Former Headquarters Church
Our Unification Church family members today must make a new awakening: that we are different from any person living in the world and different from any person in history.
The countless saints and sages who came and went in the past, we know, awoke and realized of themselves and set up, each in their own way, a purpose centered on the parent, if a parent; the tribe, if a tribe; the people, if a people; the nation, if a nation; and sought to reflect and develop it from the family to the tribe, the people, the nation, or even the world—such is the historic fact we know.
Seen from this viewpoint, our Unification Church family members today must awaken anew, holding a feeling and resolve that no historic prophets and martyrs ever held.
A Nation and World of a New Ideology
When we consider my one individual self, or our one group, it is passing through the process of past, present, and future. Accordingly, there must be an individual, a family, a tribe, a people, and a nation.
When we look at the individual, family, tribe, people, nation, and world that the ideology of our Unification Church desires today, how will the individual centered on that ideology, the family, tribe, people, and nation centered on that ideology, and further the world, be formed? Before our Unification Church, such part-by-part fields have not yet appeared substantially.
Today we live as one people of the Republic of Korea, but it is an undeniable fact that this nation and this world are not the nation and world we aim at and desire.
This nation and this world in which we live today, being a fallen world, cannot but pass through some process. Thus they are within a sphere of destiny in which they cannot but settle accounts with the life within the fallen sphere and cross over.
The nation and world we desire are not a nation and world in a position to be shed like this present one. Crossing over this, we must go forth toward a nation and world of a new ideology. That nation and that world are the nation and the world that we Unification Church people desire. Therefore, we must here found a new nation and a new world.
Considered from our standpoint of having to found a new nation and a new world, before hoping for a nation, one must form a people. Without a people within a new awakening, such a nation cannot arise.
Furthermore, before hoping for a people, there must be a tribe that stands within a new awakening. Without such a tribe, a people cannot be formed. And for a single tribe to be formed, there must be families that stand upon a new ideology.
Accordingly, for a new family to be born, there must likewise be an individual who has made a new awakening. Without the individual awakening, one can neither become a new individual nor form a new family.
From this viewpoint, when we consider our Unification Church today, there must be an individual who has made the new awakening that God desires, and through that individual a single family must be formed.
Furthermore, through that family a tribe, through that tribe a people, and through that people a nation and a world must be formed. We must newly awaken to the fact that such a high-dimensional system is connected to my individual self.
The Work of Those Who Have Awakened
Compared with some saint or sage of history, or when we once come face to face with them, without becoming a substance that has awakened and resolved, in which a clear determination of the awakened left and right can be made, one cannot found a new history.
From this viewpoint, when we compare the standpoint at which our Unification Church has awakened today with the standpoint of the saints and sages of the past, or the patriots who, centered on some thought, ideology, and sphere of life, awoke of themselves, resolving to love all the people of the nation, if a nation, or the world, if the world, and to break open new fields and push through difficult environments—if we lose to such historic figures, we cannot gather history, cannot found the age, and cannot found a new future.
Should this be so, needless to say, we cannot behold the departure of a newly awakened world. Therefore, we must stand in a place beyond that.
Until now, many saints and sages revered worldwide have come and gone. Ones like Jesus, Confucius, and Sakyamuni came and went. Seeing the corruption of the age and the environment of society, they sought, from a standpoint opposed to it, single-handedly to push out that society and settle accounts with it. And there, centered on the view of society they held, the view of the nation they held, the view of the family, and the view of character they held, they sought to establish a new field. You must know that in this there was adventure involved.
The more difficult the environment, the more, in proportion, before the saints and sages who appeared holding a new awakening, adventure was involved. You must also know the fact that there the adventure of the nation was involved, the adventure of the people and tribe was involved, and personal adventure was involved, coming face to face with them.
Accordingly, being in a lonely place amid such adventure, one must hold a character centered on an awakened heart that can cross over the environment that presses in, rather than being ruled by the environment that presses in.
However wretched an environment presses in, only when that character does not change can one remain an awakened being who can gather that environment.
We know the facts that many saints and sages fought the environment at the risk of their lives. Then if Jesus went such a road from an awakened standpoint, did Jesus himself have a family, tribe, people, nation, and world from an awakened standpoint? He did not.
Jesus had an inner-minded nation and world of desire, but he departed on the cross without having a substantial, actual nation and world.
That is why Jesus must come again and set up, actually and substantially, the nation and world of desire he inwardly longed for. In other words, because there remains for Jesus the mission of founding a new world upon this earth, holding a nation and world he can boast of within his sphere of life, he must come again and complete that mission.
Then from what standpoint are we, the awakened, today?
We must take responsibility, inheriting the world of hope Jesus desired and being able to bring it to accomplishment within our sphere of life beneath the actual foundation of society, and we must stand in a position where we can, holding a conviction awakened beyond even Jesus, face that world, face the nation, face the people, tribe, and family, and face the individual.
It is a fact that, without standing in such a standpoint, one cannot achieve upon this earth the Kingdom of Heaven of desire that Jesus wishes for.
Accordingly, when our Unification Church itself is said to hold an ideology that can make the whole universe, or the world, one, a person awakened within that ideology comes to have, as said until now, the authority to join together the many saints and sages from a dignified standpoint.
The Value of the Awakened Substance
When comparing past and present, what is the center of that comparison?
You must know that it is not the historic figures of bygone days but our wretched individual selves who are fighting in the actual environment of today.
