, even on seeing a blade of grass, and where I can extol the value of its existence. Though a relatively small being, man has to reach the position where he can receive praise from all things of creation, which say, "We're surprised that whenever man moves, heaven and earth move, God's heart moves, and eternal life moves, too." That is the place to which all human beings have to go. That is the kind of place that mankind must go.
The door to a world of peace free from conflict, tribal segregation or racial discrimination, an ideal world where God freely moves about will be opened on the day when the world's people are shaken in their minds. We will go in through the door. Even if we die in the course of the struggle, we are sure to enter heaven. If we triumph in the struggle, we will live in the heavenly kingdom in heaven and on earth.
Six thousand years ago, God and fallen mankind could not hold the ceremony for entering the heavenly kingdom. For the first time, we now serve God as our eternal parent, placing Him on the throne of jade and holding that ceremony. We are forever registered as the royal tribes of heaven. We serve God as our Father, His palace becomes our house, and we live as His children through all eternity. That is the place where praise, glory, eternal life and everlasting peace prevail.
Feeling ashamed while giving is the path of true saints. The place where we weep and feel ashamed even after sincerely giving something true will become the stage for eternal peace. Parents who think they have fulfilled their responsibility as parents because they often buy new clothes for their beloved children end their love there. Parents who feel ashamed because they cannot give more although they want to will be qualified to take over an unfinished task. Heaven is a world where one feels ashamed of not having given enough. What kind of place is hell? It is a world that focuses only on taking. You have to clearly know this.
What will the future world be like? Will it be a world of battles? Will it be a world of suffering? No. It will be a peaceful and unified world.
Judging from all sides, it naturally follows that man should pursue one unified world of creation, as God's purpose for mankind is one, and God should accomplish that kind of world, too. We have to aim at one world of culture, sovereignty, peace and unity in our unfolding history. This is so because that is a necessary condition for the life of an individual or humankind.
When we ask ourselves what human perfection is all about, the answer is simple - peace and happiness. Nothing more is needed. That is when someone has an abundance of peace and happiness-everything. Of course, freedom is also included. Such a person can fulfill all that he desires.
Following the onset of the realm of liberation of all ages centering on love, the age of peace and the reign of peace commences. If the era of peace arrives with God at its center, this world will be one in which people live in tune with the rhythm of love everywhere - at home, in the village, or on a mountain. That is utopia.
Where will a world of unity and peace take place? Not where people do things all for themselves. I have been dedicating my entire life to uncovering this and have searched every nook and cranny of the spiritual world. I have read books written by celebrated professors, and sacred texts. The movement for unification and foundation of peace exist only where people seek the path of loving others.
What will be the vision of the twenty-first century? It will be a world of peace and unity. In other words, it is a utopian world, the vision that humankind today is yearning for. All of you would agree with that, too. If Koreans have a vision, what do you think it would be? Our country is divided into North and South, which are antagonistic to each other in terms of ideology. How can the partitioned Korean Peninsula achieve unification? Can we build a nation of peace by becoming one nation? This is the issue. Just as the world is looking forward to a new world of peace and unity, our people are longing for North-South unification.
What about myself as an individual? This is the problem. Assuming that peace has already come to this world, so long as our divided nation is just above the dangerous low-water level, we have nothing to do with world peace. That is to say, until we cure our nation's sickness, we are distant from a world of peace. Looking at it from this angle, even if North and South are unified, a unified Korea cannot be an ideal country as long as we live in conflict and struggle between our own mind and body. Thus, prior to world peace, we have to prepare peace within a nation. Prior to peace within a nation, we have to prepare peace within our individual selves. Where can we find the individual yardstick of peace? It is a serious problem. Can you trust yourself? Your answer is no. It cannot be helped. Today, we have the habit of debating on the trend of mutual mistrust in a so-called relative society. Are there any professors here who can confidently claim they are overcoming the cause of the trend of mutual distrust in themselves?
Our mind and body are in the vortex of war even at this moment. Neither we nor even our ancestors could traverse the abyss of war. When we reflect that no one has ever succeeded in crossing over the depths of war between the mind and body, we can safely conclude that talking about peace, the ideal world or some future utopia, is nothing but building castles in the air.
