Searching After True Parents

What can we be truly proud of while living here on earth? This is a most important question. Perhaps American youth think they can be proud of themselves, but where does that self come from? The self does not exist independently, but is part of the universal process.

According to what standard, then, can we be proud of something? Some people might think they can be proud of their appearance, but where does a handsome individual come from? He could not exist without his parents. Unquestionably, men and women want to appear attractive, but whether you are beautiful or handsome is determined by your parents, not yourself. In some cases both parents are homely, while their child is beautiful. Who does that child take after, then? The substance of his attractiveness must come from his grandparents, or even further back in the lineage. When you are talking about yourself, you are actually referring to a historical consequence.

Each person is the fruit of history. Today young people tend to be proud of their educational backgrounds but, again, whether you are knowledgeable does not depend on yourself alone; it is also the result of your school and your teachers. Without a teacher, no knowledge can be gained. Why do parents and teachers make so much effort to help their young people? Do they invest themselves so that the young people will live for and serve them? No, they want those young people to be good men and women who will love and serve the nation, who will be valuable members of society.

An individual is usually proud of having a good appearance or a good education, career or position. Why is a person proud of his position? Because then people are bound to respect him. It is common sense that people want something to be proud of about themselves, whatever it is.

All careers people pursue are temporary, so what is really valuable? Is the profession of parent also temporary? No, it is an eternal job. From the moment parents give birth to a child, they never stop wanting to do a good job and give care and instruction to him or her. According to the law in America, the parents' responsibility is over when their children turn eighteen. Many children may think the parents' job is over at that time, but parents never think so.

Parents are always concerned with their children's wellbeing. This is a universal truth, whether in America or Asia, and at any time in history. What is of true value there? That feeling is something that never changes, but remains permanently. You may change moods even twelve times a day, but do you have some unchanging quality within you? If everything is always temporary in your life, how unhappy you must be. You may be temporary in your thinking, but the parental love surrounding you is there permanently.

When parents have something to say to you, do you think it is intended to be good? Even though parents themselves may not live a completely good life, when they speak to their children they want to give the very best advice. Even if they sometimes scold or spank their children, their motive is one of goodness. Would they give their children a hard time so that the children would become evil? Even a murderer wants to say saintly things to his own children. Is there a father who would say, "Look at how many people I have killed?" You should do the same"?

Parents are always thinking of how they can relieve any suffering of their children and take it upon themselves. Do you have friends who think about you like that? Is the intensity of sacrificial love between husband and wife greater than parental love? Is there a husband who wants to love his wife more than parents love their children? Often people think that their marriage is a convenience, and if it is ended somehow then they will just look for another partner. But can anyone think if their children get in the way that they will just have others?

We conclude that parents are most precious, that parental love cannot be bought for any amount of money or swapped for the love of teachers or friends. Parents should be closer to you than your husband or wife, teachers or friends. If you had to make a choice, would you abandon your wife, or your parents? Most Westerners would sacrifice their parents. Should that be the case? This is one illustration of how far Western civilization has departed from God's way of life.

How many of you really care about your parents? How many of you would study hard because it was your parents' desire? Parents get tremendous satisfaction seeing their children studying hard, and they want to stay up late and support them in that case. The parents' primary concern is for the children's well being. When you study all night, the first thing in the morning your parents want to know how your night went. Even when alone in their room, the parents' first concern is how their children are faring.

When your lover betrays you, you want revenge. But how do parents feel when their child betrays them? You feel hurt and anguish in your heart when your lover betrays you, but wouldn't parents feel even more pain when betrayed by their child? Why would their pain be greater? Men and women can renew a relationship with other people, but can parents start another relationship with other children? No, that relationship cannot be severed.

