As you also know, today is the last day of May. May comes to a close today, and from tomorrow we come to greet June. Before we knew it, spring had passed and summer had drawn near before us.
When this summer season passes, autumn will come to us, and when autumn passes, winter, and after that spring will come again, and a year will pass. We know that what passes so fleetingly is what we call the years.
Human History Is Like a Woman in Travail
When we look centering upon the Will, what sort of relationship must this Will form with the passing of time?
When we consider a single event, until that event occurs there is a motive, there is a process, and there is a result. And only when that result appears is whether it is good or bad decided. It means that whether the purpose set up at the time of departure has been attained is decided by the result that appears.
If a person who hoped for a result of one hundred has obtained a result greater than one hundred, then all the days spent to obtain that result, that is, all the time that flowed from the motive through the process, all the hours, and all the years, at last come to possess absolute value, and that person can make his claim concerning it. But if he aimed at a result of one hundred and this did not become one hundred, or if it brought about a result of failure, then all the time from that motive through the process becomes a time of bitter resentment, a time of sorrow, a time one does not even wish to recall. In the same way, when we look at the flowing historical ages centering upon the Will, the most important question is with what content the result that history has left behind is determined together with the Will.
If the Will is great, there will be an expending of time proportional to that greatness. And to fulfill the Will, human toil must be invested there together with time.
When we consider whether that into which not only time but also much human effort was invested has rather brought about a result of expenditure or whether it has brought about a result sufficient to gather entirely and even repay the content invested there, the question arises of whether the time and human toil invested in that period which has passed became sorrow or became joy.
Yet victory and defeat are not determined over a period of several decades. They are determined in a single moment. Even when we consider our lifetime, the moment in which you are born is not a long time.
Of course there is the period in the womb before birth, but that period of ten months in the womb is a period of preparation for the single moment of birth.
However well one has prepared during those ten months, if one does not cross that decisive single moment well, the baby that is born meets with a fate of misfortune.
That one has steadily raised it as a safe living being for a period of ten months is to adorn that single moment of birth. In other words, it means that the age in the womb exists for the sake of that single moment of the purpose that beholds birth. Therefore, however excellent the age in the womb may have been, if one errs in the single moment of birth, the result cannot but be one of misfortune.
A woman in travail undergoes suffering. The moment of giving birth is a crisis of suffering among sufferings, difficult to overcome. We know that on the one hand unspeakable suffering follows, but that on the other hand, unspeakable joy is connected with it.
Therefore, even the mother who groaned at the height of suffering, beholding the child that has been born, bears a new hope with a face of joy. Just as a new departure unfolds from there, we cannot deny that human history too has developed while pledging a moment of travail and inheriting it. It means that centering upon God’s Providence, human history has aimed at one purpose. This we know well through the teaching of the Principle.
The Course of the Will That We Must Walk
When the individual purpose is completed, that completed result becomes the motive for the family purpose; and when the family purpose is accomplished, that becomes the motive of a new tribal purpose that aims at yet another purpose.
When the tribal purpose is accomplished there, that is newly made the motive for accomplishing a national purpose, and after the purpose of the people is accomplished, aiming newly at one goal, the purpose of the state is accomplished.
We know that the course of the Will we must walk is that, passing through the bond of the state, one victorious sphere must be prepared for the world.
From this viewpoint, when we look centering upon one worldwide sphere of purpose, if there is a person who says that within his generation he will accomplish one sphere of purpose victoriously on the world level, he must first be equipped with an individual sphere of victorious purpose and must be equipped with a family sphere of victorious purpose and must again connect that to tribal, national, state, and worldwide spheres of victorious purpose. If one is not equipped with all of these, one cannot take part in the age of the worldwide purpose.
If there is such an individual, that individual’s history possesses world-historical content. And that content becomes victorious content that transcends the history of a people. Such people are the historical prophets who went forward, inheriting the result of victory before the Will.
We know that what they established vertically as merit (공, 功) must be indemnified horizontally in the Last Days. If thousands and tens of thousands of forebears all did this work in the vertical course of history, then when we consider whether the countless people of today can indemnify that horizontally, it would be good if that could be so, but it cannot be so.
Though countless people have passed through a course of pioneering in the historical ages, a purpose is not accomplished without concentrating on the whole. For example, it is the same as a single fruit being a substantial thing that has concentrated the vital force that was held in the tree and the seed throughout the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter.
Likewise, when we consider the purpose of the universe, the purpose of history, or the purpose of humanity, there must be interposed within that purpose itself a life that can concentrate all the content of the course of history. A being possessing an active subject authority is not to be absorbed into the sphere of some age; rather, it must have the power to absorb the sphere of that age. That is, it must possess its own power. It means that one must not be dragged along by countless prophets but rather must become a subject who can absorb and concentrate what the prophets built up. Otherwise, the fruit, that is, the purpose, cannot be accomplished.
From this viewpoint, we have greeted an age in which the things pursued by the countless prophets and martyrs, or the meritorious ones, who came and went upon the vertical course of history can be brought to fruition. Yet when it is asked whether the vertical historical ages can be identified horizontally, centering upon the countless people of the present, it is not so.
Therefore, one fruition must be prepared. That fruition must possess a subjectivity of life that can concentrate the prophets and martyrs of the course of history.
When a being possessing such subjectivity appears, the center is determined. That center transcends all the conditions of trial of spring, summer, autumn, and winter and possesses a self-confidence that can absorb and overcome all the conditions of suffering that collide against it. We must know that unless one stands in such a position, one cannot become a being of new fruition.
Likewise, about the one purpose that must be brought to fruition historically, the substantial being that must accomplish that purpose must appear upon this earth. This is unavoidable. That subject, seen from God’s position, is one result that can stand in place of the world-historical fruition.
Though countless people upon the course of history passed through until now have the merit of having sown the seed of God’s word and having tended it, when the substantial being of the historical purpose appears, who can concentrate the merit of them all and gather it up as one fruition? No one can boast before that substantial being. That is because that substantial being can absorb any individual or family raised throughout history until now. Therefore, it means that he must be able to absorb any tribe or people or nation whatsoever and must become a subject being who can make the world one.
Human History for the Sake of Greeting a Single Moment
The age in which that can be done is a moment upon the flowing course of history, and this is an exceedingly short period. There will be a person who greets such a moment, but that person must weigh out and fit his whole life to that moment.
This is an exceedingly difficult thing. At this point, in which we discuss the history of humanity that has passed through hundreds of millions and tens of millions of years, how difficult a thing it is to be perfectly equipped with the standard and fit it to that time with a short life of seventy years!
Yet it is not I alone who has hoped to fit that time. The countless people who came and went in the course of history until now, the countless human beings capable of reflection, have thought of that time.
However vaguely, centering upon a standard, they have toiled and offered devotion until now or have fought to fit their lives before that standard and to be adjusted by that standard.
When we infer from such a fact, we can say simply that history is a history of struggle and a history of war. Then why has human history come to be a history of war? The historical ideologies presented by some dictator or great man, or by some revolutionary, and the historical courses of struggle were all to get that moment into their hands. Therefore, it means that the history of war is a means of obtaining that moment.
The countless grieving spirits that vanished in the midst of such tragic wars also fought in the end to establish the starting point of such a purpose and fought to obtain such a victory and fought, saying that they would somehow adjust themselves and determine the bond of that moment. In other words, it means that centered upon each individual, the universe was mobilized and struggled to greet a moment.
