Q & A Session at Special Gathering at Tokyo District Church
June 16, 1967 (Unofficial Translation of Rev Hiroshi Goto)
Question: Please, would you teach me about prayer …
(Answer by Father Moon)
About prayer? It is very straight forward. It’s not necessary to make your prayer “better”. Just say you are hurting when you feel pain. Say you are happy, when you feel happy. That is the best prayer. Real prayer should be direct. Meaning that when you are hurting, express you are hurting and when you are happy, you are happy. That is all you need to do. As you grow, the pain you feel will expand from your personal pain to pain of a family, pain of a nation, and pain of the world. There will be no change in how you express that in your prayer.
Regarding how to pray, when you pray, do not put yourself first. You should not pray from the get go, “Please fulfill my wish!” Ask to save the world first. Pray that God’s desire for the world be fulfilled. You pray, “Please help me to obey any of God’s orders and give me an attitude to fulfill my responsibilities.” Not only in your prayer, but practicing it in reality with the same attitude; then, you will stand to become a world leader. Therefore, you don’t need to pray, “I want to be blessed, and make me an important person.”
Prayer is very simple. Your question is how you offer your entire life for the world’s sake. For that purpose, are you going to die in your own home or on the street, or die as an offering? This is a simple matter, once you make up your mind. It is better to die on a street working for God than to die in your home because of sickness or something. It is even better if you die as an offering than dying on a street. Don’t you agree with me? So, pray with this mind set!
If you pray from your sincere heart, God will anticipate for you to succeed. Then you fulfill your responsibility corresponding to what you prayed; and you will be elevated in a position to tackle a world-level mission. If you fulfill the world-level mission, without knowing yourself, you will be recognized as a world leader. To reach the world, whatever you still have attachment to, or attraction to, in your surroundings will block your way to the world. Even if you give up everything so as to be naked and run as fast as you can, there is not enough time. So, if you are attracted to your surroundings, how can you reach your destination? So, you pray as I said.
It is acceptable for you, a member of the Unification church to pray about your teacher (Rev. Moon). In other words, instead of praying centered on yourself, if your prayer is centered on the teacher, you gain power. When you call “God,” you may feel distant. You don’t feel it’s real. God and people are alike. If you only talk about yourself all the time, everyone will lose all interests and hate you, right? No one likes that. It is the same for God. God doesn’t like it either. You are God’s embodiment. So God and man are exactly the same. So, if you think how God would act and pray, you will naturally realize, “Aha, I should pray like this!”
Also, God will send someone with a specific responsibility who will give you what Heaven wants you to pray about. For example, you will be told you should pray this topic until such and such a day. You will be given a prayer topic. First you have to establish a standard of prayer and then a standard of heart, so that you will set conditions for the restoration. Why is that? This is because Adam and Eve did not establish the standard of heart for their descendants due to the Fall. In order to restore this, Adam and Eve must possess the standard of heart that is seriously and earnestly appealing to God. Otherwise, no standard for restoration is set. So, pray sincerely from your heart. That is why, you need to pray.