Authors
The 360,000 Couples: The Blessing movement
The 360,000 Couples International Marriage Blessing Ceremony was held on August 25, 1995, at Seoul Olympic Stadium. This Blessing ceremony was held simultaneously in 553 locations across 160 nations, via live satellite broadcast.
Thereafter, the marriage Blessing expanded on a global level, with the number of participants increasing with each ceremony.
1. Human beings were driven from God's presence because the Fall constituted an act of wrongful marriage. Thus, the 360,000 Couples Blessing is the act of proclaiming the realm of liberation for all humankind in the name of the True Parents with the supreme authority of all-immanence, all-transcendence, and omnipotence. These couples represent the perfected realms of Adam, Noah, and Jacob.
You must understand that only the number 360,000 is appropriate for this blessing since this is a number that represents on the horizontal level the perfection of the realms of Adam, Jesus, and Christ at his Second Advent. So the accomplishment of 360,000 couples should not be a problem. We have entered an era in which I can bless 3.6 million couples and 36 million couples.
(269-057, 1995/04/07)
2. The Israelites failed to establish a pure national tradition in the seven years following the 40
years in the wilderness, and this led to a troubled and ruinous history. We, however, should not fail in establishing a national tradition, teaching upon which we can build the heavenly nation. We have reached the end of our 40-year course.
Within the next seven years, we should unite as citizens of the nation filled with its founding ideal of peace and as citizens of a united world.
To do so, the first generation representing Cain and the second generation representing Abel should unite. Nonetheless, the first generation has failed and there is danger that they again will fall away in the wilderness. So how can we bind them together? The only way to save the first generation is to bless them as soon as possible, and that is why the 360,000 Couples Blessing will be held. Many already married couples will take part in this Blessing. (269-217, 1995/04/23)
3. The number 36 refers to the 36 Couples representing Adam's, Noah's, and Jacob's families and is thus an ancestral number. As such, the 360,000 Couples Blessing is like a world-level spinal cord, like a Blessing of the ancestors. It corresponds to the growth stage on the global level. What will happen once we have conducted this ceremony? Presently, the world's families are breaking down.
This is a great problem that must be resolved. The whole world has a headache over this issue. That is why all the young Unification Church men and women comprising the 360,000 Couples need to form new families and live well with high ideals. Because of them, broken families will show an interest in the Blessing and it will have a global impact. (269-301, 1995/05/01)
4. Since the 30,000 Couples Blessing, we have conducted global Blessing ceremonies open to the public.
Vice presidents and cabinet members took part in that ceremony, and even presidents participated in the 360,000 Couples Blessing. We must cross over the summit on the world level. The fact that we conducted the 360,000 Couples Blessing 3 years after the 30,000 Couples Blessing signifies that we have fulfilled the number 3.
This was considered impossible. God and True Parents were the only ones who knew it and had faith. I proceeded with the Blessing because I felt responsible. I gave the direction to accomplish this, and now we have succeeded.
Now we have completely surpassed Satan's world. On a world level, based on the 30,000 Couples as the foundation in the formation stage and the 360,000 Couples in the growth stage, we have gone over the mountains of mistakes that our ancestors committed. The 360,000 Couples have taken the standard of the 36 Couples to the world level. (272-027, 1995/08/30)
5. Although we invested our blood and sweat for the sake of the 360,000 Couples Marriage Blessing, you have no idea how fearful I was as August 25, 1995, approached. It was even more serious than the feeling I had when I held the Washington Monument Rally on September 18, 1976.
There was whether our dignity and honor that we had built up before heaven would all come crashing down. It was a gravely serious time, but God had compassion for me, one who has lived a lonely and miserable life, and through His protection and love we achieved it. We went beyond the goal that no one thought was achievable, exceeding 360,000 couples. (271-215, 1995/08/28)
6. No one thought that the 360,000 Couples Blessing Ceremony could take place three years after the 30,000 Couples Blessing Ceremony, but I said that it would.
No one believed it. There is no one else in the world who can do this kind of work.