Yet from what standpoint are our Unification Church members now?
They are in a standpoint of having lost their present position. They are forgetting how great and how much historic value the present standpoint they must awaken to holds.
What is it that the many prophets and martyrs, passing through the course of history, have sought until now?
It is the band of the Unification Church that stands at the present point today. That is, they came forth seeking an awakened figure.
Therefore, though we ought to hold fast to the standpoint of having awakened, we often feel that our Unification Church family members are in a standpoint contrasting with the historic desire.
When we consider the age in which the great figures of history lived, in the very time they lived, there was a background historic age, there was the actual age they lived in, and there was the future age they desired.
Who is the fruit body of that?
It is the awakened figures of our Unification Church of this age today. What they desired, settling accounts with the past and present, was a single substantial world of the awakened future.
All of you, even adding together the whole awakened value they held in that age, the whole value of the desire that history has hoped for, and the whole value of desire of that age, cannot even be compared with the substantial value of us today.
Even if they add to the whole historic value and the whole value of the age, their very selves standing in the subject position, they must bow their heads before the awakened figure of the Unification Church that must appear today as the fruit of desire.
From such a standpoint, though there is an enormous social value by which, when we call up a historic great figure, he can be resurrected, and when we achieve his desire, he can be brought to fruit together with us upon this earth, there are many who forget this.
Suppose there is some splendid family lineage in society.
If the descendants of that family have relics inherited from their ancestors, it is the attitude the descendants of that family should take whenever they face those relics: to straighten their collars, revere the value of their historic ancestors, and seek to commune with the ancestors.
Yet we have not stood in a standpoint where the ancestors in the spiritual world, beholding descendants who honor and cherish them, can praise us, saying,
“Oh! You, as my beloved descendant, have fulfilled the responsibility you rightly should; you are surely my filial child, my descendant.”
We, Who Have Been Called Before the Age of History
One thing we must know here is that, while you revere your ancestors, you must become a person greater than they. And you must hold the resolve to raise a reverberation in the world beyond even the reverberation your ancestors raised in the nation.
Only then does that become a condition by which one can awaken at the Last Days. And only then can what one reveres be connected to the value of the desire one wishes for. But if, from a standpoint that is not so, one makes revering the ancestor one’s first concern, it comes to a result of blocking the road that ancestor must go.
Therefore, in revering Jesus today, we must not stand from the standpoint of revering Jesus alone, but must, from a standpoint of yearning for the value that can commune with the historic desire he longed for, face Jesus straightening our collars.
Only then does that become a foundation on which Jesus can rejoice. Jesus comes to stand in a standpoint where he can rejoice by virtue of it.
Otherwise, one only leaves a condition of han before Jesus. Wouldn't Jesus long for us not merely to end with having revered Jesus, but to know Jesus’ heart and circumstances, make them a model, and go on awakening anew?
Accordingly, not only with Jesus but also when we consider some patriarch of the Way in history, or some leader of an age, they do not wish that their descendants decide only individual value centered on them.
When, taking their thought or ideology as material, one seeks a higher and more precious value and a bond is formed by virtue of the reflection of Jesus, or the patriarch, or the leader, one comes to be able to take over the fact that they bore fruit in the course of history.
When this happens, at the same time as they are brought to fruit as the fruit of history and the age, that very thing they brought to fruit is also brought to fruit in reality. Therefore, without standing in such a standpoint, the ancestors in the spiritual world—that is, the saints, sages, and leaders—cannot pass through a resurrectional actual process upon this earth. This is content introduced in the theory of resurrection within the Principle that the Unification Church teaches.
Seen from this viewpoint, you must know how precious the awakened standpoint is in which we are now placed.
Therefore, we must not, until now, be pushed along by the long standard of history and the standard of the age. We must stand in an awakened standpoint where we can say, “Since I have been called before the age of today, I, who have been called, can also dignifiedly hold historic and epochal value and hold subjectivity.
And only then does there arise a dignified motive by which a partner who will trust me can appear.”
Then from what standpoint is God?
God is in a historic standpoint, an epochal standpoint, and a future standpoint, but He is in a standpoint where He cannot hold subjectivity. That is, He is in a standpoint where He cannot hold subjectivity as the historic Father. That is why He has, until now, walked the han-filled course of Restoration. Because there remains a process of having to save us, who became children of the enemy through the Fall, and make us God’s sons and daughters again, He cannot be in a subject standpoint of having set up sons and daughters holding the authority of historic victory.
Historically it is so, epochally it is so, and in the future too He has not decided a center by which He can escape from it. Because that is something brought about by the human being, it is a natural principle that, without standing in a standpoint of having the human being awaken to it, even God cannot stand in a decisive position together with us. We must know that we are individuals from such a standpoint today.
Thus, what appeared holding a cosmic new view of awakening, so dignified and solemn that even the sum of all values in history cannot exchange for it, and that, compared even with the age, cannot be exchanged, is the Unification Church.
Despite this, when I behold you who are in this Unification Church, you are all too lacking. One cannot find the figure of standing in such an awakened standpoint.
There are many bands who, when they go out into society, can be assimilated there. Many bands can be assimilated to the age and the environment.
How Must One Act for God to Be Present
Many bands are assimilated to this world, in which evil has unfolded and become like leaven, and who dissolve into the leaven of evil. That will not do.
However much leaven of evil there may be, one must become an awakened self who can, in a new sense, blend it into something new.