As a rule, American women don't want to serve their elderly in-laws, or marry into a home with that kind of obligation. They think all they need is a husband who will take care of them. When you see the aged hands and faces of your in-laws, you should think that they have grown old by giving their very best to their children, which includes your husband. Old parents want to stay with their children, but if their son's wife just wants them to stay home and baby-sit while she and her husband go out, can we say she has the right attitude? Do parents want to go along with their children, to see if they are doing well? Should the daughter-in-law welcome that? Often the daughter-in-law just wants her husband's parents to stay home, and it hurts the heart of the mother. In her mind she will say, "Wait and see how it is when you have your own children"

In this country there are many senior citizens' homes. Do you think old people really want to be only with other old people, or would they rather be with their children and grandchildren, having joyous give and take with them? Even if the senior citizens' home were as rich as a palace, the old people would rather be with their own families, even if they were so poor that there was only one meal a day.

We have to launch a crusade to get rid of senior citizens' homes! Would the old people welcome such a crusade, or would they rather stay where they are? Do you want to get rid of those institutions right now because you know that sooner or later you will be senior citizens? Or is it because you are thinking of your own parents? This is a serious matter.

What can you take the most pride in? You should feel the most pride in your own mother and father who gave birth to you. In the parental heart there is room for dreams not only about the children, but also for the nation and world. All parents want the best for their children, thinking they will do great things. You have no idea what dreams parents have for their children.

The prayers of parents for their children never cease, for parents always want them to be the very best. Even if in reality the children are so dumb that they don't have a chance to be someone, still parents have dreams for them! When children disregard the genuine love of their parents and go off on their own, they are the greatest traitors under the sun. It is human nature to want to be welcomed, to be received well and respected. Then what kind of men and women should you become in order for all of the past generations to applaud you? Who would be in the central position representing the past, applauding you? Your parents.

Parents are your cheerleaders, always ready to applaud you, and then those around them will join in. When parents have to chastise or chide you, inside they are hurt and anguished. Parents are the judges, and those surrounding them will judge you as they do. All history will judge you according to whether or not you have been good sons and daughters of piety. Parents are right behind you, and behind them your ancestors and all spirit world, as well as God, are ready to respond as your parents respond. History is always ready to applaud sons and daughters who give utmost loyalty to their parents.

The past will applaud you when you become pious children. The present age will applaud husbands and wives who are exemplary as a couple in serving society. So when you are genuinely united, society will then applaud you. Right behind you are your parents, representing history, including God and spirit world. When that background is supporting you, when people can say you are a good husband or wife, and when your relationship is as unique and unchanging as parental love, then society will applaud you.

How will the future applaud you? Generations to come will applaud when you have lived unselfishly as a true patriot. Patriotism does not consist of oratory, but of love. It is that simple. Are you a patriot if you just absorb knowledge? Does just working hard day and night make you a patriot? No, it is determined by the love you give your country. Is a true husband or wife determined by how handsome or beautiful you are? No, only true love counts. True love rejects nothing, but welcomes and embraces everything. This does not mean that true love condones criminal acts, but means rather that love is ready to give and serve unconditionally. True love doesn't say, "I loved you yesterday, so today it is your turn to love me" True love doesn't make contracts.

What are we Moonies doing here? Moonies not only know and practice this truth, but want to disseminate it all over the world. The Unification Church loves to use the word "true": True Parents, true brothers and sisters, true society, true world. What does this "true" mean? A simple definition is that it is unchanging and priceless, and cannot be exchanged for anything else.

Genuine gold is unchanging, for instance. An important quality of precious stones is whether their gleam will tarnish or not. Pearls are treasured because their colors are peaceful and harmonious. Gold is quite soft, and pearls also, yet they have unchanging qualities. Softness is not necessarily undesirable; what is the most soft and unchanging thing of all? The most harmonious and all-embracing substance is love. What is the hardest thing under the sun, so tough it is unchangeable? It is love. The softest of all is love, the hardest of all is love, and the most harmonious of all is love.

Women represent the soft side of love, while men represent the toughness of love. But even if there is friction between them, hardness and softness can come together through love. In a machine the central shaft is a major supporting element, and the supporting element holding it is usually made of copper and lead. One metal is very hard and the other rather soft, but the two come together to make a functional piece. Do women love other women best with their softness? No, since women represent softness, they look for the opposite. We can conclude that women must love men, and without them they cannot survive. Since men represent hardness, they have to look for softness and so they seek women.