Life is full of cares and worries. When will this thorny path end? Will the Sabbath - a day of rest for God, a day when God finds his lost children and builds a family of peace - ever come to this earth? Songs of happiness will resound in the heavenly palace from that day on. As God rejoices, the universe rejoices. The day will come when all people and all things welcome springtime and sing songs of the Sabbath for the first time in a conscientious world of peace. That is the ideal world we desire, the millennium Christianity talks about.
What is the Unificationist ideal today? It is not a worldly ideal centering on man. We imitate one ideal and one world under God, going over religious borders. The world of goodness that man has set as his model will have to fit into the sphere of this one ideal and one world without any contradiction. Only then will heaven and earth be one. Heaven is like the mind and man is like the body. If this world, which is like our body, becomes a human-centered world of goodness, that will not do. An internal world that can acknowledge the God-centered subject partner of goodness is the world of goodness that must appear.
When perfected as an ideal free of contradiction and conflict, heaven and earth can for the first time in history move in the direction of a world of peace.
Unless humankind is liberated, God cannot be liberated. When the family is not at peace, then the people within that family have lots of problems. The parents cannot be happy or trouble free when the children are unhappy. By the same token, the whole family of mankind has to be at peace and without problems before God as the head of the household can feel at peace. Thus we understand that after we ourselves are saved it is not the end, but in fact the beginning of saving the rest of the world. We must bring all of the great family of humankind into a state of peace, without problems, so that God Himself can be liberated.
If we analyze Christian theology, we can see that it concludes that the Creator is a holy being and all created beings are much lower beings. What is holiness? Not all beings in a noble position are sacred. Some beings in a humble position are holy, too. Unless we can say that the four directions of North, South, East and West are holy, the ideal of peace will not unfold. It is not enough if only the top, front and rear are holy. Unless the entirety is holy, it cannot be at all holy even if God stands in the middle.
Only if we liberate God in love will the palace of peace and love be created in this world. When vertical love is in unison with horizontal love, when all nations, the world, and the entire universe are in perfect harmony with love, that is, when sons and daughters sing praises to God and His love, when people, nations and the universe start to extol the Almighty, the Kingdom of Heaven will appear on earth.
1.3 The world of peace desired by God and humankind
How much did God love humankind? God loved humankind above all. Being prevented from loving, He harbored resentment. What kind of world did he plan to make, having created all things in heaven and on earth? He intended on forming it into a garden of happiness, a garden of love, a garden of peace and a garden of freedom. If God had become a father who lived together with all people in the midst of glory, opening the eternal door of liberation, He would be called Our Father in the family, in the family and clan, in the nation, and anywhere in the world. He was going to live as our Father in Heaven; neither as a God of dignity nor a God of holiness, but as a God of love and heart in our real daily lives.
Today we are aware of the fact that human history has seen numerous conflicts carried out to acquire freedom. From the individual level, going through the family, the clan, the tribe, the race and the nation, to the worldwide level, such conflicts are still being carried on. We also know that people who cherish the Will of God, regardless of the period they are living in, will long for a world of freedom and peace, and an ideal world, liberating this world that has been oppressed. From this viewpoint, historical humankind and humankind on earth today both are eagerly waiting to see their liberation.
Likewise, history has been placed under restraint not only by evil men but also by Satan. That being the case, it is natural for us today to stand in a position where we demand our liberation, and it is natural to advocate liberation. Therefore, seeing human society today, we conclude that absolutely everyone, without exception, since early times, has been dreaming of a world of peace, a world of a unified ideal.
Today, many are yearning for heaven, an ideal kingdom. They are longing for a more peaceful world. Where does a world of peace begin? Does it begin after we have gone up to heaven, or do we have to climb higher? In today's fallen world, if we die after having dedicated our entire lives to reach that goal, the place we would go to is just a terminal of the fallen world and not the destination of the ideal world of creation. The terminal of the fallen world may at the same time be a new departure point toward heaven, but it cannot be the terminus of heaven.
We know that the people of the world today cannot live a happy life as things are now. Though they long for a world of peace, it is true that such a world will not come about, given the present state of things.
However, the ideal world mankind is seeking is becoming the imminent hope of today. From ancient times, people have lived with such ideals. A world of peace, being the inevitable hope of mankind, will inevitably be accomplished. If God exists, He will not leave this world as it is. Just as man is hoping for one ideal world, so is God.