If you stand thoroughly and completely in an awakened standpoint, then wherever you go, if you go forth centered on yourself, a subjectivity that no one can take possession of will be established.
Regardless of what field one is involved in, if one is in such a standpoint doing such work, there is a subject foundation on which God can accompany one automatically.
Is it not God’s purpose to connect such a point of departure—the individual, if an individual; the family, if a family; the people, if a people; the nation, if a nation; worldwide—and restore a single-level world?
From that viewpoint, how many awakened selves are there within this Heaven and earth who, equipped with the figure of true sons and daughters who can agree with God and can represent past, present, and future, lack nothing for God to come and set up and decide a subject standpoint?
Until now, there have been none. So it is the work of Unification Church members to bring forth these awakened people and decide their standpoint. But the problem is how many people there are who can take this standpoint.
That is why we need a new awakening. Even when eating a meal, one must press this upon oneself, and even when carrying out activity, one must think of this.
Pouring in all the words, deeds, mind, and thought of one’s living, one must move and exist for the sake of this.
Even if one comes to feel indignation and injustice in living, one must, centered on this, grieve when it becomes a minus and rejoice when it becomes a plus. You must become one who can live with such a mind. Such a place is truly unchanging forever.
From such a standpoint, heavenly fortune is turning behind the moral order of our human relations.
If, then, there is a person within human relations who holds such a mind and such a conviction, the heavenly order must without fail come into contact with human order for the law of the harmony of Heaven and earth to appear.
That is why God, who comes seeking the human being, and the human being, who goes seeking God, must meet, and harmony must unfold. Then from there a new bond will be born by which this whole world can make a new departure. That is why you must know that Heaven and earth have, until now, striven infinitely to come into contact.
Therefore, we must embrace such an awakened new person and go forth. Furthermore, from that viewpoint, we must re-evaluate ourselves.
God Has Longed for the Completion of Individual Restoration
However small a field a person is placed in on the actual stage of living, and even a person who lives in a cave, if he is awakened, the cave such a person enters is not a cave. That place is a plotting ground for forming the world into one. It is a plotting ground for founding a new world, I say. The stage on which he acts is not a place where he acts alone, and he too is not a person who is alone.
He comes into contact with all the ideal people of history, comes into contact with all the ideal people of the age to come, and is a person whom God, who comes bearing the ideal, can recognize.
If one thus becomes a person who knows how to grasp through experience an inner foundation and the heart of inner value that no one else can hold, that person will not perish. However anyone strikes at that person, there a reaction arises.
However great a wind, when it meets and strikes a great mountain, that wind retreats. From there we intend to raise a new harmony and overcome that sphere.
Even if you, walking the road of the Unification Church, go alone through a dark world of blackness, you must feel that that dark world is pushed back because of you.
You must feel it with keen nerves that no person of the past ever held. Even in the actual social life of today, you must feel what no saint or sage of the past ever felt.
Holding an earnest hope for the future, you must go feeling joy amid the resolve to advance one step further into the world of earnest hope.
Otherwise, one cannot be perfected as a newly awakened individual. If this individual is not perfected, a newly awakened family cannot be formed, and without a new family coming forth, a new people and new nation cannot come forth either.
That is why our Unification Church steps forth, resolving upon the perfection of the individual. You must know that God has longed so greatly for the completion of individual restoration. To perfect one man, if a man, the six-thousand-year history has taken until now, I say.
Until now God, transcending the age, has placed the overall purpose of the providence of Restoration upon the perfection of one man and taken that as His standard. And centered on that perfected man, He sought to set up one woman and make a model of the perfection of one family; that is Messiah-thought.
You must know the fact that God, centered on this Messiah thought, seeks to make the point of conclusion of the providence of Restoration by setting up a bridegroom and bride. In that way, the foundation of the whole of living is established.
Therefore, you must know that the view of living he set up and the ideology he aims at are a model that all people of later generations must model themselves upon.
People each differ in their figures, but when one lays open their minds and looks, they must be the same. They must be the same as Jesus’ view of living and Jesus’ view of the universe. There must be no difference there.
Just as our faces are all different but the color of our blood is the same, though our figures and all our modes of living and all the historic backgrounds of culture may differ, the thought that flows out as the source of life within must agree with Jesus and agree with the coming Lord.
Otherwise, one cannot achieve living agreement, and the nation and world too cannot be brought into agreement.
You must, awakening anew, decide on a standpoint where God can recognize you and where the past, the reality, and the future to come can recognize you, in a new sense, as awakened figures.
One Must Clearly Know One’s Own Value
When we consider such content, the standpoint of our Unification Church is enormous. It is the crossroads of the past, the crossroads of the present, and the crossroads of the future.
What was hoped for perfection in the past must be crossed here. At some time in the present, it must cross. In the future too, one passes through this crossroads. Because we fell, things must be changed, I say.
Everything from the past until now must be broken through by a new awakening.
The present too must be broken through by a new awakening. The future too must likewise be broken through. Because it must be so, six thousand years have passed.
Then how must this be hereafter?
The standard of the past, the standard of the present, and the standard of the future—these three lines must all be gathered, and a total settlement must be made.
All the labor devoted in the past must be gathered in the present. All the labor devoted in the present must be gathered in the future. And everything hoped for in the future must be gathered there.
Therefore, without standing in a standpoint where one can say that, as the fruit of the three numbers, one has set up the awakened self centered on this substantial world and can say one has decided such content before the universe, one cannot stand in the past, present, and future.