Yet it is not that all individuals can meet that time simply because they seek such a time. Only one particular person can meet it. That person’s departure will be the highest, and the result that person leaves behind will be the final result. It is one person capable of that who comes to meet it.
Yet even that one person who can greet that bond has a limit to his existence, and so it is not that a whole lifetime, seventy years if it be seventy years, can be bound to it. Some one moment within the lifetime is bound to the historical moment, and in that single moment the point of resolution is accomplished. God comes seeking the time when such a person and the time God has presented are connected.
The coincidence of that person and that time is accomplished shortly. Within a short life, a short day; and even within that short day, not the whole of it, but a brief moment less than a twenty-fourth part. In other words, though there will be one summit that will determine victory or defeat in cosmic history, that determination of victory or defeat is not a matter of several days, nor of several hours. It is determined in the very instant of a tick. History until now has been accomplished in this way.
Today the world is moved by a few international statesmen and politicians. Centering upon America if it be America, upon the Soviet Union if it be the Soviet Union, a mere handful of world statesmen hold conferences to resolve whether humanity prospers or perishes. Though such a conference is centered upon historical bonds over a long period, its decision is made shortly. Both meeting and parting are accomplished in the instant of a tick, and victory too is determined in the instant of a tick. It means that it comes about in a single moment.
The Road That Wise Men Walk
Foolish people today prefer the plain to the high ground, but people of purpose seek the high ground and climb it. That is what differs. Therefore, those who until now have walked the road of the Way were not people who offered devotion centering upon the plain, but people who offered devotion centering upon high mountains. It means that they were people who sought the high ground and climbed it. They were people who sought an independent road subject to no one’s interference, no one’s invasion, in which no one could meddle. Such people, in a special place and centering on a special person, pursued a special event that God could remember, and all humanity could remember, and the whole universe could remember.
From such a position, the problem presented to you is the dividing point of life and death. It is the dividing point of prosperity and ruin and the dividing point of good and evil, and at the same time, for you it will become the dividing point of your life course. When we look centering upon the family, the dividing point of the family is likewise. There will be a moment in which joy and sorrow (희비, 喜悲) cross through an instant. There is such a dividing point in the destiny of the state as well, and there is such a dividing point in the destiny of the world as well.
Then where does the wise man go seeking? Here is where the difference arises between the wise man and the one who is not. The wise man is a person who goes toward the high ground, braving danger and beholding the summit. Such a person will rule the age and will rule history. He will rule everything on the world level.
Therefore, you must become people who can invest life and property entirely for the sake of that single moment. You must become people possessing the power within themselves to join all the bonds of history and cause them to explode.
Therefore, the person who rules a nation must know how to make a bold decision. A person who does not possess the authority to determine life and death cannot rule a nation. In ordinary times he may rule, but in a time of turmoil, it means that he cannot discern and walk a new direction by which the nation may be ruled.
Then how far can you leap toward that moment, that decisive single focal point, that summit? If there were a person who passed through the individual world-historical standard and crossed beyond the family sphere of world-historical decision, he would be the wisest person in all history until now.
Why the Family Must Be Saved
Religion until now has fought centering upon the resolution of individual problems. Every religion has come forth taking one perfect person as its matrix and taking individual salvation as its standard; there has been no religion that came forth centering upon the salvation of the family. In this sense the Unification Church cannot but be a historic religion.
The Unification Church has sought not only individual salvation but also family salvation. When all families are completely saved and made one body, tribal salvation is accomplished; and when that takes form and one sphere of bonds is established from which one cannot escape and it comes to be widened, the formation of a people comes about automatically. Further, when that people fulfills its responsibility, the world is naturally restored through the process of forming a nation.
Therefore, what is fundamental in the composition of society is the true family, that is, the family that God can come and visit. In this sense, the Unification Church speaks of Cosmos-ism (천주주의). This is a new religious view that has not existed in history until now.
Why is the family emphasized?
Because to restore the world, there must first be a true family. In this way, religion must leap from within the sphere of the providential age centering upon individual salvation into the providential sphere centering upon family salvation. This history proves it. That Jesus Christ came to this earth was also to find a family.
In this world there are countless people, but if we divide them broadly into two, they are distinguished as men and women. To seek the secret method by which these can become one is our fundamental purpose. Because until now no origin of such a family of fruition has come forth, we are seeking it out. If such an origin appears and sows seed, it will become a new tree. This is the Blessing of the Unification Church today.
The wise person thinks of how to leap from the individual summit to the family summit. He also thinks of how to leap from the family summit to the tribal summit. Only when there is a person who goes for the sake of that is the family saved, and only when there is such a family is that tribe saved. Again, that tribe must cross beyond the summit of the people, and the people must cross beyond the summit of the state. Next, when the state rides over the worldwide summit, world restoration comes about simply.
In this way, one must cross the seven stages of individual, family, tribe, people, nation, world, and Cosmos. When one crosses these seven stages and rises to the eighth stage, one comes to communicate with God. Therefore, the number eight is the number of a new departure. Hence, in the course of restoration through indemnity, one must make a jump.
Then what is the purpose of connecting the individual foundation of victory to family victory? The purpose of that connection is not for the sake of my family. It means that it is not for my family to live well. Receiving the Blessing of the Unification Church is not for the sake of one’s own family alone. It means that it is not received in order that a man and a woman may like each other. A family without dominion perishes. The establishment of Blessed Families is to be a stepping stone toward Eden all at once. Therefore, we go seeking the family.
Accordingly, you must go forward from an individual being through a family being, a tribal being, a national being, and a state being to a worldwide being. And on the day when it is said that one’s own lifetime has been connected to one point and made one with it, this heaven and earth is perfected within that sphere. And he becomes a universal being.
The Road the Unification Church Members Must Inevitably Walk
When a true individual, a true family, a true tribe, a true people, a true nation, and a true world are accomplished. When that comes about, in that world one can hold a new view of life and be equipped with a new ground for living and form a new nation. The nation thus formed is not a nation formed centering upon some purpose or desire of an individual. Therefore, the families and nations formed until now, centering upon individual desire, are not things to be pleased with.
The road of accomplishing a true tribe, people, nation, and world is not a road anyone can easily walk. One must satisfy the content they require and must become one with that content. Therefore, when one recognizes that one is becoming one with the ground of new hope and the content of a new history, though the road one walks is difficult, one can walk it. If one does not pass through that road, one cannot form a bond with a true tribe, people, nation, and world.
The Unification Church, too, must walk the road of the completion of individual salvation, the completion of family salvation, the completion of tribal salvation, the completion of national salvation, the completion of state salvation, and the completion of worldwide salvation. That road is, in any case, the inevitable road we must walk.
Yet in walking such a road of destiny, the problem is who becomes the subject who can gather everything together and sow it as one seed. You must know that this is determined by the individual’s view of responsibility.
Therefore, according to whether one individual does well or badly, the question of whether the family perishes or prospers is determined. And according to whether the family goes well or badly, whether the countless families to come hereafter perish or prosper is determined; and whether the families that have passed through the course of history until now and the families of the present are resurrected or die is also determined. Not only that, the question of whether the tribe, people, nation, and world hereafter go well or badly is also determined.