Can anyone say he needs no one else and is complete by himself? Such a person is crazy. The gay movement is truly a perverted thing, with women loving women, and men loving men. These people have completely departed from the principle under which God created men and women. Men absolutely need women, and women need men.

The most precious thing under the sun, then, is not gold and gems but true love. The owner of a diamond will not say he doesn't need any other gems or gold; precious things have many characteristics, so the diamond's owner would still like to have other precious things.

What quantity of precious things would satisfy you completely? If the entire planet were one diamond, would you want to own it? If you were totally buried by diamonds, gold, and gems, would you finally be the happiest person in the world? No? You are greedy people! You know there is something more to possess which is greater than a gigantic diamond, and you want it.

Did God know that man had such insatiable greed? There is no one who can say he has no more room left to be filled. Suppose you say, "God, you made my bag of greed very big, so you are responsible to fill it." Would God say that He had made a mistake, or would He say He already has some idea concerning that? God would say that your greed could be completely satisfied that you should pursue the love of true parents, of true husband and wife, and of true children for their parents, and then you will be filled. When you pursue this route and find this love, your greed bag will be completely inflated and you will float up and up into the air. God will grab you as you float up, in order to keep you near Him, and you will waltz together!

Love is a mysterious substance, such that when one drop of love enters your heart you feel completely filled. A woman likes to wear perfume, but even if it fills the room when she enters, it cannot compete with one drop of love. When love enters a room, an incredible spark will flash between men and women. What kind of smell does love have? You don't sense love with your nose or tongue, but instead love represents all smells and all tastes.

My best tactic for waking you during morning service is to talk about love. If you are in a cold room but love is there, you don't feel the chill. If the weather is fiercely hot but you have love, you don't feel the heat. Love is not affected by the four seasons. Some people like or dislike certain kinds of weather, but when you have love there is no season you dislike. As long as you have love, even 365 days of rain won't get you down. Love is that powerful and mysterious.

The life of men and women is all about searching after love. In that life, men search after women, women search after men, and parents and children search after each other. True love implanted in a true family represents the universal image of God, embracing the entire universe. Where does that love begin? It originates from parents. Where does parental love begin? From their parents, and their parents before them, and ultimately all the way back to God. How many generations back in your ancestry is God? It would take a millennium of saying "Grand, grand, grand" to finally describe your lineage all the way back to God. Can you really like an ancestor who is that ancient?

How can you bring God within your reach so you can meet Him? It is simple-with love. When you truly own and practice love and when you are illuminated by love, the distance between you and God can be covered instantly. If you turn a radio to the correct frequency, it can pick up signals from a far-away transmitter, as long as it is functioning correctly. How can we connect this distant God with men; how can we relate to the innumerable generations in spirit world? We can do it with the love frequency.

We are like radio receivers, and all you have to do is dial the love frequency and fine-tune it. God is like a broadcasting station, and His powerful signal is always available. All you have to do is tune yourself to His frequency. But the amazing thing is that, while a regular radio station broadcasts the same thing to every radio, God gives a different frequency to each person. If you love music, God will give you music; if you love literature, God will give you literature, and so forth. In spirit world everyone is fine-tuned to God and in every broadcast God is giving love. When you dance in joy do you open or close your eyes? It doesn't make any difference, because you just have to match the rhythm.

God has to be invisible, because if He were touchable He would be torn to pieces by everyone trying to grab Him! You can do anything you want with God, whether traveling the speed of light, or boxing with Him -- anything. Nothing will diminish Him. When God is watching you enjoy true love, do you think He gets bored after a while? Even after a millennium He still feels ecstatic joy and overflowing excitement. Love is so intoxicating that I forget about time when I talk about it.

What kind of parents are we searching after? Who are the ancestors of True Parents? God is the king of True Parents. What would God like most, and what is His profession? God is capable of everything because He is the omnipresent Creator, but the one thing He cannot create and that He can only respond to is love. Even God is helpless in love because it has to be given; it is not owned. It doesn't belong to the object either, however; the object is only a channel through which love can come to you.