There are not even countries that can do it. This is a world record. We were able to rise and leap over the families in Satan's world. Through this victory on the growth stage with the 360,000 Couples, we rose above Satan's world, and now we stand on top. Now what is left is the Blessing of 3.6 Million Couples. This is the era of absolute authority. We are entering the era of the absolute authority of marriage.
Because we have triumphed over Satan's world on the national level, we are expanding the family-level foothold to the world level. Because of this, the era of True Parents is passing and the era of kingship has come. (275-282, 1996/01/01)
7. I began with confidence that the 360,000 Couples Blessing was possible. I never wavered. This is why God is protecting us. But you all felt there was no hope, even during the 30,000 Couples Blessing. To you, the 360,000 Couples was something unimaginable. When we began this work, I received God's affirmation and told you that it was possible.
Then, day or night and wherever I went, I stayed focused on that point and offered devotions. All the devotions offered all over the world combined will never surpass my devotions.
No one knows this; only God and I do. A perfect subject partner creates a perfect object partner. The faith of that perfect object partner is what God has the responsibility to establish through the perfect faith of the subject partner, His substantial embodiment. That faith was thus established.
(272-117, 1995/08/30)
8. The Blessing brings the realization of the ideal family, the true family. God's Will is for the realization of the ideal family. Where on this earth is there a mother and father who do not hope for their sons and daughters to have ideal families?
But even though parents want this, it is impossible to achieve. They are just dreaming. Ideal families cannot be accomplished through political power, economic power, diplomacy, or even through the use of military power.
However, True Parents' teachings are now all over the world. They have reached beyond national borders, sects, and denominations. The Blessing has gone beyond these boundaries. This too may seem like a dream, but it is reality.
(272-197, 1995/10/05)
9. After receiving the Blessing, you should want to be the best couple in the whole world to do this, the wife must seek an ideal nation more than she loves her husband, and the husband must long to find the ideal nation more than he loves his wife.
If you do not do this, your family will not come to a peaceful settlement. I was unable to govern you as the perfect Parent because I had not accomplished the completion level of the growth stage on the global level. So I could not interfere.
But now that time has passed. Passing over the 40-year hurdle, a breakthrough was made with the 360,000 Couples Blessing. This means that starting from the 30,000 Couples we accomplished the formation and growth stages. That is why no one in Satan's world can block the Unification Church. We have overcome that hurdle. (272-074, 1995/08/30)
The 3.6 Million—40 Million Couples: The Open Blessing
On November 29, 1997, the International Marriage Blessing Ceremony of 40 Million Couples was held at RFK Stadium in Washington, DC, and also broadcast live via satellite worldwide.
Originally, 3.6 million couples were scheduled to participate, but the number grew to such an extent that it became the 40 Million Couples Blessing.
The Blessing ceremony held on that day was part of the Third World Culture and Sports Festival.
Congratulatory messages included those given by representatives of the world's six major religions. During this Blessing Ceremony, a Blessing for people in the spirit world was also conducted.
10. When the 3.6 Million Couples are blessed, there will be a unified world. What is the anchor of this unified world? Around what does it revolve? The anchor is the 3.6 Million Couples who can liquidate the evil that is woven into the habitual and defiled lifestyles of the contaminated earthly world under Satan's dominion.
You should always hold on to this anchor utilizing the rope attached to it. The rope is your family and clan. Because I'm afraid that rope might break, I am binding national messiahs to your clans. (280-263, 1997/01/02)
11. Now you have to take responsibility for the ancestors of your family. True Parents have taken responsibility for all the providential families from Adam's time until now.
Through the 360,000 Couples Blessing, liberation took place that transcends the family, nation, and even the world. In this reality, there are no longer any boundaries between nations, religions, customs, MS, and cultures.