Therefore, one family is like one seed. That seed must be sown in the ground and, after passing through spring, summer, autumn, and winter, must be able to greet spring and be sown again.
The Person Who Can Stand Upon the Summit of Cosmic History
Then what sort of person will first meet the one summit of cosmic history?
The central responsible person of whom we have spoken until now will meet it first. Yet the question is in what sort of place he will meet it. Will he meet it in a happy place or in a wretched place? Because the flow of history until now has flowed centering upon misfortune rather than happiness, it will be bound in an unspeakably wretched place.
In a wretched place, centering upon it, what will it be bound? Will it be bound centering upon joy? No. It will be bound centering upon a grim resolve and vow, and it will be decided in a place where trial and event cross.
Therefore, if there is anything you must hasten for the sake of that, you must hasten to the utmost. You must also be tense to the utmost. You must walk in the utmost moments of crisis, in which life and death are decided.
When we say that the moment of whether one dies or lives, the moment in which the pulse is about to be cut off, becomes the decisive factor, the Unification Church today, too, must depart from such a place. Otherwise, it will collapse. There must be content such that when one thing bound to the Unification Church is pulled, the whole is drawn along with it, and even God can be drawn along. If that is absent, the Unification Church will be swept away.
If you live with your biases here, what force will pull at your coat-tails?
Even if someone should pull at you, you must say, “I cannot be torn away,” and must not be dragged off. There must be a point of binding such that one can say that if I am dragged off, the whole is dragged off. And thus, one must bring to submission the being that pulls at one. Otherwise, one will be brought to submission before that force.
Satan will without fail carry on such an undertaking to pull you away. Therefore, you must at some moment settle the matter decisively once and for all. Otherwise, you cannot walk the road of the Will.
If You Would Resurrect the Universe
You have learned the principle of indemnity. Therefore, you must go as you have learned in the Principle of the Unification Church. Then Satan will seek to pull you away. That power is stronger than your power. If you are bound to the Principle, he will strike wildly. He will strike even the women without mercy.
Here you must cling fast and not let go, even though your arms be torn out and your waist be severed. It means that even though your legs are broken, cling fast. You must carry on with such an undertaking.
Yet to carry on such an undertaking, one must either possess a powerful force behind one or borrow it from somewhere else. Such a thing must occur. In this way, upon the road of following the Will of the Unification Church, there will be times when one must cling fast and frozen like ice in winter. It means that there are times when one must cling even though the environment is one in which one cannot cling.
In this sense, if one were to come to the Unification Church, one must walk a road of suffering and must pass through an age of persecution like winter. If you are clinging here and Satan drags you off and kills you, then at that time it becomes a dying together with God. Therefore, it means that if they seek to kill us, God strikes. Then who is struck first? Who is struck first?
Your father and mother will seize both your legs, and your brothers will seize both your arms and pull. Because the satanic world too departed from a four-position foundation centered upon Satan, to indemnify that, the parents and brothers of the satanic world seize both your legs and both your arms and join their strength and pull all at once. It must be so. The Teacher too passed through such a process.
Centering upon such a principle, there is the word in the Bible that the members of your household are your enemies.
Where else in the world is there such a saying?
This is content found only in the Bible. Since the members of one’s own household are enemies, it means that parents too are enemies and children too are enemies. Therefore, the Bible is a scripture that has laid bare the nucleus of the great Providence.
Now then! Are you Unification Church members?
Here is Teacher Moon of the Unification Church, but I too am no exception. Having staked my whole life and property and staked all the hope of the world and stepped forth, would I fall away? A man will cast away everything of his own and, to accomplish worldwide conquest, will curse and will use every sort of strategy.
If it were you, would you simply open your mouth and flick your tongue and be dragged along? Will you go to that place where crossroads of death lie strewn across heaven and earth, and there is suffering as of the bones being scraped?
If you say you cannot go, you will ruin it all. Therefore, you must be able to say, “Whether my neck is severed or yours is severed, go ahead and pull.” Then no one can sever it. Only God can sever it. Therefore, even though you die, you must stand in a place where it is said that you died together with God. He who strikes God’s side perishes.
One must have an environmental bond in which God can take part. Therefore, Jesus too prayed,
Abba, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.
Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.” Here the Father’s will is to resurrect the universe. In the process of resurrecting the universe, even though someone should snatch at me, I must remain to the end. To remain, one must use a strategy beyond the strategy of the satanic world and must cultivate a vital force beyond that of the satanic world. One must also be able to walk a road of death beyond that of the Satanic world.
History emerges as a new world by virtue of the source of life, the conditions of victory, and the standard of an absolute shield against evil, which have been bestowed through such effort of God.
The Road That Unification Church Members Walk
Then where is the dividing point upon the course of Teacher Moon of the Unification Church?
Have you thought of that? No one will know it. Even if it were explained, it could not be known. The questions arise of how much definitive content it possesses together with definitive conviction and whether it can reverse the flow of world history and whether it will be broken or the whole will be broken, but one must be able to break the whole.
There is a dividing point in God’s world of heart as well. Then, looking centered upon time, one must know when the final dividing point that God has sought is, the second of that one moment; and who the person is who can greet that second; and at what time and with what heart that person comes.
That time is the instant of a tick and a moment of urgent heart in which even breathing is halted. Whether one perishes or prospers must be watched intently together with the world and history. Thus, it means watching intently to see whether the pulse of the heavenly law (천륜), the pulse of history, and the pulse of the world are joined into one and, connected as an artery or as breathing, are breathed out or breathed in. It means that it is the instant of a tick. Therefore, from there, that is, from the source of life, from the very bottom of life, one must hoist sail and set out and save. Otherwise Satan penetrates again. Therefore, where the foundation of that deep valley is, is the problem that the Unification believers hereafter must know.
The Teacher knows well every phenomenon that appears. He also knows well the content of the history of indemnity that he has pioneered. You must know that content and support that content and become the shield of that content and the framework of that content and become a matrix that can go forward sweeping away evil. Yet to become that matrix, you must find out, even at the cost of investing your life, how that matrix is constituted. There will be something there. From resolving that, the Unification Church develops.
Is that road a road of tears or a road of joy?
In the history of the Unification Church, there has been no road of joy. There has been only a road of suffering, walked in the midst of wretchedness, always driven and pursued. It has been a road of sorrow and a road of suffering, on which, when one crosses a hill and takes a breath, one must cross yet another hill. There remains in my lifetime a road of joy upon which I have not yet set foot.
Now we have come to a time when we can arrive at the summit of the hill that must be crossed, centering upon the individual; the hill that must be crossed, centering upon the family; and the hill that must be crossed, centering upon the tribe, people, and nation. Here there is the question of who loves me more. Who loves the country more?
What sort of person is a patriot who loves the country more?
When we consider the question of whether the present statesmen love the country more, it means that I cannot stand in a position of bowing my head before them and saying that I will take as my model your ardor for loving the country and people.
Therefore, our Unification Church members have until now silently gone through every sort of road of suffering. Until you came out to this place, you would have heard many stories said this way and that about the Unification Church. You will have heard talk that the Unification Church has laid a worldwide foundation and that this is how things are going now, and so forth. The authorities above regard the Unification Church as quite a problem. Once they came to know, they found that it had done a dreamlike thing. It means that it accomplished a thing they could not even imagine doing.