Throughout history, all people, whether distinguished or not, learned or illiterate alike, irrespective of age or sex, have hoped for a peaceful and happy world. Both in the past and at present there has been no one without that aspiration.
We are walking our own path of life. In walking our destined course of life, everybody is moving toward a common goal. There are many religious denominations that are fulfilling their purposes separately. They are hastening toward their objectives of world peace, a unified world and an ideal world. Yet, no matter how many organizations there are, they should not be running separately. Your ten fingers are the same, too. They should not be tangled with one another. If they are, nothing can be achieved.
If there is a God, what kind of highway is He looking for? Where would He like to dwell? God would like to dwell in the mind of His loved ones, and so their minds should be calm and peaceful, full of tranquility. That is the mind God can trust. He wants to dwell in a mind that is peaceful like still water.
Looking at human history, we come to realize that the historical hope of man has been to establish the unfallen, original standard of goodness and original point of departure on earth. So many prophets of all ages have walked the path of martyrdom in front of God's Will in hopes of accomplishing that. That hope can come to fruition on Parents' Day, Children's Day, the Day of All Things and God's Day. For the first time in human history, God can rejoice, having created all things in heaven and on earth. Not only God but also Adam and Eve, our human ancestors, as well as all things of creation, which Adam and Eve were supposed to dominate, can rejoice together. These days will be established as days of joy for God, the human ancestors, and all created beings on earth. That will be the beginning of the original world of no lamentation, in which freedom and peace reign forever. That was the ideal of creation.
God created all things to build a garden of peace and love. God created humankind to have relationships amid joy. God did not create all things with the desire that heaven and earth become the battleground between man and Satan. This has deviated from the principles of heavenly law.
Furthermore, that original garden is both the garden of love and the world of peace, and it is the world of unity where everyone is harmonized with each other centering on the love of God, and becomes one.
The garden of Eden is a paradise of freedom. There are no adversaries in that world. Only God roams around and love alone dwells. A sweet home of repose where only peace and happiness prevail was the garden of Eden.
As you can see, the original garden that we seek is the garden of happiness and the world in which we must offer praise and gratitude to God. That world is the world of hope centered on life and the world where the values of peace and unity centering on life and love are substantiated.
This present world that is contrary to the ideal garden of God's love is the world where substantial division and conflict never end. It is not the world of truth where the idea of peace centered on love is realized, but it is the world where Satan dwells and destroys heavenly morality, and, due to jealousy and envy, conflict and disunity are continually arising.
If there is a God, there will be a true, ideal world. If the love-centered ideal world that God planned and hoped for is realized on earth, it must be a world of peace, love and unity.
How would you feel if you were to pass through God's realm of love? The feeling would be like watching all the flowers in full blossom in a spring garden, and becoming intoxicated with the fragrance in the air. When you are seated on a spring lawn, you get the indescribable feeling that you are sitting on a cotton wool-like cumulus cloud. There your cells leap and dance in boundless joy, breathing in love. God's love is the source of energy for all beings that possess the life force, and the source of happiness. Peace and happiness are the absolute requisites for hope in a person's life and the absolute elements of faith. God's love is the law in the spirit world.
While carrying out His providence of restoration for six thousand biblical years until now, if God had harbored a heart of resentment against mankind who had failed to understand His agonies and grief, a world of peace could not be realized. The Will of God who wants to live in a true place could also not be achieved. He has not guided the history of restoration for the sake of His own convenience or comfort.
People are tirelessly making frantic efforts to gain abundant wealth and prosperity. The point, though, is to be able to feel eternal joy in one's heart and to make the mind an eternal foundation of life. That point does not change. We can draw the conclusion that on that foundation, since the master has to be that kind of master and the world He is asserting has to be that kind of world, that world must be a world of eternal peace. The formulation of such a concept and ideology before humankind and before history, the cosmos and God's providence, has brought about the providence of restoration, the providence of salvation that has continued until now.
All creatures great and small lie within the vast realm of God's ideal. God created them out of love. Hence, the boundless universe has to be a world of peace where God can experience the greatest joy. Having fulfilled that purpose, He must be able to say He is indeed happy. To consummate that purpose, God's ideal and love must dwell in the domain of the infinite universe.