Some people might say that they are tired of hearing about sacrificial service and love, but we have to live that way because love comes through the object. In order to generate love you have to exercise initiative by serving and loving; then you are giving the object motivation to return love to you. For black to love white, white should love black. The subject must motivate the object to give love. Service and sacrifice are noble words because they are the method for reaching a much greater capacity of love. Now do you feel that service and sacrifice are worthwhile?

When you make yourself a big container, you can receive more of God's love. If you are a small container, however, the infinite love of God cannot fully come to you. Each day's effort in our way of life is to become more like God, growing bigger and bigger and nearing His capacity for love. When you create the capacity to receive the infinite love above you, it will automatically come into you without your making any effort. In your late teen years you feel a certain excitement in your heart. At that magic age everyone is a poet and a star and a musician. Your eyes start blinking and looking all around, searching after something.

When you start on your journey to become a container of love you are not quite round, but oval-shaped. You get bigger and bigger, and then after a while you become completely round and start to turn. Two people can be contained within this circle of love, one man and one woman, with the capacity to fill the circle completely. To begin with, a man and a woman are strangers, but they come closer and feel more joy every day, penetrating more deeply. Initially their love is shaped like a football, but every day it becomes deeper and fuller and richer, and becomes round. If they stop pursuing love before they have reached the core, however, they will start to separate. Your goal is to become perfectly round, for only then will the forces of God's infinite love fill you like a balloon.

When you reach such fullness of love and then have children, they will be sinless children. The problem is that men and women have given birth to children before they became filled with the love of God. Thus, in the fallen world there was no taste of the love of God.

Once men and women are united, they begin to turn. An axis is necessary to turn, and when it gets bigger and longer it is not only turning you, but your home, society, nation, and world as well. That same axis will turn them all. Love is looking for greater and bigger giving. When you selfishly gather things, you will shrink but when you give to others you will expand without limit.

God created you to be a true husband and wife, to jump together from level to level, reaching higher and higher with your love in order to embrace the whole cosmos and ultimately God's own heart. No matter how small your starting position, it must be a full circle, for then with perfect roundness your journey has no limit. If your love is flat, however, it won't go anywhere but will crash when you try to jump.

The Principle teaches that a subject and object create a circuit when they are united in give and take, and as a result God enters in. Today we are talking about the unchanging quality of parental love. Where does that unchanging quality come from? It is logical to conclude that it comes from God. You are born as a small minus to your father and mother, who are a big plus and minus. Your give and take with your mother creates a small circle. When you have give and take of true love then automatically there is invisible give and take happening in spirit world as well. The physical deed and the spiritual deed come together and join.

When you ask contemporary Christians why God created man, they don't have the right answer, but we know that God created out of necessity, to fulfill His love. You may think you are trivial individuals, but you have the power to make God laugh and cry. You are like a cell of His body. A child is born because a tiny portion of his parents' bodies came together.

When you see with God's eyes, what will spirit world took like? It is not a circle or a rectangle or a square, but it is in the shape of one man. Within it there are the dual essentialities of male and female. Do you know why woman is smaller than man is? It is because woman is encased within man. She has to be smaller in order to fit! Women have the God-given nature of trying to dig in, while men are always embracing, or covering. One is internal, the other external, and there is likewise internal and external give and take. Women have higher-pitched, sharp voices like a drill which pierces, while men have deeper voices.

The spirit world has eyes, nose, mouth, ears, arms, and hands. Some people belong to the hands and are always working. People whose profession involves a lot of walking belong to the legs or feet. Others belong to the ears, or hair, or eyes, and so forth.

There is only increasing perfection as more and more people come to spirit world, never a population explosion. When just one hair of your head is pulled, your whole body responds. If your ear aches, then your whole body suffers. Spirit world is a world of harmony, so the farthest extremes must be harmonized in love. The person you liked the most on earth may be on the other side of spirit world, while the person you hated the most may be right next to you. In spirit world you cannot fight; you have to harmonize. There is a saying that the baby in the mother's womb will resemble the person she truly hates the most. The universal truth is that we must love everyone unconditionally; if you hate someone, it is not that person who is hurt but you and also your children who are hurt. But the person who can love anyone can go anywhere.