To pass through the cosmic-historic crossroads, what was hoped for coming through the ages must be decided in reality. The past bears fruit in reality, and the future too must behold its point of departure in reality. Furthermore, reality must set out from here.
At some one time in the flowing historic age, these three points of the historic course must cross, centered on our character. Unless you hold such a decisive authority, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Then how must one act?
One’s mode of living must fundamentally change. So one comes into collision. Wherever the Unification Church goes, it is bound to collide. But one must not retreat from the environment of collision. One must break through.
As a newly awakened figure, holding conviction, one must, reforming society and binding the world of evil, establish a standard of conversion in a new field and go forth. In a certain sense, by deciding on that newly awakened standpoint, a new I, a new family, a new tribe, a new people, a new nation, and a new world can be awakened, and a new history can be achieved.
From this viewpoint, the history the Unification Church has walked until now cannot be compared with a history walked for thousands of years without knowing the purpose.
Though the history the Unification Church has walked is short, one must hold an awakened conviction such that one can confidently say that, facing our church, thousands of years of history, or any figure whatsoever, cannot judge it.
In this sense, you must not become one who forgets the value of the history the Unification Church holds and, like the people of churches who believe in Jesus alone, take a standpoint of valuing more the content of the history of Israel.
People often have a desire to forget their value and supplement their value from others. When there is an inner desire to develop worldwide, it is unavoidable, but that is not the essence.
One must clearly know the value one holds and add to it. Without knowing this, one cannot add to it and cannot become the master of history either. Unless a person who is dragged along by history and dragged along by the environment can, holding intellect, digest it and correspond to it….
When we consider our Unification Church history today, that history is short, but it holds a value that is nowhere in the world, that was in no course of history. We must consider that we are historic descendants who can praise the value of a new historic age.
Rather than praising the national treasures of the Republic of Korea, if any, or something that can be the cultural background of the nation, one must praise the substance that can remain in the new course of history.
When we consider the hundred-odd years of history we have walked, one must become a person who knows how to prize, more than anything left behind from the past until now, what has been left behind passing through that historic course, and who can appraise it. A person who forgets and loses is a person who sells off his present awakened self.
It was in the newspaper the other day. Several hundred precious paintings of Korea were sold off by Tenrikyo (천리교) of Japan. Just think of paintings being in a foreign land that is not their homeland. That is a loss to the nation.
The Value of the Unification Church
Seeing this, the historic value that the Unification Church has walked until now, bearing the mission of Restoration to complete the inner mission of six thousand years of history, corresponds to infinite value. Despite this, many forget this.
There are, within the short history of the Unification Church today, national-treasure-like events that all people can embrace for thousands and tens of thousands of ages, more than the precious national treasures held as such in this nation today, or held as such in any nation of the world.
Yet many forget that value. Such a person cannot be regarded as an awakened one who can found a new historic age.
Therefore, we must awaken to the fact that our Unification Church history holds a value that can shine more than history and must awaken to the fact that our present standpoint holds infinite value, more than the value of any society or any sphere of living of this age.
Then, when comparing that awakened standpoint with the standard of the present, is the awakened standpoint better in every respect?
It is not better. Seen outwardly, it is inferior to the present. But considered as a whole, which is more valuable? Seen outwardly, one does not know its value. It has become a self that looks wretched, looks pitiable, looks sorrowful, and looks miserable, but you must awaken to the fact that it has more value than anything in the present world. Do you understand what I mean, all of you? “Yes.”
Though you wander about the streets or live in a difficult standpoint or environment worse off than anyone, the awakened value you now hold is superior to the value any person of the historic age held and can shine for a thousand generations, ten thousand generations.
Therefore, unless you stand in a standpoint where God can recognize you, you become a person who sells off the value of the present. It is the same standpoint as a descendant who, not knowing the value of his nation’s national treasures, sells them off—that is, sells off all the precious things of his nation, the Republic of Korea, if the Republic of Korea, Japan, or Japan. They must receive historic condemnation hereafter.
At the present point, holding the value we possess as an infinite value, we must make this value shine for a thousand generations, ten thousand generations before all the universe. And we must go forth with the confidence to apply it more splendidly than any historic value.
However homely and however wretched that place may be, its value is cosmic-historic. Even if he died away from home, his body that died away from home is not the body of one who died away from home merely as a single person.
You must clearly know that it is a body that died away from home from a standpoint that can leave behind the historic value of a new age.
Accordingly, you must know that all the facts congealed within our present sphere of living are an awakened environment that founds a new age that cannot be exchanged for anything, however gorgeous and dazzling a happiness that could dwell in this world today. That is why tears flow here and difficulties cross here.
You must know that those difficulties and tears become an inner experience that lacks nothing for conquering the age. Without that, one cannot achieve a new world. That is, without that, one cannot convert this world into a new world.
One Must Feel the Value of the Present
From such a standpoint, one must absolutely not be discouraged just because the outer standard falls far short. Furthermore, one must absolutely not stand in a backward standpoint.
You must know that one cannot but pass through that stage. You must become one who knows that the present awakened value is more precious than any actual value of the world.
Even the back veranda of our Unification Church is more precious than the gorgeous, dazzling place of some high-rise building, the place all people can regard as holy. That is why you must feel that even a single speck of dust here, a single breath of air, holds infinite value more than anything in the world.
Then are you so?