What does God want to show to His enemy? Human beings, whom He can call His beloved sons and daughters. With a heart of love that excels that of any man in the course of history, God, in front of Satan, has always desired to take pride in His children that have formed a perfect entity with Him through a father-son relationship. Yet, this hope of God's, since the creation of the world until now, has not been realized. All humankind, as God's offspring, should be extolling the equality of God and man, and living happily with Him in the garden of happiness that is completely filled with freedom and peace. They are now suffering in desolation and despair, having been captured by the enemy who is blocking God, the subject partner of hope, and confusing the way of conscience.
According to the original law, the time when a new global destiny arrives on earth will be the time of the Second Advent of the Messiah. Life in heaven is a lifestyle in which we can feel happiness before the universe, singing songs of peace, and can rejoice in a world of purpose, hailing the Lord as King.
In that God supports humankind, who is groaning in travail and distress in the restoration process, He must be a God of sorrow, a God of anxiety and a God of concern. We may try complaining of our woeful plight to Him, but He cannot transfer us directly into the liberated realm of peace. Now is not yet the time to welcome liberation, but let us look forward to the ideal of building heaven in the future, after this era. God's providential goal for saving mankind is the heavenly kingdom. This heavenly kingdom is the goal of fallen mankind. Therefore, I am asking all of you to offer your sincere devotion.
The day will come when humankind will be reborn. That time is the end of the world, or the Last Days. Sons and daughters will be delivered. All things of creation must enter God's realm in order that sons and daughters be born. Just as God made all things in heaven and on earth prior to making man, an external world, which God can dominate, must take shape prior to the birth of true children. Thus, all contemporary trends of thought of the present world are reaching up to the highest ideal world, a world of oneness, a world centering on heavenly ideals, a world in which songs of peace and unity, happiness and love can be sung.
When God made man, he devoted all His heart, mind, soul and energy, and poured all His life, love and affection into man. He created man through a relationship that cannot be split or torn apart by any kind of force. When He looks at human beings, who were created in this manner, peace can come to exist for the first time; all love and happiness can only exist through mankind.
Mankind, created through an eternal and unchanging love relationship, can become the center of peace. He must embrace and love all things of creation, with the confidence that he can become the nucleus of peace. The Father and His sons and daughters are grasping one another's hands: "Adam!" "Yes, Father!" How long has God been waiting for that moment when He could bequeath everything of this world to His children? It was God's long-awaited desire to be in that position, but man committed the fall without God seeing the fulfillment of His long-desired Will. That is to say, Adam and Eve, who yearned for the bosom of love, fell and died spiritually. Due to the fall, they plunged right into the world of death.
Where do we, in fact, all people, absolutely have to go today? We have to find a place where we can dissolve God's resentment, fulfill the day of happiness and hope and offer all these to God. We have to stand in the position of ancestors with a high standard of heart, otherwise there will not be any haven of heart anywhere in the world, and the foundation of peace and happiness will not come to this earth.
What is the hope of our church members? To become a restored family. Our hope is here; our prayer for the peace of all nations is here; the origin of happiness of all people is here; the starting point of God's providence is here; the departure point of the cataclysm, whereby heaven and earth are turned upside down, is here; the root of all values in life is here; the starting point of hope is also here. Everything has its beginning here. Who then is the center of the restored family? The true ancestors are your father and mother.
What is our resentment today? Adam and Eve failed to begin history as true parents who had formed a true family in the garden of Eden. This is God's resentment before it is man's. God's purpose of creating man was to build a kingdom of peace on earth after establishing a true family. Nonetheless that family broke up, so God has harbored grief for a long period of six thousand biblical years, and has carried out the history of restoration through repeating the same conditions in parallel ages. You must know that history up to today has been consummated by God, who in the process passed over innumerable peaks of anguish.
Establishing a true family, true clan, true tribe and true nation centering on true sons and daughters, God has to build a kingdom of world peace. As that purpose was not fulfilled, it was extended for two thousand years. God has to search for a woman Eve, a bride, again for the man Adam, the groom. Since the first father and mother caused a mishap, nobody could stand before God without conforming to the original standard of parents.
To create a restored garden of peace, man and woman as subject and object partner have to establish a blessed family of God, which is the base of happiness. The purpose of an all-out effort, therefore, is to prepare a foundation of peace and repose on which God can rejoice, centering on the family.
Humankind is reaching toward a world of oneness, a better world of freedom, peace and unity. Therefore, we need to develop our character for the sake of a world of hope that will come in the future. Our new feeling should be that we ourselves have to become a being of higher value. We must understand this problem.