The Value and Mission of Human Beings
Then where lies the purpose of having continued until now a life of overcoming suffering with endurance?
It is to give birth to the one favored child called the nation of tomorrow. This must, without fail, be accomplished.
Then who gives birth to it? Who gives birth to a nation that can lead this people in a new direction and march and advance toward a new world? It is not something a man can give birth to. It is not something President Park himself, if it be President Park, can give birth to. For this, man and God must be joined. It means that man and God must be joined.
Then in the joining of man and God, what becomes the problem?
Matter is not the problem. Matter is not the problem; man is the problem. To the man who can have dominion over matter, all things submit. Therefore, it means that a man capable of that is the problem. Next, what becomes the problem is God. We must know this.
What is regarded as the problem in the Republic of Korea today is how to complete the Second Five-Year Economic Development Plan and how to complete the Third Five-Year Economic Development Plan. Yet even if these are completed, if man perishes, they become of no use whatever. Therefore, there must be a man with power to spare who can govern this and more besides; that is, a true man among men. The Charter of National Education that the government teaches may be equipped with every external ethical form, but it has not been equipped with character within the world of heart. This is a historical sorrow. Yet they do not know this.
Man does not stand upon man. He stands within the support of God. Because man is more precious than goods or matter, and God is more precious than such a man, upon the road of seeking God historically, the work of offering man as a sacrifice was done. It means that for the sake of man, matter must be sacrificed, and for the sake of God, man must be sacrificed.
Therefore, religions possessing a doctrine that can rule history have paid a great price of blood for the sake of God. Such a religion can move the world and can inherit the world. It means that it can rule the material world and the humanity of the world. That is why Christianity today has formed a worldwide Christian cultural sphere and come to rule the world.
Yet here it must not become a Christianity that simply flows away. It means that it must not become a Christianity that degenerates like the outer skin of a plant. Unless it becomes a Christianity like a fruit connected in a straight line to the root, it will merely be swept away.
Christianity must push through the whirlpool of history and come out and advance in a new direction. Thus, it must become a Christianity that can greet a new spring in a new universe and put forth new leaves and flowers and bear fruit. That is why Christianity offered sacrifices so that the sins of man might be forgiven. The created world is not a world with matter as its principal thing but a world with man as its principal thing. Therefore, for man’s sake, countless offerings were sacrificed. Yet because the center is not man but God, countless human beings have passed through the process of becoming offerings.
The company that does not wish to pass through the process of becoming an offering is a company that says it will not form a relationship with God. That is decisive. Yet when it is asked whether, within this confused and worldly environment of the globe, within this swirling sphere of currents of thought (사조권내, 思潮圈內), there is a company that will become an offering for God, this is the problem.
What Must Human Beings Do in the Age of the End
God has taught us that a historic age of the end is coming. Now the point has drawn near before our eyes at which we must receive the age of the end from all four directions. What is needed here, with such a moment before us? A new light is needed. To send forth a new light in this dark age, one must collide with everything of the satanic world.
In colliding, the strong must collide with the strong. If you strike a quartz stone against a rock, sparks fly from it. Sparks fly better between quartz and quartz, but even that comes to nothing if one is half-hearted. This is fine and that is fine" will not do. It means that saying “this is good” and “that is good” will not do.
Within such a sphere of the age of the end of the universe, there must be a company that can stake its life for God, duel with Satan, and hold the sphere of victory, and there must also be such a nation.
Even though the whole world swirls about, an individual and a body are needed who can stand alone in the midst of it and say that I will not die. God without fail establishes such a new nation and then brings about the conclusion.
Such a nation is not composed of those who center upon themselves. A nation of those who center upon themselves is swept away. If that nation stands within the whirlpool, all its citizens must be bound to the center of that whirlpool and turn with it. If there is a person who turns separately by himself, that person falls away. Therefore, in the Last Days, one must grasp that center firmly.
At that time, a great crisis comes. That is, it means that a time comes when one must break through from the center of the whirlpool. Therefore, you must grasp firmly and not fall away.
However strong the force that pulls from the side may be, you must be able to remove that force and advance in your direction. Thus, you must be able to make the line of a new revolution bloom. You must know that such is the position.
Therefore, when they seek to snatch you from the side, rather than being taken just as you are, however hard it may be, you must continue to follow the direction in which you are advancing. Even if Satan binds both your legs and beats you, the more he beats, the more you must follow that direction. Even risking being beaten to death, as long as life is sustained, you must not let go but must follow. If one dies and falls away, that cannot be helped.
In the Bible too, it is said,
“Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it (Luke 17:33).”
That he who would die lives means that he is resurrected at once. It means that it is not a resurrection after three days but a resurrection the instant one dies.
Therefore, a person who dies in that way can, the instant he dies, go in and out of the Kingdom of Heaven at will. It means that if he wishes to go, he goes, and if he does not wish to go, he does not go. Therefore, he who would die lives, and he who would live dies.
Here, if one glares about seeking to live only for oneself, one falls away. Then will you fall away or cling fast? When Satan seeks to pull away you who are clinging fast, you must be able to stretch like a rubber band and then contract again.
If you remain stretched out just as you are, you perish. It means that you must possess an elastic subjectivity that can stretch and then return. Do you understand what I mean? It means that even if you go far out into the world, you must be able to come rushing back instantly. Is it so, or is it not? If it becomes so, then even though your body goes, your mind at least is not there but here.
There is a narrow-level road that the Unification Church walks. There is also a narrow-level road that the Teacher walks. Just as was said earlier, the one who would walk the highest road as an individual must be able to carry the age of the individual summit on into the age of the family summit. He must go seeking that starting point, even at the cost of offering his body. Yet that road cannot be walked without daring.
When one jumps from the individual standard to the family standard, one must indemnify the han of the individual on the world level. It means that one must pass through a crisis of death.
Become a Company That Runs Forward Staking Death
Even among the Blessed Families, there are many so-called idler families. When one observes you quietly, it is so. Among chestnut burs too, there are male burs and female burs. Their shape is similar, but the male bur is larger in bulk. That fellow lives idly. Fruition is a concentrated body of suffering. You must know that. That is, it means that fruition is a concentrated body of content that has overcome suffering.
Yet the male bur does not possess the deep content of suffering, the substantial body concentrated on vital force; it is empty. Its shape resembles the female bur, but inside it is not a chestnut bur.
You know the chestnut bur, do you not?
To look at, it is spiny and appears cold. But if you push apart that spiny husk and go in and peel it off, the chestnut kernel appears. The chestnut is wrapped in three layers of husk. When you peel off the outer husk, there is an inner husk, and when you peel off the second husk, in the third place there appears a membrane with an astringent taste. Only after peeling that off does the real chestnut kernel appear. The taste of such a chestnut kernel is beyond words.
The satanic world is wrapped in many layers of curtain, like a chestnut bur. That is so that no one can enter at a stroke. Just as a person who does not know how to tread lightly on a chestnut bur and peel it cannot eat the chestnut kernel, so a person who does not know how to peel off that curtain simply cannot invade. In peeling a chestnut bur, too, one must find the eye of the bur and do it skillfully for it to come off at once; a person who does not know the knack cannot do it, however he tries. The satanic world is likewise.