People who step into the headquarters church rather say, “Aigo, it is stifling. Aigo, it is stifling.” Some people, having come here, say even the good rooms are all uncomfortable and, just showing off, want to go out and sleep elsewhere. But once one comes to know the true value, even if told to go out and sleep, one will not go.
Those gathered here are not the whole. A person who cannot feel the touch of this sphere of living will come to regret it.
A person who knows how to feel infinitely the value of the present can find the world of the future hereafter and leave behind the authority of the future. But a person who does not know the value of the present must clearly know they cannot form a relationship with the world of the future, however great its value may be. Because the future cannot exist without passing through the present, a person who cannot feel the value of the present infinitely cannot inherit the infinite value of the future.
You must know that the present value of our Unification Church lies in a place centered on the purpose. You must, centered on that, set out toward the future after this hour. When the Teacher’s words end, those words are already entering into the future.
Everything up to the present is gathered by the history of the future. That is, it is not that the present gathers what is of the present, but that the history of the future gathers it up. All that was in the past and present is gathered by the history of the future.
The future refers to what one seeks to do from now on. Once you two people have spoken, that already, forming a reciprocal give-and-take relationship, becomes the future.
Where are good and evil born, and where are good and evil decided?
They are decided in the process of the present and future. They are decided not in the process of past and present, but in the process of present and future, I say.
A Being Pushed Out of the Present Cannot Be Gathered in the Future Either
A person who fails to discover here that the amount of goodness of the present and future is greater than the amount of goodness of the past and present cannot remain as a being of the awakened world.
Accordingly, you must know that it is our very selves today who have divided present and future.
Because we must go seeking a greater world of the future hereafter, unless we plant a higher value of the future in the actual process, even amid the environment that buffets our very selves today, we cannot become masters of the world of the future.
If, saying “today will do, tomorrow will do,” one rather lays weight on the value of tomorrow more than the value of reality, one perishes.
That is why one must awaken to this standard, in which past and present are connected, centered on reality, and must hold an explosive driving force by which one can set out with an indignation of righteousness stronger, more hopeful, and more thorough than the present.
Only then does the world of the future come folding in before us. But the future does not want people who are discouraged, saying, “The present is such-and-such.”
A being pushed out of the present must be settled in the present; it is not a standard that can be gathered and set out in the future.
Only when one pushes out the difficulty of the present, bears the labor, and can settle accounts with the whole of the present is the standard of departure for the future established. Therefore, one must know how important reality is.
You say that when you awake from sleep and open your eyes, today comes. That today comes—no, the thing called today—is different from the sphere of the past connected to bygone days and this present hour. By today’s coming, tomorrow at once draws near before us.
Today my individual standpoint pursues tomorrow’s family standpoint, and today’s family standpoint comes to pursue tomorrow’s tribal standpoint.
Furthermore, today’s tribal standpoint pursues tomorrow’s national standpoint; today’s national standpoint pursues tomorrow’s world standpoint.
To pursue a greater field and to embrace and serve it, there must be a stimulating matrix that can be added on more strongly and powerfully. And in pursuing it, one must be of one mind. Yet one puts down roots and works hard for a year, two years, or at first about three years, and then just stops. That is the same as a dog or a pig. A dog or a pig, when spring comes, romps about for joy in a great fuss. Then when summer passes and winter comes, it goes, “Aigo!”
We must rest but must not rest untimely. We must sleep but must not sleep untimely. To grow bigger, to grow thicker, we must rest and sleep. Then, even if the world that will judge you seeks to drag away your past, which set out from the Unification Church, it cannot drag it away.
The present standpoint of the Unification Church cannot be dragged away by any actual world, try as it might. No one can swallow up the Unification Church. No one can conquer the Unification Church members. And the road of desire that the world has hoped for until now cannot but be this Unification Church. There can be no other road.
The history of the past was more brilliant than our history now. Accordingly, this is how education is done. Considered centered on national history, that our national history, the Republic of Korea’s history, perished for such reasons, and the ancestors of America, if America, flourished for such reasons—this can be set up as a standard for teaching history hereafter.
It can be set up as a standard by which the age can be gathered, I say. You must stand in a standpoint where you can be so.
Become the Leading Actor of the History of Restoration
You have until now entered the Unification Church and lived offering devotion for God’s sake. There were times when you struggled to work for the purpose, but there were probably also times when a mind arose, saying, “Everyone else is not doing it, so why must I alone do it? I will just follow along suitably.” This is selling off the foundation cultivated until now. It is the same as an individual selling off everything that could be a historic national treasure, I say.
Your movement of the past until now does not remain with you as a single individual. It is a thing of the nation and the world that can shine forever in the history of the Unification Church.
Despite this, many villainous elements sell it off personally. Do you know such a thing, all of you? There are many, I say, who by themselves quietly sell off what is a thing of the nation, a treasure among treasures the world can boast of, a jewel among jewels.
Seen from the spiritual world, the Teacher is speaking important words. In fact, such words as these ought to be given as a sermon, but I am speaking them now.
You go out and carry out activity and come back, and now you are just nodding off and dozing, but the content of the Word is content one must absolutely not doze over. Because dozing, seen from the spiritual world, becomes selling off the Word; if you get drowsy when you go to some group, you must come out at once. Why become a minus to that group? Rather, do not go, I say.
Some people doze off thoughtlessly. One must not, by so doing, sour the insides of the one speaking. You, too, must be weary, but the Teacher is weary too. The Teacher rose at two in the morning. So the weariness is the same.