Are your sons and daughters dear to you? Are your beloved husbands and wives dear to you? We have to know that God's love for us is far above that. God wants to exceed a husband's love for his wife and a wife's love for her husband. Your desire to go in search of a garden of peace and freedom in the shoes of a parent is exactly the desire of God.
You must be strongly determined to be a forerunner in the cosmic history and a heavenly warrior, to clear up the grievous, evil history, and establish a nation before the palace of peace. You know very well that this is the mission of all Unification Church believers.
When a couple becomes one through conjugal love, they can bear children from the same position as God. To let us taste tremendous joy as He had, God planted in us a mind that can naturally love our children at birth. Looking at it this way, God pours out to man only the best He has. God made man so that we could live in a peaceful garden amidst happiness and satisfaction, becoming one with His eternal love. On fulfilling that, we would live a happy life before the absolute God in the eternal, inseparable position of His object partner, centering on His love. This was supposed to be the original image of man.
What is God's Will? He wished that Adam and Eve, on receiving His love and becoming completely one with each other, had established a family of goodness, a clan of goodness, a tribe of goodness, a nation of goodness and a world of goodness together with Him, and that the world had become a kingdom of peace, attending Him as the King. This was also His original Will for humankind.
All people living in today's world are groaning in the whirlpool of confusion. If the question were posed, "What is your hope?" their reply would be that it is the establishment of a world of oneness, peace and unification. This would be the common response of any person living on earth.
On top of that, the Korean people have a strong desire for the unification of North and South Korea, which have been antagonistic toward each other. If the ideal world were realized on earth, if there an unfortunate nation divided into north and south still existed, that nation would not be able to form a relationship with the ideal world. Supposing our own nation is unable to stand on an ideal standard, even if the world is within the ideal realm, our nation bears no relation to world peace. Even though a country becomes one and establishes the foundation of peace, if an individual in that country failed to achieve the standard of peace due to the conflict between mind and body, that individual would have no connection with the peace of the country. Therefore, prior to achieving a world of peace, a nation of peace must be realized. Prior to achieving a nation of peace, we need to first tackle the problem of becoming individuals embodying peace.
God loves us to the utmost degree: He created all things in heaven and on earth for us. We know for a fact that, more than any of the things He had made during the six days, He created man centering on His glory, His hope and His sincere heart. We need to deeply reflect again on how much God has longed for man to grow and sing in happiness, fulfilling His hope, and to live together with Him, establishing a family of peace.
The world turned out to be the way it is because until now, nobody clearly understood the destiny of history, which is full of hardships and resentment. Historical resentment must be dissolved. If the resentment of Heaven and earth, God and man is not resolved, a world of peace will not and cannot come. God is still waiting for the day when He can hold His hands up, shouting, "Mansei! Victory! Come, all nations, and rejoice with me!"
Where is the original homeland? A person's homeland will, of course, be a country with its own national standards, but the fatherland of mankind that God is searching for is this earth - the homeland that earthly man hopes for, the homeland of mankind that God hopes for. Many of our successive generations of ancestors trod a path of sacrifice in the past, but what did they appeal to Heaven for? A homeland of hope. By establishing one heavenly nation, we realize a heaven of peace centering on goodness alone, judging Satan, our greatest enemy, before heaven and completely eliminating evil. All of you have to clearly know that is the hope of God, Jesus, and our forefathers who have made great contributions to the providential course.
All five billion people living on this earth are aiming for a unified ideal world. I do not think there is any man who does not have the same aspiration. Furthermore, if there is a true God of mankind, He will hope for the same thing, too. Since God is an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and absolute being, there is nothing He could not do if He wanted. He could create out of nothing. Nothing is impossible for Him. The hope of that absolute being is a world where the unity and peace of mankind is realized.
We now stand in the historic period of great transition where we must liquidate the grave moral confusion, world conflicts, environmental problems and crimes, which have stained the twentieth century, so that we may welcome the twenty-first century with hope. Humankind longs for a world of peace free from war and suffering. Yet it is difficult to be hopeful when the future is threatened by a "money-solves-everything" mentality, which is utterly insufficient in the face of juvenile delinquency, family breakdown, drugs and AIDS. We find a deeply diminished degree of positive influence on youth from national and religious authorities. Advances in science, communications and information technology, economic development and political proposals all fail to bring about human happiness, or a peaceful world through true families.