Because the Teacher knows this Will, when the time comes he will put all the Unification Church members into an iron cage several thousand fathoms deep and slam it shut.… Well, will you die for the Will? Those who have thought of dying for the Will, raise your hands. Since you will all have thought of it, let those who will die for the Will even now raise your hands. There is no one, is there? If a hole were bored in a blast furnace now and the order given, “Attention! ”Forward march!” You must think that you would go into it. For the sake of the Will, one must be able to do that. Otherwise, unification cannot be accomplished.
We must not burn feebly, giving off smoke like unseasoned wood, but must be able to burn away like exploding gunpowder. It means, let us blow it up. We must become people like gunpowder who can blow up the blast furnace. If there were such a person, how would God be? If there were such a person, he would blow it all up before the fire of the blast furnace was even heated. Only then can one win against Satan. It means that Unification Church members should take not the line of flight but the line of the direct front.
Therefore, it means that before a nation, if it be a nation, one should walk the highest road of suffering. Such a road is the normal course that Unification Church members must walk. Upon that road, countless stragglers, that is, countless companies of the utterly defeated, wander about carrying their bundles, and corpses too lie strewn about. You must cross beyond such a squalid road.
Until now you have walked such a road; and if you were told to walk such a road once again, would you go? In the Teacher’s view, you have until now fought in order that you yourselves might be saved and blessed. When have you even once fought for the sake of the country? That we set out upon this road is because of the purpose of establishing a nation and finding the world.
Then must we go slowly toward that purpose, or must we go quickly?
Must we go slowly, or must we go quickly? (“We must go quickly.”) Then for the sake of what must we go quickly? Do we go quickly to die? Do we go quickly to leave? If there is a company that goes quickly to die, there is no way in this world to stop it. If, to strike down tens of thousands of enemies, even ten men alone set forth resolved to die and vie with one another to go faster, then the enemy, seeing that fight, will all flee.
For example, if there were a diamond the size of this desk, everyone who saw that diamond would want to have it. Yet when they were asked to take it, if they fought with one another to take it, they would ruin one another. Let them try fighting with one another not to take it. It means trying to fight, saying, “You fellow, you take this.” See whether they perish or not. If any enemy of any nation whatsoever saw such a fight, he would pack his bundle and flee. Have you seen people fight in that way? If only a company that fights in such a way appears, the world will melt away instantly.
Therefore, Jesus prayed,
“Let me bear every cross and forgive them. Bestow blessings upon them.”
Yet because they could not fight with one another to die, the evil world remains until now.
The Resolve to Remove Evil
Then will the Unification Church be able to cross beyond the road of the people’s suffering? If it cannot cross, it cannot gain the highest victory. Therefore, I must take responsibility for the worldwide road of suffering. It means that America cannot take responsibility for the world. That is why the Teacher prayed before the White House. It means that this fellow, who, to look at, seems to be nothing whatsoever, takes responsibility. In that sense, let us collide once with America.
Therefore, the Teacher has much interest in this land and in Asia, and further in the world. The Teacher of the Unification Church does not end merely with guiding the Unification Church. If there is a road by which he can take responsibility for the world, he will break through any road of suffering whatsoever.
For that, I must drive you into pits and must also drive you up to mountain peaks. If you say you will not go, I will drive you in even by striking and kicking. Those who will not go in must be made to go, even at the cost of cutting their necks and cutting their legs. If even then they cannot go, I will have other people go. In doing such work, am I a sinner? Is that a work of committing sin or a good work? Do you have the nerve to say that for the sake of such a work it is all right if everything perishes? Unification Church members must have such nerve.
The Teacher went to Kangwon Province and hunted, leaping across between the cliffs. Thus, he caught roe deer and caught birds. If with that gun one could catch the wicked and save the world, one ought to catch and kill them all still more cruelly than that. One must have such conviction. If by catching the wicked one could save the world, I would do anything, whatever.
The Teacher is a person who has resolved that he would cut off his leg and offer it as an offering before the Father, if only that would make the Father glad. Unification Church members must be relentless like this. The Teacher is not yet worn out. It means that he has not yet used up all the material for cultivating a new strength for tomorrow.
Therefore, the Teacher lives in the shade and does much of his thinking in the shade. The judgment of justice is made in the shade. What is proclaimed openly all has a double purpose. Therefore, without judging justice in the shade of the deepest valley, one world cannot be accomplished. That is why the Teacher is doing such work.
A person who has come to the Unification Church for the first time will find it difficult to recognize the Teacher. The Teacher too knows that it is a discourtesy to come before a crowd in such attire as this. And the Korean members too come running without even wearing an overcoat, wearing only a vest. So if someone is wearing only a vest, he is a member of the Unification Church. Yet in their own way, they observe propriety.
For us who are in a pioneering age, an overcoat is rather an encumbrance.
Therefore, there may be a time when we hold service wearing only our underclothes. Is it not so? It means that on the battlefield, wearing only one’s underclothes is enough. On the battlefield, when one is in the thick of fighting with a rifle in hand, can one argue about whether one has put on the full military uniform or not? And that in the final decisive battleground, at the last hour. It means that if one is going to die one way or another, what need is there to be encumbered with untidy garments? What harm is there in simply fighting comfortably in the decisive battleground wearing only one’s underclothes? Does that make it a sin? One cannot argue that it goes against military discipline, or that in terms of tactics it must not be so.
You must study the road the Unification Church walks. You must study just what sort of person the Teacher is. The Teacher coached Kuboki of Japan to go to a certain agency and say certain things. Thereupon, within thirty minutes they came to take an interest in us. Thus, he became famous in Japan at a single stroke.
Therefore, he listens well to the Teacher’s words. He had thought the Teacher was merely religious, but on coming to know him, he found that there is something extraordinary in the Teacher. He has wit, but it is not wit alone; because what the Teacher taught him, setting up a demonstration, hits the mark wherever it is applied, he gains confidence and, busy as he is, comes to ask the Teacher whenever there is a difficult matter.
The problem hereafter is how to handle Japan. No one in the Republic of Korea until now has been able to do it. It means that no one at present can do it. Yet a fellow who was in the shade is seeking to handle everything from Japan to America and West Germany. That is why lines of defense are now being drawn.
Why We Must Undergo Hardship
Now all are bound to fall before the Teacher’s strategy. It is a simple matter. The Teacher has a history of melting Satan down and swallowing him and is a person who possesses that much ability. It is not because I am incapable that I put you through hardship. It is because you must be put through hardship that I do so.
Suppose, for instance, that in the world you gave birth to a baby with much labor, and when you had given birth, it was a cripple in every limb; would you feel good or bad? It would probably be so bad that it is dreadful even to think of.
Every time you looked at that child, it would be dreadful. But what if, after suffering to the death for more than ten years, you gave birth and found that it was the greatest general under heaven, the greatest beauty under heaven?
If you had given birth to such a jewel of a child, what would become of the hardship of the past days? Because it was so hard, and you thereby became the mother of such a son, that hardship rather becomes a condition of pride. Because it was so hard, however great that son may become, you have the qualification to command him to listen to his parents’ words. If he were a foundling, could you command like that?
Even though the birth was hard, the more excellent that child is, the greater the mother’s love for the child, and it becomes a bond that can never be forgotten. Because the birth was hard, whether her eyes are open or closed, she cannot forget that child, and wherever she goes and comes, she cannot forget.