All of you, how precious is this hour today?
If you grow worn out, you sell off your treasure. Yet you would say you went hungry for years for the sake of the purpose. Anyone who has gone hungry, raise your hand. There will be many. At any rate, raise your hand. This is our lot today. The Teacher too has received many meals as handouts.
We must hold a mind like leading actors who stand on a stage. In a scene of shedding tears, if the tears flow, one becomes a family member of that household.
Seeing such a thing, one’s heart must be choked, and one must wail. A person who moves feeling deep emotion is like a leading actor.
Just imagine that you have become the leading actor of the history of Restoration.
Even asking for a meal and receiving it as a handout—how splendid it is! People will say, “Ah, at such a historic point in time, a new righteous man has appeared.”
If you hold such value, even the aunties treat you well. But a person who, saying, “A meal! Receiving a meal as a handout? Aigo, how shameful.
For a man to receive a meal as a handout—my grandfather told me, however badly off, never to become a person who receives meals as handouts, and my father said so too, yet having entered the Unification Church, I go about receiving meals as handouts!” and who stares blankly at a far-off mountain—such a person perishes.
Such a person does not last long. He does not last three years or seven years. While saying he will keep going, behind the scenes he is packing his bundle.
Of course there is much hardship. But how splendid is that hardship? How splendid it is, I say. God comes to the place of hardship.
Suffering Hardship for the Purpose Is a Treasure
In founding the Unification Church history, how many are there who strive to inherit for themselves all the time they have moved until now, embrace it in their bosom as their treasure, and resolve to leave it as a treasure of their household?
Until now, in moving about, I wore my work shoes or sneakers until they had only a top and no sole. It could not but be so. Being in a standpoint of going about receiving meals as handouts, could I buy and wear shoes?
Dirt gets stuck between the toes, but I wear them and go about, I say. Even so, you cannot know how good that taste is.
When will you do so for the sake of the purpose?
The shoes I wore while walking are material that can be a great eloquence for thousands and tens of thousands of years. Without the present time that gathers that one time, our ideology cannot make its value reverberate before the beings of this world. For fragrance to reverberate, wind must blow.
In a spring garden where a mild wind does not blow, fragrance cannot reverberate. The spring breeze must scatter in all directions for the fragrance to reverberate. It is the same with our ideology. It is because the Teacher knows such a thing that he speaks of it.
When the Teacher was in Hungnam Prison for about three years, the clothes I wore at the ammonium-fertilizer factory, the ones that had become unwearable, especially things like underclothes, I would pull all the threads out of and make into a bundle of rags and cover myself with it and sleep. Then people would crowd around in a swarm.
If the people of the world had seen it, they would have said, “That fellow will later run a rag-bundle business!” In that way I kept intact all the clothes worn for three years. And I came out carrying that bundle of rags.
If it remained in the Unification Church now, it would be a worldwide treasure. To look at, it is not worth a penny, but if it existed, a wordless eloquence would continue forever for hundreds of millions of ages. Do you understand what I mean, all of you?
How precious is the value of the reality that can mine out such a treasure! When I awaken to the value of bearing a historic mission, the road I walk remains as a standard that descendants of later generations of history can follow hereafter.
From the garden of bonds with many twists and turns and many accounts, from the region where such accounts are entangled, one will broadcast toward the world forever.
How precious is the one place, the one time, that can leave behind such a shining value!
You must know how precious is the place where, going without eating and suffering hardship challenged, one writhes at the wretched crossroads of death, resolving to save Heaven and earth.
Hardship That Can Plant Infinite Value
You, too, will become ancestors hereafter. Therefore you must, in your generation now, within the present difficult sphere of living, seek and leave behind a treasure by which your descendants can, for a thousand ages and ten thousand ages, forever uphold your spirit and boast of the value of you, their ancestor. You must know that this is what your present standpoint should do.
The more comfortable the outwardly unfolding environment, the smaller that value becomes; the more precious, the more the outer environment cannot but be lonely, cannot but be sorrowful, and cannot but suffer injustice and indignation.
If, in such a place, the anguish you suffer comes to remain as a worldwide anguish, with that one event, one can completely take possession of the world.
In such a place, a motive that can completely bring the world into submission and wealth and treasure that can completely take possession of the world are unearthed. Thinking that I am passing through such a single moment, even if the whip comes upon my back, even if the spearpoint comes to my breast, I could not lament.
Present hardship becomes infinite value, I say. Even if the Teacher now sought to betray and be discouraged, he could not, because the living history of bygone days needs me. Because the entangled bonds of the present are so enormous, I cannot but lead them all along.
When I consider that, as time draws near, the world is connected to me and flows along to set history in the right direction, I cannot think of anything else, try as I might, and cannot grow weary, try as I might.
My present mission and position cannot be exchanged for money and cannot be exchanged for anything in the world. The fact that one can here plant and leave behind an infinite value that is the only one in the world is an enormous and precious thing.
You must know that it will not do for you, not knowing this, to enter the Unification Church and swagger.
People generally seek the value that appears in reality. The source of life does not lie in what appears.
All of you, what do you think the source of life is? Does it appear?
Do you know your source of life? Where is the source of life?
Is it in the heart? It is not the heart. The source of life is not well known. It is not made manifest. What is bonded to the value of treasure does not lie where the multitude, saying “Wow!” seizes hands and swarms in. It lies in the midst of what everyone does not know.