This realm ascribes the same value to all people. We have sent families to villages all over the world, and have inaugurated the original family standard that God wanted to establish with Adam before he fell. (284-119, 1997/04/16)
12. Once the 3.6 Million Couples are blessed, heaven's blessing will connect to the world level and every day will be the Sabbath. Touching the creation throughout the world, the Blessing will be a divine day in all four seasons. I am conducting this work right now to prepare for that. In the past, we have celebrated the sacraments in the presence of God and True Parents only on Sundays.
In the era of the Declaration Day of God's Eternal Blessing, and the era of complete transcendence, complete immanence, and complete authority and power, we can move higher than the world level through the 3.6 Million Couples Blessing, and come out of the realm of suffering that the creation has been lamenting.
We are entering the age of attendance when we can eat and sleep and do all things in our daily lives while attending God and True Parents. We can do this all week long from Monday to Sunday. (285-297, 1997/06/29)
13. Looking externally, it may appear to people as if the Unification Church is following the path of Christianity, but those people do not know the internal reality, that we have gone through a history of struggle.
We have gone through many arduous struggles to separate from Satan. In doing so, the path of salvation, by which all humanity returns to God's embrace, has expanded through eight successive levels from the individual, to the family, and will surpass the world level based on blessed families, through the 3.6 Million Couples Blessing and the 40-year course. (286-070, 1997/08/06)
14. True Parents have undergone 12 courses. The 3.6 Million Couples was the 12th course. We have to surpass these 12 courses. I interpret the word Arirang with the Chinese characters as meaning “love,” the character meaning “distance,” from the word “village,” and the character ryeong from the word mountain.
Thus, it means “looking for the village that we love.” In the Korean song “Arirang,” there are 12 mountain peaks. Passing over those mountain peaks is hard work. Now that I have passed through those 12 courses, everything has been leveled all at once. That is why we can now freely go anywhere. (289-263, 1998/01/21)
15. Until the completion of the 3.6 Million Couples Blessing, which was proclaimed on July 15, 1997, I was consumed with the overwhelming urgency of the providence. But heaven was able to work and bring victory.
On August 9, we proclaimed the Realm of the Cosmic Sabbath for the Parents of Heaven and Earth. The time for its settlement will come.
The gates of the spirit world will open and spirits will come to earth. Events we cannot even imagine will take place during that time. That is why I proclaimed the achievement of the 3.6 Million Couples on July 15. (289-013, 1997/12/30)
16. Having achieved the 36 Million Couples Blessing, we could also give holy wine to any baby in the womb of one of those newly blessed families. No matter the extent to which you may have neglected your life and allowed it to become stained, you should never forget that the baby in your womb has inherited the absolute pure lineage and is no longer connected to the fallen lineage.
You should not fail to set the condition of bequeathing the holy wine to your children. You have to be one with God's nation and pledge loyalty to Him, and as you do so, have them drink the holy wine. Doing this constitutes rebirth. The child in your womb is not Satan's child. (289-063, 1997/12/30)
The 360 Million—400 Million Couples: Planting Seeds Worldwide
The International Marriage Blessing Ceremony of 360 Million Couples was held at Madison Square Garden in New York on June 13, 1998, and broadcast live to 195 nations.
The second phase took place at Jamsil Olympic Stadium in Seoul on February 7, 1999. True Parents had disclosed earlier that this marriage Blessing ceremony should be held in the United States, the elder son nation, and then in Japan, the mother nation.
At this time, a spirit world Blessing ceremony was also conducted. On February 13, 2000, the first phase of the 400 Million Couples Blessing Ceremony was held at Jamsil Olympic Stadium in Seoul.
The second phase was held at the UN Headquarters in New York, on January 27, 2001, and the third phase was held at the Fencing Gymnasium in Seoul Olympic Park on February 16, 2002. In this way, the 400 Million Couples Blessing took place in multiple phases.
17. When the 3.6 Million Couples are blessed, everything will be completely level. It should be as when a river flows into the sea. When the water from a major river enters the sea, it is at its slowest moving point surrendering and being completely absorbed by the ocean, the subject partner. All movement comes and goes based on the logic of heaven and earth.