If you are one of God's blood cells, then your job is to circulate everywhere in the body. Perhaps a white person might not want to travel through a black person's area. If he protests having to go someplace, then he is only hurting himself. Can a blood cell say it wants to stay in the eyes and just took out on the world? Or stay in the tongue and enjoy all the tastes?

As a blood cell, you should be able to go anywhere and embrace anyone; if you don't do that then you will die. If you are suffering now, you should realize that it is for someone else's benefit and in time you will be released from it. How many miles would a blood cell have to cover to circulate through the billions of cells in one body? The universe is like a human body, and you are like one cell making that journey. You must be a blood cell that is welcomed by every part of the body. If you are hated and repelled by every part of the body then life will be very painful.

You will go not only to the rough places but also to the loving heart of God. But even then you cannot say you want to stay in God's heart; the blood is not only coming in but being pumped out as well. Dr. Durst was a university professor and now his journey has brought him to be the Unification Church president. He will go on and on, and maybe he will go back down to the position of student. Can he say he doesn't want to do that? I'm sure he would be delighted to go down because he knows he will come back up. But some leaders foolishly protest that they have to have a certain position.

I am a fast-moving blood cell and I can do anything, whether preaching at Belvedere on Sunday, talking to scientists, mining, fishing, or even making fishing nets. There is no place I cannot travel. I am ready to tackle any job.

Parents have a certain characteristic -- for the sake of the children they are willing to do anything and go anywhere, just as blood cells wouldn't mind going to smelly feet, or to the brain, to the hands, anywhere. Even in the fallen world the purest quality to be found is still parental love because it is the closest thing to God. The best example of what conjugal love should be like is the unconditional love of parents for children; that is how a husband and wife should love each other.

If you want to be a patriot, take parental love as your model. Ideal love must be patterned after parental love; then you cannot go wrong, for when you follow parental love you come closest to the central love of God. A person who has not felt parental love is the most miserable person under the sun because he has no model to guide him. God made you to be parents so that you can know parental love most intimately. Should you love your parents more or less than you love your children? Because your parents' love ultimately comes from God, by loving them and patterning yourself after them you come closer to the origin.

When you truly love your parents, you are under greater protection. It is your best insurance. When you love the people of the world you are building fences of love around you on many levels. Then you become the center. Ultimately where will God be? He will come to the center of the world, which means inevitably He will come right next to you. Everything happens there because of love. When you start to turn around and around, the entire world will start to turn as well.

Today my point is that the parents are the representatives of God in the physical world, centered upon love. When you rebel against that parental love, you are actually rejecting the entire universe. In this respect, do we need a revolution of love in America? Would Americans welcome it, or would they go against it? We must help them to welcome it. This is far greater than winning a war against the Soviet Union. This revolution is of far more importance to American society. When we wage a war of love then we shall prevail.

I know the way of love is most critical to every society, and I am the pioneer bringing the solution. That is why you young people come to me, and your parents who don't understand this truth try to kidnap you. Incredible things happen in the Unification Church because we are talking about this incredible love. Do parents kidnap their children from this movement for the sake of the universe, or for themselves? For their children's well-being, or for their own? Then is it centered on selfishness? Am I doing this for my own benefit, or for the nation and the world and God? If the answer is clear, then we shall prevail because the whole universe will protect us.

I adhere to the principle that even if the Unification Church and I must give up everything; still this nation and world shall remain under God and prosper. Anyone who is just trying to survive and prosper for himself will not last. People are mistaken if they look at us as political enemies, because we do everything for the sake of God. Justice shall prevail.

This title "Searching after True Parents" could be changed to "Searching after True Love" because parents represent unselfish, true love. How would you love God? Just as a parent loves his child. Then the Heavenly Kingdom is not far away from you. When people asked Jesus where the Kingdom was, he replied, "The Kingdom of Heaven is in the midst of you" meaning inside of you, in your parental love. You truly exist within the love of a parent.