In the same way, God also puts you through hardship to form such a bond because of love. Since He would form a bond in a relationship of father and son such as has not existed in history until now, is it not God’s strategy to seek to give birth to children more painfully than anyone? So I think.
Because he thinks in that way, upon the road the Unification Church walks, the Teacher has undergone that much hardship to make a family, to find one family. In all history until now, there has been no one who has undergone hardship as the Teacher has. It means that not even the hero of any novel has undergone hardship as the Teacher has. This God, too, has acknowledged.
Why did God put the Teacher through such hardship?
It was to have the Teacher know the value of a family such as has not existed in history until now. To have him know that which is beyond history, He had him experience even hardship from before history. And thus, when the time comes when one can form a happy family and hum a tune and take pride in it in the heavenly world or the earthly world, would he not become the favored one who enjoys the highest happiness in the world of men? When we consider the content hidden behind this, we can know that it is an eternal family established upon a foundation laid through a thousand hardships and ten thousand toils. A family upon which such a foundation has been laid has a value that cannot be exchanged even for ten million in gold. Do you understand?
Patriots and loyal subjects cannot easily be known in ordinary times. Patriots and loyal subjects can be known in an extraordinary age. Now you are living through an extraordinary age. Those who at this time have staked their lives and fought for the country will later rule the country, and those who have staked their lives and fought for the world will rule the world.
Let Us Become Trees That Can Provide Shade for Humanity
Because the Unification Church has come forth holding not merely a doctrine for the sake of this country but a tremendous Cosmos-ism, if it is asked who is the responsible person who can build a world of Cosmos-ism, it will be Mister Moon of the Unification Church.
For you to accomplish a family such as has not existed in history, you must pass through adversities of misfortune. You must be able to drag along with you every harsh wind and frost, every harsh injustice, every harsh matter of sorrow. It means do not throw off that wrapping cloth of suffering. Until a spring day comes, throughout the three winter months, that wrapping-cloth becomes a refuge that covers me. Do you understand? In other words, it means that Satan’s scheming and slander in opposing the Unification Church are carrying on an undertaking of becoming a wrapping cloth in which the Unification Church can take refuge. However much they beat, mobilizing all seven major newspapers, this paper and that paper, Teacher Moon of the Unification Church is unshaken. It means that now the time has come when, however much they beat, the blows do not land.
That I let myself be beaten until now is because I knew that though it is a rag, it plays the part of a wrapping cloth that covers us in the age of winter. However much Satan did such things, in the end it resulted in helping our work. This was the Teacher’s strategy.
Therefore, even when I am reviled, I am not in the least aggrieved. It means if they would revile, let them revile. Being reviled is not the problem; whether one perishes or does not perish from being reviled is the problem. When one does not perish but pushes up through it and puts forth a new shoot in a wilderness like a desert and grows and becomes a tree, and when it is said that it has become the only shade in which these people can rest, then even though they were asked not to come, they would say they would come even if they had to pay a tax. It means that such a time will come. Is it not so? It means that since they would wither and die, they will come. Therefore, one must become a tree that can be such. Accordingly, the problem is how I become a tree that can have shade under a blazing sky; the present is not the problem. It is in this way that we are going.
In the process of becoming so, I have seen every sort of curious spectacle, every sort of swindler, every sort of scene, every sort of human figure. Even among you gathered here, there may be those who think, “Will the Unification Church have prospects hereafter? Let me get ahead in the world through the Unification Church.” Yet the Unification Church is not used. The man called Moon is not used. You must know that.
When we think in this way, you must possess a content of heart, a content of character, and a content of struggle that can be connected to that one center in one moment of the historical age and must be able to prepare a starting point of one great victory. Therefore, how one seizes that opportunity is an exceedingly important problem.
That is why I say you must study concerning the Teacher. Then is the Teacher a person who does not know weariness? No. The Teacher too grows weary. It is only that the time of his recovery is faster than yours. It means that however weary he may be, he concentrates his spirit, and the time of recovery is fast. It is only that the method of that recovery differs from yours; it is not that he does not grow weary. Nor is it that when he meets with lonely and sorrowful matters, he does not grieve.
The Point of Resolution of Every Problem Depends Upon How the Relationship of Father and Son Is Restored
Now, when we consider the enormous problem of national restoration, the question is how influence is to be given to this land hereafter. In every age, it was loyal subjects who exerted influence upon the nation. Until now there have been many individual loyal subjects, but in the age of unification hereafter the loyal subject must be a family. Therefore, a loyal-subject family must come forth.
Without a loyal-subject family coming forth, a loyal-subject tribe cannot come forth. It means that a people of Israel that can receive God’s commendation, a nation of Israel worthy to receive God’s commendation, must come forth. For that, we must walk with certainty the road we must walk.
Then let me conclude. Where lies the point of resolution of the problem I have spoken of until now? That is, where does one place the dividing point of victory and defeat? Where does one place the starting point of life and death? Where does one place the dividing point of prosperity and ruin?
Where does one place the standard point as a universal being?
Let us resolve whether one places it in oneself or somewhere else. If you think others will do it all for you, you perish. A nation whose people say, “The state will do it all,” perishes. However much there may be a plan by which one can be victorious, without forming a direct relationship, it will not do.
Here the problem of the ruler and the ruled arises. The ruler exists for the ruled, and the ruled exist for the ruler. Without possessing the content that these have been bound into one, the worldview hereafter cannot be gathered.
The worldview in the unification ideology is to form the bond of father and son. That is, the sovereign is the father and the citizens are in the position of children; therefore, the sovereign’s undergoing hardship is for the sake of the citizens, who are in the position of children. Just as parents who exploit their children must be expelled, so a sovereign who exploits the citizens must be expelled to hell. From there, the history of good rulers and evil rulers unfolded. The company that seeks to use the nation only for itself perishes. Such a monarch perishes. He is removed.
What political philosophy regards as the most serious problem is the problem of harmony between the ruler and the ruled. This can become the final key that will resolve every historical problem. When we look at the problem from that aspect, the sovereign exists for the sake of the people, and the people exist for the sake of the sovereign. Therefore, it means that they must be in a position like the relationship of a father and son.
Then where must you place the starting point of victory and defeat?
It means do not place it in the Teacher. However much the Teacher may have possessed the starting point of victory and defeat, that has no relation to you. Each of you has a five percent portion of responsibility.
You must not receive the Word from the Teacher and then simply remain as you are. You must become leaven. Leaven makes new leaven and causes the whole to become leavened. You too, wherever you are set down, must become leaven there. In other words, it means that you must hold such a worldview and become individuals and families who can perform such work of fruition wherever you go.
On the day it becomes so, the world will be unified. It will come about even if there is no church. When a man and a woman inherit the tradition of the parents and become husband and wife, it is the same as belonging to the parents’ family. Therefore, it means that you yourselves are the problem.
When have you formed a bond of fruition centering upon God, or centering upon the Teacher? Have you ever possessed a self that would burrow into that bond even at the cost of pouring out all your life? Such things are the problem. Overall, when I die, I shall die buried within it, and by the death of me, one individual, it means that it becomes one factor by which the whole can be revived. Have you felt such a thing in reality?
Relative Value Must Be Sought by Oneself
Though God is immense, because man is a microcosm, by my entering into God, the feeling arises that that immense God has come into me. Only when one receives such a feeling can one say that I am within God and God is within me.