Greatness is not shaped in the place where everyone says, “Wow! how great.” When people say “Wow!” it has already become nothing but a shell. That greatness begins decades before, at a time one cannot know.
When we consider a tree, where does the value of the tree lie?
One might say there is value in cutting the tree and using it, or in building a house with it, or that there is value even in a human being’s using the dead tree itself, but by no means. The value of the very life of the tree lies in the root, which does not appear. However luxuriant and abundant its leaves, they all fall away.
However good its branches are, they get cut off. But the root cannot be cut off. Is it not so? You must know that, all of you.
Today the Unification Church must be making a new awakening before the road it must go.
If, not knowing how infinite a value that has been set out until now holds, one sells off all one’s own treasure, a day will without fail come when one says, “Aigo, that was a treasure like no other in the world.”
You do not know your value, but you must, knowing that value, live to take possession of that value and live to make it your own. When countless people offer an infinite price and seek to buy it, if you do not know its value, you are apt to become a person who can sell it off for a single penny, I say.
Are you in such a standpoint, or in a standpoint that is not? Which is it? As the Teacher sees it, most are people who could be so.
Even though the Teacher today speaks, saying, “Do public work,” one says, “Aigo, even if I do public work, is there anything in it for me? My sons and daughters have come to go hungry, and however much I work, there is not even a drop of broth left over.” When someone says, “Hey, I will give you ten thousand won,” one says, “Hey, tell the Teacher I have some business today,” and off one gladly goes there. Here too there are many such loafing rascals, I say. There are many, I say, of a band-like traitors who are impure-minded, who sell off history, and sell off the nation. If the Unification Church Teacher had been so, what would have become of things?
When we consider the fact that the past, present, and future of the Unification Church are planted to be able to sprout with infinite value, we must plant with the mind, “May the tree I plant grow well and gently for a thousand ages, ten thousand ages.” We must plant the purest thing. Selecting and selecting, we must plant the true thing.
We must plant, in a holy place, a true seed that, once planted, cannot but sprout. We must plant it, shedding blood and sweat and offering every devotion.
Let Us Awaken Anew
If one offers devotion, it is an undeniable fact that God will come and seek this place. And when we can gather, as God’s own, all the final historic value and what I have cultivated on that road, we can become God’s eternal sons and daughters. In that sense, you must become one who knows how to awaken. Do you understand what I mean?
The historic past has flowed away, and the present age too is flowing away with nothing left. Many presents have flowed away into the past. In God’s world of the ideal of creation, there is not a single thing like a museum. The bands of the enemy must be completely burned up.
Yet hereafter the Unification Church can remain centered on the bond of history. Precious treasures that can enter the museum to be kept within the garden God desires, at the center of the nation God desires, have begun to arise in the actual environment of our Unification Church today.
So we must make a new awakening in reality. Our past holds infinite value more than the past of any historic age, our reality holds infinite value more than the reality of any age, and our future holds infinite value more than the future of any people. That is why it is a character reflected in infinite value, an infinite family, an infinite tribe, and an infinite thought, I say.
Accordingly, when we consider that feeling worth here, living here, fighting here, and shedding tears here becomes an infinite worldview, and that laboring here remains as merit of an infinite world, where is there anything more worthwhile than this?
Since I have come to know my value, whatever the world may revile, whatever the world may say, it is a natural principle that one must go seeking the value one has realized.
All of you, suppose there is a diamond mine here. If there were such a place that only one person knew, what would one do? Would one, without others knowing, take out a license or not?
For its sake, a case may arise where one must sell even one’s own family.
If selling one’s own wife, one saves countless families; that is not a sin.
If, by selling one’s own child, one saves countless sons and daughters of that nation, that too is not a sin. But one must not sell for the sake of one’s own greed.
Accordingly, when that mine is a road that can save this nation and these people, and a road by which the human beings of all the world can live, then selling one’s wife and child to take out that license does not become a sin of history. It seems it would not do to sell one’s wife or child to save the nation, to save the world, but there, on the contrary, the source of a treasure that the world can praise can dwell.
All of you, let us think. What kind of road is the road we are now going on at present?
It was said to be the final road. So one must know how to feel that worth infinitely. One must once again make a new awakening. You are, from a historic standpoint, doing everyday work that will be judged.
In that sense, you must know that a new awakening is needed. Do you understand? “Yes.”
Father, though we hold up empty hands, we have come to know that we possess infinitely.
O Father, we first give thanks before the Father, who has walked a laborious road until the Unification Church was born into this world today. It is not that the Unification Church, to rise to this place, gathered property and came forth. It has walked this road, leaving behind a bare body, traces of tears, and traces of wretched wounds.
Yet, because we know how greatly the Father labored to leave behind this gathering and this group, we cannot but give thanks once again before the Father.
Father, though we set out with empty hands, we now stand in a standpoint where we envy nothing. It is not that we need money, nor that we need power, nor that we need any culture of the world.
What we crave, more needful than that, even while going hungry, is God’s love, the love of parents, the love of husband and wife, and the love of children.
We are pursuing a family centered on the Heavenly Father, in the longed-for homeland where the beloved Heaven and earth can rejoice. Father, is there anything in the world of more value than such a family?
Though gold, silver, and treasures be piled as high as a great mountain, what is there beyond the bond of that family centered on the love of parents, the bond of siblings centered on the parents?
Because we came to know that this is what the Father has sought, grant us clearly to know, we earnestly hope and desire, that we have become laborers of unification to leave behind an infinite value here, to rejoice here and resolve here, and become ones who connect the motive by which history can be founded.