In parental love everything can become one. Americans today are confused about what is good and what is evil. We must become torches to light the way for Americans and consummate the revolution of love in this nation and eventually the entire world. The ideal family is really a workshop where you can practice love. Then the heavenly society is nothing more than an expansion of the family. When you see a senior citizen you feel toward him as you do toward your own parents or grandparents. You feel toward a little child as you do toward your own son and daughter.

When you live with that philosophy and commitment, there is no land that is foreign to you. Everywhere you go you are meeting your parents and brothers and sisters, and every country is your native land. Parental love is the central pillar supporting the entire universe. For the sake of parental love you bear more burdens and sacrifices, and the entire world shall bow down to you. First you practice by being a pious child, and then with your own children you practice giving parental love yourself

When I was searching for years for the Principle, the answer ultimately came from God that the central truth of the universe was the parent-child relationship. But God did not reveal the other 50% of the answer -- that the base of that relationship was love. He left that for me to find, as my responsibility. The essence of the universe is this: the parent-child relationship based on true love. Everything else falls within this truth. Even after a million years of history, this truth cannot be changed at all. All history circles around this truth, and no one can change it.

The world's people shall follow anyone who practices love on a worldwide scale. He shall be the host or master of the world. No one can be the master of America by virtue of citizenship alone; it shall be the man and the woman who love this country most from the parental point of view. If any organization practices this love in America and the world, it shall prevail on the earth.

My advice to you is to become pious sons and daughters to your parents, and also to love your husband or wife in the true way, and love your country as a patriot. Ultimately the finest advice is to become a saint who loves mankind and the world, being a child of God. This is the trunk line truth through which everything shall be fulfilled; apart from parents, nothing can be fulfilled or perfected. This is why the Unification Church is centered upon the True Parents as the apex of our ideology. I look at America and the world from this point of view, and practice this truth.

Parents are the focus of your gratitude, for they are your protection, like a historical fence around you. You must be grateful for your husband or wife, for he or she provides protection to you now. When you are a patriot who serves his country, generations to come will applaud you in gratitude. Parents are the central beings. When you have children, God is elevating you in order to experience the parental heart. He gives you a husband or wife because He wants you to learn parental love. Through all these experiences, God wants you to see how much parents love their children.

The family and home is the central stage of the universe, of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Three generations in one home make up a normal family. Once you meet the criteria and are welcomed in that microcosm of the universe which is the family, then you shall be welcomed everywhere. Where you live doesn't make any difference: an American can be welcomed in Africa when he meets this criterion; an African shall be welcomed in America in the same way. If you practice this on earth then you shall be accepted in spirit world.

The thing you can be proudest of is having wonderful parents, having a wonderful wife or husband, and having wonderful children. There is nothing greater to be proud of. How much you love them shall be the measure of your pride. The Kingdom of God on earth shall prevail by this principle. Do I push you out every day and give you tribulation because I am a thief taking advantage of you, or because I am trying to teach you the Principle and give you the Kingdom? A beautiful truth is epitomized when you see a three-year-old crying when his mother spanks him, yet still wanting to be near her. That is universal beauty. Children cannot leave their parents, even when they are spanked; instead they just hang on.

Now that you know this truth, do you have confidence you can revolutionize the moral life of America? You want to be married many times, then, right? Why not? If you could marry many times then it means you could swap parents also. For the same reason you cannot change your parents, you should not change your husband or wife.

Your parents shall sign your citizenship of the Kingdom of Heaven in spirit world. The next endorsement shall be given by your husband or wife and by your children; however the parents are the ultimate judges. You have been wandering in search of parents, and now you have found the answer and the parents. By loving True Parents you can live the example, and then do the same to your own parents. Finally, love America and mankind as much as you love me. That is why you are here, and this is the purpose of the Unification Church. This is only the training ground, where you practice love on True Parents.

There is no other principle that you will need. All you need now is the confidence that you can build the Kingdom of Heaven on earth with your own effort. When you build such a family, it shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven as a unit. If you can say, "Father, thank you for teaching us this so clearly. We shall practice it and do it," raise your hands.

God bless you. Let us pray.