1.4 God, the origin of peace
Humankind has never ceased to seek eternal and unchanging true love, true peace, true happiness and the true ideal to this day. However, as all of you probably know, the hope of finding the necessary conditions for the ideal love, ideal happiness and ideal peace that mankind has been reaching after in today's hostile and kaleidoscopic world is lost. We have to squarely face the fact of our having driven ourselves into a blind alley, smashing ourselves against the wall and injuring ourselves.
Man has tried all means to search for true love, true peace, true happiness and the true ideal. Nevertheless, we are well aware of the fact that we have fallen into a wretched and miserable condition in which the hope of fulfilling those things is lost. If there is an eternal, unchanging and absolute being who transcends the constantly varying ideal of man, that must be none other than God Himself. If God is active and alive, He must be the center of true hope, true happiness, true peace, true love and the true ideal. He has to be the King of love, peace, happiness and the ideal. To enter the position where God and man have the same standard of hope, are at the same place of hope, share life's sweetness and bitterness, we have to know exactly where the source of true love, true peace, true happiness and the true ideal is. If not, man cannot fulfill the ideal conditions he is looking for.
The fact that man, who can be the object partner of God's love, ideal, peace and happiness, gains eternal life when he discovers he stands in a position where he can serve God as his subject partner, as his Father in Heaven is the most logical conclusion. If man today thinks that life simply ends after having lived on this earth for seventy or eighty years, he is wrong. Since God is eternal and man stands in the position of His eternal object partner and child, man must be awakened to the fact that he has to live eternally.
All of you have come to understand the subject partner-object partner relationship in which God is the subject partner and man is the object partner. If we take a step further, what is the problem? God, the King of wisdom, cannot help but ponder the question here, that is, where to place the source of true love, true peace, true happiness and the true ideal, centering on Himself.
The issue is that we need to know exactly where the source of true love is. Without truly knowing where the source of true peace, true happiness and the true ideal is, we cannot participate together with the eternal God in realizing His love, ideal, peace and happiness. When we think over the issue, we will realize that God cannot help placing that source in the place where He, the subject partner, can exist for His object partner.
What kind of people are Adam and Eve, the ancestors of mankind? They are the incarnation of God. God dwells in their hearts. Thus, the internal and external masters meet and generate all the world's happiness, becoming the standard of universal peace and the absolute standard of happiness in complete union.
Are there no true solutions to disentangle the great chaos of this earthly world? Must humankind abandon everything and merely await days of despair? Definitely not. There is a fundamental solution to the problem. It is based on the premise that there is an absolute God. The world that the absolute God had intended to substantiate on earth was a world of peace without disorder. However, the solutions currently available for the problems of the world, which denies God's existence and His creation, are not viable. To put it another way, the world has been thrown into utter confusion by man who was not aware of God's existence and the purpose of creation.
The world that God had intended to substantiate on earth was a true utopia abounding in freedom, peace and happiness. Cherishing the ideal of utopia in His heart, God searched for earthly man with frustration. Racked in agony, man roamed through regions of darkness in search of a utopia amid great chaos. As God's ideal, which He seeks, with much frustration, to bestow, and the ideal - which man is wandering in search of - is the same, utopia would be realized once they meet. Nevertheless, that meeting between God and man did not take place in any form, leaving man to groan in anguish eternally.
What kind of a being is God? He is a God of Love. Saint Paul asked, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" Even Christ is nobody without God's love, so we cherish God's love more than anything. God's love is the source of life, happiness and peace. You will know this if you have some spiritual experiences.
Dreaming of a world of peace being realized through man alone does not offer any hope. Faced with the utter confusion of the present day, the dream of a future world of peace, unity or oneness is no more than an illusion. Unless God exists, it is impossible.
The omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent God has been guiding mankind through thousands of years of history; yet how is it He cannot lead us to the world where the purpose of goodness can be fulfilled? Are we then moving toward a world of dejection and despair? This is a serious problem. We may even conclude that there is no God. If that were the case, would the ideal of utopia or a world of peace that man has been seeking be possible in the future? Numerous thinkers and philosophers have sought such a world throughout the course of history. For all that, considering the situation of our not having reached that goal, we cannot imagine how these people could bring us such a world of hope in the future.