That is why Jesus too spoke in that way. Though God is infinitely great, it means that only when man enters wholly within Him does God also work.
The working of power comes forth where there is a relative pole, and from that place there is a going round and a returning. It comes forth as those places are exchanged.
Between husband and wife, is it all right for the wife not to interfere merely because she was asked not to interfere in what the husband does? The wife too can go out to a position equal to the husband's. When the husband is absent, the wife at least must be able to step forward into that place.
From this viewpoint, where will you place the starting point of victory and defeat? The person who places it in the church is a foolish person. The Teacher has his road that he must walk. That road is different from the road you must walk.
If the Teacher goes forth on the national standard, you must go forth on the standard of the people. It means that one must overcome one stage lower. If the Teacher marches toward the world, you must march for the country. You must possess such a relative value.
How is relative value made? It is not the subject that makes it. Before a perfect subject, its object naturally comes into being, and its value too naturally comes into being; yet one must oneself rise to the standard of the object and seek it.
Otherwise, the relationship of subject and object cannot be formed. Therefore, only when you too possess a normal foundation of mind and follow the standard upon which God and the Teacher have offered devotion can you yourselves, who are nothing, stand as a perfect subject according to the principle of re-creation before you, who are such a perfect object, come into being.
Therefore, the Teacher cannot but go the road of offering devotion, even if he would not. Everything is connected there, and one horizontal stepping stone is widened, and that is the principle of Restoration. Moreover, this is the principle and the law of give-and-take action between subject and object that comes forth from the Principle. It means that the starting point of victory and defeat lies with the Teacher, but it lies with you as well.
The Teacher has his road that he must walk. From a subject position, in place of the whole, he must walk a road by which a democratic foundation can be accomplished. Moreover, each of you is in a position where you must without fail carry on a duel of life and death centering upon the Teacher.
Because you are those who must live centering upon the Teacher, you must know the questions of what the Teacher is doing now, and what he is aiming at as he goes, and to what sort of place he will go, and what work he is doing; and you must take that as your model and keep step with it. You must know that this is the worldwide position in which you must stand. And thus, when the Teacher rejoices, you too must be able to sympathize together and rejoice. Yet how much do you now sympathize with the Teacher’s heart?
That a husband and wife who have become one find each other good is also felt from the same motive. Therefore, the important question is whether the felt sense of heart (심정) that one has become one with the Teacher can govern a day within your sphere of life and govern a year and govern a lifetime. This is directly linked to whether one becomes a loyal subject under heaven.
The Chunghwa Culture That the Unification Church Is Making
In the twenty-four hours of a day, there are morning, midday, evening, and night. If we compare a year to this, the season corresponding to morning is spring, the season corresponding to midday is summer, the season corresponding to evening is autumn, and the season corresponding to night is winter. Because the year (해, 年) was made by extending the fortune and energy of a day, the year too was made according to the principle of creation. Therefore, according to the principle of restoration through indemnity, it must be the same as an absolute position.
Therefore, within a day, the four seasons are contained. Is it not so? History must resemble such a year. It means that in history too there must be an age of spring, an age of summer, an age of the autumn season, and an age of winter.
In history there ought to have been a cultural period of spring, but owing to the fall of man, it began from the spring-season culture of the satanic world. From the cultural age of spring of the satanic world, it became the tropical-zone culture, which is the cultural age of summer, and thereafter, it became the temperate-zone culture, which is the cultural age of autumn; and now it has become the cultural age of winter. It means that the time has arrived when the frigid-zone culture ruled by communism controls the world. That fits perfectly enough, does it not?
History has remained in the spring-season cultural age of the satanic world. That is why the civilization of antiquity corresponds to the tropical zone. The autumn-season civilization of the twentieth century is also passing.
What is democracy?
It is a doctrine that seeks the child. It means that it is a doctrine that goes seeking the people. It goes seeking the people and seeks a standard centering upon individual freedom. Among freedoms, the first freedom is the freedom of a child.
Because humanity now lives in the age of the child’s freedom, the world has become like this. A free-for-all is unfolding in which no one cares whether another eats or not, whether another dies or not, or whether anywhere is turned upside down or not.
The twist of today is a children’s dance. It means that it is not an adults’ dance. Now a dance has come out that is danced while rolling and weeping. This was devised by Teacher Moon of the Unification Church. One needs only to do it. Because it is like what a child does.
Is there a doctrine of the Last Days in which the established systems and the established ethics and morality until now cannot interfere? That doctrine means a system that is stained by none of spring, summer, autumn, or winter and that can come forth holding one fruition, having drawn out and cooked the content of every culture evenly. Is there a culture that can push through and cross beyond the communist world, which is the culture of winter, and appear as the favored child of a new spring? Such a new cosmic-historical culture of spring the Unification Church is now making, and this is called Chunghwa culture (중화문화, 中和文化). Because this culture contains every culture, it can welcome spring, and welcome summer, and welcome autumn, and welcome winter. That is why it is called Chunghwa culture.
Unification Church members who possess that one cultural sphere must be able to absorb even hell. The unification ideology is immense. The dean of the College of Theology at Yonsei University, who studies modern theology, also said that the unification thought is truly grand. Of course it is grand. It means that the place possessing a cultural sphere like a new spring is the Unification Church.
Do Your Utmost in the Moment
History is created by man. In a man, from birth until the age of youth corresponds to spring; until the forties is summer; until the sixties is autumn; and after that is winter. Yet a man has something he must leave behind for the spring day of tomorrow. What is that which must be left behind? It is to be equipped with a character such that the sphere of daily life, day by day, can become one body of fruition in which the whole lifetime is concentrated. Doing so, one passes through spring, summer, autumn, and winter and goes to the spirit world, appearing in a new spring garden. It means that upon a lifetime of seventy or eighty years hangs the question of how well one greets eternal spring. This is earthly life. Yet people do not know this.
A person who has lost a day is likely to lose ten days. Is it so, or is it not? A person who is negligent for a day is a person who is negligent for ten days; a person who is negligent for ten days is a person who is negligent for a month; and a person who passes a month negligently is a person who is negligent for a year.
Accordingly, if one loses a day, one comes to lose ten days; if one loses ten days, one comes to lose a month; if one loses a month, one comes to lose a year; and if one loses a year, one comes to lose ten years. And is not having lost ten years the same as having lost life itself?
Therefore, the problem lies in one’s own self. It means that centering upon a lifetime, whether one dies or lives is decided in a day. It means that one moment of a day is important. Therefore, do not say that whether one becomes a true person or not can be known only by looking at a whole lifetime. Such words do not pass with the Teacher.
Even when someone begs forgiveness, saying, “Until now it was like this, but from now it will not be so,” the Teacher is not forgiving. He merely leaves it and watches; it is not that he forgives. It means that such is the Teacher’s way of thinking.
At this very moment too the Teacher is fighting. Early this morning as well, at the hour when you were sleeping, he rose and prayed. Because he has the responsibility to supply you with a new vital force, he braves fatigue and fights even upon the borderline of life and death that he must walk. Therefore, you too must be equipped with your own power to look straight toward the purpose and go straight to it. Then how is that to be reinforced? One must struggle hour by hour.
One must struggle without a moment’s rest at any hour. It means that there is no time when the Teacher stretches out his legs and sleeps snoring with an easy mind, not for a single moment.