Why is it good to move immediately to the 360 Million Couples Blessing right after the 36 Million Couples Blessing? It is because we have already gone over the hurdle of the mountain, and have come down into the ravine of the mountain valley.
We went over the peaks of the formation and growth stags and now reached the plateau where we can go beyond the completion level of the growth stage. That is why we have reached the stage of the 360 Million Couples Blessing. This is the realm of completion. (288-149, 1997/11/27)
18. The reason True Parents have been working hard is to find the ideal kingdom of heaven based on ideal and absolute love. That is the reason we have come to this point. After finding the ideal of love, we had to bequeath it. To bequeath that ideal, we held the 30,000 Couples Blessing.
The standard process was the 30,000 Couples Blessing as the formation stage, the 360,000 Couples Blessing as the growth stage, and the 3.6 Million Couples Blessing as the completion stage. Because the foundation was set, it was possible to hold the 3.6 Million Couples Blessing and the 36 Million Couples Blessing in 1997.
We were so busy then; it was as if waterfalls were rushing down from the sky.
Now, when the day of the victory of the 360 Million Couples comes, the unified world of the realm of heart will come to this earth and the whole universe. Then the families that are living in this realm of heart will be the same as the perfection of Adam's family. When you enter the spirit world after living in the kingdom of heaven on earth, the gates of the kingdom of heaven in heaven will be opened. (288-329, 1998/01/01)
19. In the Completed Testament Age, we have to complete the ideal of marriage.
Through the 360 Million Couples Blessing, we will restore what was lost in Adam's family. After this has been accomplished, the age will come in which you, as original parents who are not connected to the Fall of Adam, can bless your children, based on original love, life, and lineage.
That is the coming of the era of the Fourth Adam after the eras of the First, Second, and Third Adams. After the 360 Million Couples Blessing, we will enter the realm of the Fourth Adam, in which we no longer need to pay indemnity.
Thus, we will enter the era in which parents can bless their children in the Garden of Eden on behalf of God. Later, based on the families and relatives you yourselves have blessed, the direct pathway leading to heaven can be established.
The reason indemnity was necessary during the eras and realms of the First and Second Adams is that traces of Satan's corrupted blood lineage remained. By entering into the realm of the Fourth Adam, and cutting off the lineage of Satan's world, these traces were eradicated.
Because of this, all humankind, all the families in the world, can stand on the same level and in the same liberated position as Adam and Eve who would have lived an original life in the Garden of Eden, and receive the Blessing all at once.
(290-030, 1998/02/02)
20. After carrying out the 400 Million Couples Blessing, we should hold a pure love pledge ceremony focusing on elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and universities. We are carrying this out to protect the young people. If we just leave them, eventually they will fall. This is why we conduct the pure love ceremony.
Parents, the school, and even police officers should join together to make a wholesome environment so that young people will not want to deviate. Young people are in the same position as the unfallen Adam and Eve, so we should create a protective environment to prevent the Fall from ever happening again.
In the time of Adam and Eve, they did not have an environment that protected them; their environment allowed them to fall. They fell because there were only two of them.
However, in our time, parents and entire families, teachers and entire schools, mayors, and police must create a system that will protect young people from falling. (301-262, 1999/05/02)
21. True Parents can eliminate all national-level persecution and bring about the surrender of Satan, based on the flesh and spirit. Together with God, I was able to set up a unified family foundation, and from there we could make a foundation on the national level, as Israel should have done in Jesus' time. When this foundation expands to the world level, everything will be completed.
I have expelled Satan from the spirit world and the satanic world of hell. Through this, I have given rebirth to this world and now, with your support, the authority of Israel has expanded to the global level.
Because the people of the world can receive the Blessing as the chosen people and the authority of Israel has expanded to the global level, the Unification Church could bless the 400 Million Couples.
Because I have completed all the courses in the physical world and the spiritual world, you can conquer everything through a heart of absolute faith, absolute love, and absolute obedience to True Parents. (360-157, 2001/11/15)
Sun Myung Moon