In the long course of history, sorrowful tears have flowed. We know that in every environment where man and woman met, a sorrowful account passed by, and at the ridges of history, the lamentation of Heaven was drawn out; so grant, we earnestly hope and desire, that we today may form families in which man and woman are one, relieve the Father’s han, and become an iron-fast bridgehead that can defend against the enemy.
From such a standpoint, we must find ourselves, find the family, find the tribe, find the people, find the nation, and run to a newly awakened world.
When we come to know that we are selves who must go without rest even today, grant us to know how to pioneer tomorrow’s self even in bed, and when we consider that within today’s han-filled course of laborious travel there remains tomorrow’s road, grant that we may forget today’s weariness and, thinking of tomorrow, go forth overflowing with hope centered on Heaven and earth. Grant, we earnestly hope and desire that we may become Thy children who know how to go forth, propped up by Heaven’s strength when our strength is weak, and borrowing the strength of the earth when our selves are lacking.
Father, today is the Sabbath. Though the many people upon this earth who call Thy name and follow Thee have heard the word to keep the Sabbath holy, many move forgetting their mission of attending Thee.
Father, protect Thy young children gathered here today. Though today is a holy day, even for those who fail to keep it as a holy day and are in a standpoint of being unable to attend this hour, console their minds and protect the road they go.
Grant them to feel all the more that this place is a place of offering sacrifice for these people, a place of worshiping before the Father, and grant that this morning, with a tearful heart, we may once again connect our stage of activity to this capital city of Seoul.
Grant that our walking figure may not be wretched and shabby, and grant that we may become Thy children who can march as strong and bold figures of Heaven’s brave warriors who can conquer the world, as figures of loyal devotion who can, following the Father’s command, attack and charge the enemy. We earnestly hope and desire it.
When sorrow overflows and pierces to bone and flesh, grant us to embrace the Father in that mind, and in a place where tears cross, grant that we may not shed tears centered on ourselves, our kin, our nation, and our ideology, but may become newly awakened figures who can shed tears for the sake of the family, tribe, people, and humankind centered on God, and grant, we earnestly hope and desire, that Thou wilt make us new laborers who can compile Heaven’s new history.
Grant, we earnestly hope and desire, that this may be an hour in which these today, in the sense of truly loving the Father, offer worship and worship before the Father.
From now on, in the period that remains, whatever road we go, be with us, Father, and grant that we may love the Father with single-hearted devotion and work for the development of the purpose. Grant, we earnestly hope and desire, that we may not become ones who lose the position Thou hast set up for us as warriors of liberation, to resolve the han of the people and liberate all the people of the world.
Father, grant us to know that all the remaining facts of history are beholding us, and grant us to know that the many peoples and the many national spheres are calling us.
Since we know that, even if our feet are wounded, there remains a mission to drag those feet and go, grant that we may become Thy sons and daughters who know how to writhe, resolving to go toward that place.
We must go even at night, must go even in dreams, and must, with open eyes, without fail, go while alive; so we believe that the Father will be with us forever and ever before the road we go bearing the mission.
Because we hold the same circumstances as the Father and are in the same situation as the Father, we know that that road is a place where the Father’s tears follow, a place where the Father’s lamentation can be met, and a place where the Father’s plight and loneliness can dwell together. And because that road can be the place closest before the Father, we know that it is a place where the Father can come and console us. Grant that a mind wishing to die together with the Father’s voice of consolation may pierce us, even though it means dying a thousand times, ten thousand times.
We wish to go from a place where we receive the Father's command and where the Father consoles us. Even a place of being whipped, even the crossroads of death—is that not our desire?
Is it not the proper duty of one who is a son, the duty a son and daughter must go?
Since we are Thy sons and daughters who hold such a resolve, grant that Thou wilt not forsake Thyself on the road these go, and grant, we earnestly hope and desire, that we may become Thy children who, when we stand in a place of shedding tears, a place of sighing in loneliness, know how to live with all our feelings centered on the Father, thinking first of the Father’s tears and thinking first of the Father’s sighs.
When we consider that all the accounts folding into all the nations of the world approach and enter in connection with our purpose, we cannot but feel a pressing urgency such that we cannot rest, try as we might.
Grant us to know how to, joining both hands, prostrate before the Father’s holy sanctuary, and, keeping holy vigil through the night, be concerned for the Father’s purpose, be concerned for the Father’s work, and, holding the mission of having to take responsibility for it, be concerned for the mission of Restoration.
Thereby grant us to become Thy sons and daughters who lack nothing to receive, in Thy nation, the name of loyal subjects and virtuous women, and also the name of filial sons and filial daughters.
Since we know the fact that, if there are many such sons and daughters in Korea, Korea can come to lead the world, grant that, as the Father’s sons and daughters holding the spirit of Korea, whom tradition calls and tradition seeks, we may lack nothing to stand before this people.
Earnestly asking that noble beings who can, in the world, become a single substance that gathers past, present, and future, that the world of the past beholds, the world of the present beholds. The world of the future can behold, may live here and cultivate a foundation here; we earnestly hope and desire it.
Earnestly asking and desiring that we may become sons and daughters who, for the sake of tomorrow, know how to praise the value of today, and sons and daughters who, resolving to offer tomorrow before the Father, know how to bow the head and pray, we have offered up all these words in the holy name of the True Parents. Amen.