At the age of fifteen, I had an unusual experience. At the end of a long and tearful prayer on Easter morning, Jesus Christ appeared to me, revealed many things to me, and gave me instructions. He told me many profound and wonderful truths.
He told me that God grieves because people are suffering. Then he asked me to play a special role in God’s work on earth.
It is indeed difficult to put into words all the experiences I had when I was young. In short, the spiritual world unfolded in front of me all of a sudden; I was able to communicate freely with the saints in the spirit world. In the calm of the mountains in northern Korea, I had personal conversations with Jesus Christ several times. The truth revealed at that time constitutes the core of the Unification Principle.
When you see Jesus spiritually, does he smile and say, “Oh, I feel so happy !” Have you seen Jesus like that? Have you met Jesus when he was like that? I haven’t seen him in that mood. He always appears serious and gloomy; he can’t help being so. It is because he knows God deeply, as I also do.
Original Easter, April 17
The month of April, as you know, is when Jesus was resurrected after he had come to earth and trodden a path of suffering. In the Unification Church, we celebrate Easter on April 17. Everyone knows that April is the most loved month of spring.
April 17 is the day, two thousand years ago, when Jesus resurrected. Since that time, there have been many Christians. Still, they have never known the actual day of Jesus’ resurrection.
Knowing this, you should realize how heavy and how sorrowful it has been for Heaven that the world is unaware of which day Jesus resurrected.
You, at least, should celebrate this day, representing Heaven and all humanity. I ask you to be Jesus’ friends internally and externally—be people who can feel the heart of Jesus Christ.
In that sense, you should feel that you are sitting in a precious place, on which Heaven, Earth, and all things gaze. The memory of Jesus appearing and revealing that this was the day of his resurrection is vivid in my mind.
Responsibility and determination
When I started down this road, I was younger than you are now; I was less than twenty years old. It was a time of innocence. I had a strong desire to have as my own whatever I noticed that was good. I felt compelled to search for and interact with anything unusual.
Ever since that day, when I came to understand Heaven’s amazing will, I set off in obedience to the heavenly mandate…. When God expressed to me His commitment to this big, incredible task, I knew that I, the one who had to feel that commitment and live with it as my hope, had not yet become a person who could digest it.
I fully understood that the task was too big for me to take on and that it was my responsibility to prepare myself for this very heavy job; beyond that understanding, I could do nothing.
When I set out on this road, I was a young man like you. After I received the call from Jesus, the big problem was the question of how to fulfill this important responsibility. I knew that Noah, Abraham, and Moses were much more determined to accomplish their goal than anyone else, despite everything.
Wise are those who determine to carry on with hope for the future, even when the way is difficult; those who give up the future for the sake of immediate gratification are fools.
Would I have had this kind of thinking when I was young, or not? We are only young once…. Which road do you think I chose? I decided on the way that a wise man should take. The value of a man and his personality vary according to his standards.
So, does one decide his or her position? Can one man by himself make promises about tomorrow and guarantee the outcome? This is a most significant point—whether you are determined to be able to establish hope for your future rather than being satisfied with the present.
God’s call and my internal preparation
God ordained me according to His timetable. Why do you think He did that? For the answer, we have to ask God directly. What I know with certainty is that this mission was bestowed on me.
In the course of bringing salvation, God had gone through many difficulties and problems, many of which were still unresolved at that time. Leaving all those concerns behind, God visited me right at my front gate. He came to the front gate and chose me when I was a boy. That was when I came to understand God’s will and started on this road.
It was not like walking along a street, meeting someone by chance, and setting off on this road. Neither was beginning this work like receiving the laying on of hands by a minister. It wasn’t as if someone who witnessed to me caused me to go this way, either. What was the starting point of my motivation? It was God..…
There were times when I agonized in my course of faith. I was passing through my teens and going into my twenties. Meanwhile, I thought I would have to go to Japan. I need to go to America via Japan.
I shall have to go to actual places and personally experience what it means for a weak nation to suffer grief and persecution. Furthermore, I thought that should God existed, I would represent Him and pursue the accomplishment of His will. For that to happen, to what extent should I know God?
I mean, I would have to understand everything—from His internal state to the destination He is to reach. I researched these questions in the Christian Bible and all religious books.
It was from the age of fifteen and from a humble position that I began to have the experience of knowing God. At any rate, for the next nine years, I lived with the omniscient God and with Jesus.
I entered the spirit world several times. Step by step, God taught me His amazing truth. It was like a long night had passed by, and then seeing the morning sun rising. I could see in this truth the dawn of a glorious, new culture. The revelation I received from God is called the Principle, and I received instructions to spread this Principle to the ends of the earth.
The truth we teach here had been previously unknown, as if covered by a lid. It is remarkable that the lid, which had been in place throughout human history, has now been removed, revealing a theoretical system that permits conclusions that correspond with facts and historical events.
Traveling throughout Korea
I understood the world well and also the state of affairs of Korea. I had already explored the whole of the peninsula when I was fourteen and fifteen. We have to be able to think of our country.
I had already explored the southern part of Korea by the time I was fifteen or sixteen. I experienced Jeolla and Gyeongsang Provinces, and so on. Furthermore, I had also begged from door to door.
In my youth, there was no place in Korea I hadn’t traveled to. I stayed up all night in a truck… The truck driver wouldn’t let me into the cab, but I managed to climb. [Laughter] As I couldn’t sit in the driver’s seat, I made the effort to get into the truck, finally, y—and sit in the place where the goods were.
I thought, “If you want to go without letting me in, you have to kill me first. Letting one person in wouldn’t hurt the truck.” When I got out the following night, I said to the driver, “Ajoshi, let me pay for dinner.”
He agreed, and while eating dinner, I poured out my story to him. This won his heart, and he forgot that I had said I would pay for the meal. He paid for it instead. [Laughter]
Another time, a lady had made rice for her husband, who was working in a field.
She was on her way to him with the meal in a basket she was carrying on her head. I stopped her by the roadside, and later she somehow ended up serving the rice to me. [Laughter]
While experiencing such things, I thought, first, the nation should not disappear due to misfortune; and, second, that there must be hope that the unfortunate destiny and the sad history of retreating from Heaven that has continued until now through our ancestral lines will come to an end.
I noticed that there would be a way for Korea to survive if I could somehow raise a flag, rouse the sleeping nation, and lead it while proudly speaking to the world of our explosive national spirit.
Sun Myung Moon