Whether Oriental or Occidental, people have persistently sought after eternal true love, peace, happiness and the ideal in the midst of sin, mistrust and confusion. Humankind has resorted to all possible means to secure the happiness that the original mind desires, driving away the temptation of evil desire and following the desire to pursue goodness. Through historical experience, man concludes that it is impossible to attain this end, yet his original nature does not yield easily. Regardless of race and tradition, we can see that the ultimate goal in life is but one way.
If this target cannot be fulfilled by man's effort alone, he will have to rely on an eternal, true and absolute being higher than man. Man is a unique being who knows his own limitations. Being incapable of determining his own destiny, transcending himself, man naturally has to turn to a subject partner, God, who knows only too well that this is something feasible. If He is a God who yearns for true love, true happiness, true peace and the true ideal, that goal is possible through Him alone. It is a natural consequence that in order to fulfill the ideal requisites man has sought after through God, he has to fully comprehend and actualize what God has shown him. If it is something people just desire, the transcendental force and the propensity for relationship with which God has operated from behind our lives, can pervade everything. Consequently, there cannot be two paths in life for the individual, family, society, nation and world. All roads point to an ideal world of love, happiness and peace. Love, peace, happiness and the ideal cannot be realized alone. They have to be established through mutual relationships. Even the absolute, almighty God cannot do this by Himself.
Without realizing it himself, man today is looking for a world of peace and happiness while pursuing freedom. This is the evidence that he is still not standing on the fundamental foundation of freedom, peace and happiness.
If God lives, being the absolute and almighty God, then all things of creation including man, needless to say, must be free since God is free. If He is in a peaceful place, we should be standing in the same place, too.
We can deduce the fact that if there is no freedom, happiness and peace in the human world, God, its Creator, can neither be free nor happy, but must be in a miserable position. This is known as the fall of man in today's religious world. The fall is comparable to falling off the original foundation, from a position where perfection can be reached to an imperfect position.
Humans grow and mature by receiving parental love and subsequently giving birth to children through conjugal love. This is the way for humans born from love to walk, yet we know our lives have not resulted in establishing a family foundation for perfecting happiness, peace and freedom.
The absolute God has to subjugate Satan, but not with the weapons of the world. He has to reveal the origins of goodness and evil, centering on the Great Principle of heaven and earth. There was only one absolute God in the beginning, but subsequently an evil god appeared. If that evil god had existed from the very beginning, we would have a world based on dualism. If the root had two separate origins in history, there could not be a world of oneness, an ideal world or a world of unity. The world would have no choice but to develop through conflict. God would have been unable to design the ideal model of a world of oneness, peace and the ideal.
Today's communist world denies the existence of God, centering on dialectical materialism. It views God as something fabricated by man. If Satan exists, his one final assertion at the end of the world will be the denial of God. If mankind believes in and follows what Satan claims, the world of peace designed by the absolute God can never be realized.
To those who say that God does not exist: if there were no God, you would still have to set up a false god to manage this world. You would control neither the democratic world nor the decadent world without creating a fake god. You could extend man's present destiny only if you were to assume God exists. The world could survive if people took cognizance of the existence of a hypothetical god. If they deny God, they will be brought to ruin like Sodom and Gomorrah. Now is the time. That imaginary god is imaginary, not absolute. He has to be the center of everybody's mind. To do that, humanity must persist in absolute love, absolute ethics and absolute morality, which are connected with religions. Starting from an imaginary god, mankind can survive only by discovering the real God. This is what I am advocating.
If God plans on teaching man peace, what kind of teaching materials will He look for? He will look for materials of love. To do so, He will look for a man and woman who have love, for love is invisible. That is an inevitable consequence. How does God dig up the notion that a woman can love a man more than herself? That is an important issue. How does He go about searching for the origin of unity and peace? Only the force of love can make it happen. Man has to elevate his object partner's position through love by denying himself. What does God have to seek and put forth theoretically?
If we do not establish the logic that God created all things out of love at the time of creation, we cannot discover the origin of a unified peace. Even God is absolutely obedient in the face of love. You may question the truth of this statement. Being the subject partner of absolute love, He is absolutely obedient in the face of love.