You must know that a factor that can bring the whole to ruin in a single moment is lying in wait around me. Without even looking, one must know at once whether the time has come or not. Therefore, the problem is how, connecting the decisive moments, one is to leave behind a character of value that, at the dividing point of life and death, can establish prosperity and cast away ruin, establish good and remove evil. That depends upon whether all that is accomplished within the sphere of time can absorb vital force or not. Yet on the day the time of absorbing vital force is cut off even for a moment (촌시, 寸時), death unfolds. Therefore, we must not forget the dividing point of a moment and become the defeated.
Human Beings and Peoples Have Temperaments Like the Four Seasons
Centering upon such moments, one must live a life in which one can invest one’s life and go forward toward the spring of the future. To become princes and princesses of Heaven, one must be able to absorb the nutrients of every field upon this earth. One must possess a power of one’s own by which one can digest even evil things and make them one’s own vital force. Such a person can go forward overcoming trials not only in the good world but also in the evil world.
The people wandering in the evil world all oppose the Unification Church. In the established churches too, they oppose it, telling people not to go to the Unification Church. Colleagues oppose it, and parents oppose it. The moment you return from the Unification Church, they will shame you, saying, “Have you been there again?” Therefore, you must have the ability to digest even such things. It means that even when you are reviled, you must be able to digest it.
Each of you must know to which season you now correspond. If you consider your temperament, you can know whether you correspond to spring, or to summer, or to autumn, or to winter.
A person who is humanly gorgeous and, on the affectionate side, warm and who absorbs anything well corresponds to spring. Again, a person who has very much affection and many tears corresponds to summer, and a person who is cool and clean-looking and without a fault to be found corresponds to autumn. Next, the person who corresponds to winter is a person possessing an element that clings fast and cannot be pulled away, however one tries. You must know how to discern which season you yourself correspond to.
A person who corresponds to autumn must meet a relative person. That is, he must find a person of spring. A person of summer must meet a person of winter. A person who is so hot that it is a worry must meet a cold person and be cooled. Such things can be known by looking at the eyes and can also be known by looking at the features.
Become Unification Church Members Who Can Be Gathered as Seeds of Cosmic History
It is the same when this is viewed on the level of peoples. It means that among peoples too, peoples correspond to spring, peoples correspond to summer, peoples correspond to the autumn season, and peoples correspond to winter. If there is a people that can say that spring is good, and summer is good, and autumn is good, and winter is all good, that people is a people possessing the vital force by which it can greet a spring day in the future.
A plant sprouts in spring, flowers in summer, and bears fruit in autumn. And that fruit, retaining its vital force, is protected through the cold winter by a hard shell that will not break even if lightning strikes, and when the following spring comes, it sheds the shell and sprouts as a new shoot. Things like the pine nut are a good example. Every living being has a relentless ability to protect its life. Seen from this position, you must live in the position of sons and daughters of God, possessing the true life of heaven and earth.
Do you think you are now alive, or do you think you are dead? Are you alive, or are you dead? You may think that you are now alive, but in reality many are dead.
What has not hardened firmly cannot become a seed. Even in the case of a chestnut, only what has ripened until it is taut enough to burst becomes a seed. What is not fully ripened cannot become a seed. In the case of rice too, one presses it and uses what is firmly ripened as seed.
In this way, you must become Unification Church members firmly ripened so that you can be gathered as seeds of cosmic history. Do you have the confidence to become such a seed? Answer. Do you have confidence, or not? Is there not one person? (“We have.”) Those who say they have confidence, in what do you have confidence?
Wherever one goes, if only the conditions are prepared, it bursts forth. The Teacher can witness even if he goes to Africa. He can do it without even opening his mouth. Even when he was in prison, he witnessed without speaking. Even though the Teacher said nothing whatsoever, their forebears did it for him. Their forebears did it without sleeping at night in order not to perish. They did it more zealously than Satan. Why is that so? Because a spring day has come, and if the master cannot do it, the seed must be sown even by making the servant do it. That is why the Unification Church possesses a bond by which it could not perish even if it wanted to. We must know how great a joy this is.
In what age is the Unification Church now?
Is it winter or spring? The Unification Church is now greeting a historic winter. Therefore, one must be able to remove external forces and historical conditions of obstruction by one’s own vital force. A tree possessing vital force pushes through even stone or rock.
In fact, until now, neither Teacher Moon of the Unification Church nor the Unification Church has displayed its vital force. Yet it means that it does not retreat. It endures. And while doing so, it cultivates its roots in winter and lays a worldwide foundation. Now when winter passes, what comes? Spring will come.
Become People of Infinite Value Who Can Make the Moment Shine
When we look, centering upon Christianity, the spring of Christianity was the age when Jesus came and went. Historically, it is so. Passing through the seventh century from that time, the feudalistic culture of summer began, and until the fourteenth century that feudal culture flourished unspeakably. Thus, it entered the age corresponding to autumn, and from the end of the twentieth century, the age of winter under communism began. Therefore, it came to be frozen fast.
Because this history must be taken over, the Unification Church undergoes a crisis of suffering. Christianity ought to have greeted a historic moment of suffering, but because Christianity did not greet that winter of suffering, the Unification Church is now greeting that winter and crossing over toward spring.
From this year, 1970, we have greeted spring. The past 1960s were winter, an age of indemnity, but from now on it is spring. In spring, flowers bloom and the spring breeze comes blowing. It means that this land and these people are all greeting such a spring. Everything comes centering upon such a reasoning.
Then what must remain in such a process? You must become living beings and become fruit and become seed. That is, you yourselves must possess a value of life that can stand in place of everything, inheriting the Will that countless Christian believers and loyal subjects and faithful women have come seeking since the spring-season age of Jesus, centering upon Christianity. And thus, possessing a vital force that can bear fruit in this age, you must cross beyond winter.
Winter is not a bad time. It is rather a time when one can shine. That is, it can promise a new spring, a tomorrow of full bloom. Therefore, it corresponds to a completely ripened seed.
It is to make such individuals, such families, such tribes that the Teacher establishes Blessed Families. Yet has your family become a family that can be such? If it has not become so, it must be gathered again. Everything that must be done this year is like that.
Because you are living in spring, it is a time when you can say, “I am living in such a season, so you cannot disregard me.” And those living in winter must be able to say, “I am not far from a relationship with your vital force. Because the condition by which a relationship can be formed is prepared, I can form a relationship with you.”
For that, your life course must be a life course that can be such. Unless the whole of your daily life becomes a stepping stone that can absorb nutrients, you cannot perfect a living being. This unfolds in the natural world of phenomena. You must know that the dividing point of life lies not in some long period but in a single moment.
A person who disregards the moment cannot possess kingly authority. Nor can he achieve greatly, nor become a great person, nor can he inherit God’s dynasty and crown. Therefore, to make the moment shine, you must watch intently over each word and each action and must take care in what you think as well. Only in resolving matters with the conviction that everything that unfolds in one’s own life remains as a phenomenon related to the world is the sphere of victory determined.
That the sphere of victory is thus determined is a moment. Accordingly, you must know that the historical sphere of victory and the cosmic sphere of victory are also determined shortly. A person who lives feeling the infinite value by which the moment can be made to shine can become a great person and can become a saint and can become a son or daughter of God.
In this way, it means that the dividing point of life and death hangs upon the moment. You understand, do you not? (“Yes.”)