With what can we demolish the wall between races and realize the ideal world? How can we aggressively eliminate the obstacles to peace? Seeing how different individual opinions come out during a clan meeting, how difficult it must be to harmonize even within a family! We must find a clue to the solution. Where indeed is the takeoff point toward a world in which humankind lives as one great family, overflowing with happiness in the absence of war, harmonizing the world's diversified cultures and traditions? Man must be conscious of his source and root in God, the foundation of the universe, and seek the basic answers on the way of following heavenly principles.
Everyone wants to be the best in the world. Do you not all want to be the best in the world? Where do you go to gratify that desire? You cannot satisfy that in the human world. A world of peace cannot exist as long as that unfulfilled desire is there. When we want to climb higher, our competitive mind emerges. Can we remove that? We do not know why it is there. Being unable to solve the problem, we end up denying God's existence.
The realization of a world of true peace where there is freedom and equality is only possible when we find God, the source of true love, and unite with Him. A world of true peace that humankind aspires to is not realized from top to bottom, nor from bottom to top. When every individual lives in attendance of God, and establishes a true family, a free, peaceful, eternal world will be built for the first time.
Who are the three great subject partners? God is the owner of owners, parent of parents, and teacher of teachers. This is different from the Juche Sasang (Subjectivity Thought) of North Korea's late premier, Kim Il Sung. Centered on the ideal of creation and love, the Three-Great-Subjects Thought encompasses the concepts of owner, parent and teacher. From the perspective of the nation, the parent is in the family, the teacher is at school and the master-owner is in society. How can they be linked? There doesn't seem to be anything that harmonizes them with love, but the Unification Church has the logical answer. Applying them to the nation, a world of peace in the nation will come. Applying this to the world, a world of peace in the world will come. Applying this to heaven and earth, a world of peace in heaven and on earth will come, centering on true love.
God, our Creator, has a Will. That Will is to restore this world into the world of true peace. In other words, He will restore the world of His original nature and the ideal by recreating the present world. For this reason, there is hope for true peace in the future. God's Will is to eradicate selfishness from each individual, then transform or recreate that person into His own temple, and make all men holy.
For this reason, true world peace between nations begins not at the national level, but with the perfection of the individual. Each person is perfected by becoming the temple of God. This is where world peace germinates. Each one of you, ladies and gentlemen, is the true beginning point of world peace.
We should repent that religions themselves, representing the realm of the spirit, have not fulfilled their responsibility of bringing about a peaceful world. We cannot deny the fact that religions in their current state lack the life energy necessary for leading and purifying the world, and are sometimes even going against their original mission.
The God that I know has no attachment to the content of doctrines, which are put together according to human logic. Since God is the Origin and Parent of all of us, He does not discriminate between races or between religions.
Therefore, religious believers should completely follow God's Will of true love to realize the ideal world of peace and the salvation of all people. Given the contemporary reality, religious people should not lead comfortable lives. Instead, they must go on the way of a living faith, centered on true love and true-life energy, conversing with the living God.
What is the origin of the existence of the universe? It is not an absolute existence, but an absolute love that can bind the absolute existence. This being the case, heaven and earth can create a world of peace. If we conclude that everything in the universe endures based on that love, it follows logically that peace and the ideal are also derived from love.
No saint has asserted that the unity of mind and body is the basis of the unity of all things. As the saying goes, "Harmony in the family is the accomplishment of all things." If there are ten people in the family, all of them should become one, each with his mind harmonizing with his body. In the satanic world, however, these ten people live in mind-body conflict and form twenty separate entities. Peace cannot begin there.
Why is there this separation? This is so because the body goes where it wants to, and the mind goes where it wills. The directions of North, South, East and West diverge over 360 degrees. People live with their mind and body separated, with some centering on materialistic things, others on honor, and still others on their own authority. In this way, peace cannot dwell in an environment where the mind and body move in opposite directions, centering on self-interest. Peace originates in oneness, and that one source is the unique God. An individual or family centering on God's ideal is on His side. A person on God's side is one whose mind and body are united.
What Rev. Moon is doing as a Korean is different from what Koreans in general are doing. The title of my sermon today is "The Unification of My Country and a World of Peace." My unified country has to be a part of the realm of world peace. Therefore, the things that I initiate are for the sake of world peace. Peace is not centered on any particular religious group. It is not the tradition of the religious realm in an age of history. Nor is it the tradition that the non-religious realm desires. By connecting to the God-centered heavenly tradition, peace must settle upon the earth.
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