Good and Evil, and the Rise and Fall of Fortunes

Former Headquarters Church, Korea

Matthew 5:43-48

Today I shall speak for a while under the title “Good and Evil, and the Rise and Fall of Fortunes.”

The Standard of Goodness That Can Remain to the Very End

We know well that there is no one, not only among us individuals but among the countless human beings living upon the earth, who does not wish to be good. We know well that the direction of history until now has been aimed toward goodness, and that educators and people of faith too have striven and struggled to establish a standard of goodness. Therefore, being born must be for the sake of goodness, living must be for the sake of goodness, and dying too must be for the sake of goodness; this is the purpose of human life.

We cannot deny that it is not only the purpose of human life but also the purpose of history that has woven human living.

The goodness (善) here is not goodness in a vague sense. It is a goodness with some meaning, and among goodnesses, a goodness that has a center.

Some may say, “Living centered on my conscience, what in my life is not good?” But in this claim of living centered on one’s own conscience, one cannot deny the fact that one has made oneself the center.

However much one insists that one is oneself going in a good direction according to one’s own conscience, if that differs from the direction of goodness the nation is going, then even though the nation prospers, one’s own self perishes.

Again, however much there is a nation that claims to live for the sake of goodness, we must know that when the direction of that nation cannot be united with the direction that follows the conscience of the world, then even though the world remains and prospers, that nation perishes.

However much someone claims to walk the road for the sake of some world, if the world he asserts is not the very last world of goodness—so long as there remains a world that can still be asserted centering on goodness—he must be united with that world.

Otherwise, the individual, or such a society or nation, that asserts itself centered on its conscience cannot but perish. That is, if that goodness is not the ultimate goodness, everything centered on that goodness must perish.

Therefore, if it is a goodness that can remain to the very last, it must become the central standard of goodness for the individual, the family, and the society, and the central standard of goodness for the nation and the world. If it does not become so, they too must perish.

Today we often say, “That person’s fortune is good.” But however strong an individual’s fortune may be, it does not surpass the fortune of the clan, if it be the clan, or the fortune of the tribe, if it be the tribe.

Since any person is one particle born through the good bond of his ancestors, he is, to speak in terms of a tree, no more than one branch among many branches. So he cannot surpass, in place of the whole tribe, the goodness of that whole tribe. In other words, the fortune of the tribe is greater than the fortune of the individual.

And the fortune of the people is greater than the fortune of the tribe, the fortune of the nation is greater than the fortune of the people, and the fortune of the world is greater than the fortune of the nation. And what is greater than the fortune of the world is heavenly fortune.

Therefore, the standard of goodness that can remain to the very last is whether one is together with heavenly fortune, which is greater than anything. That is why we must go seeking the place where we can be together with heavenly fortune; and on that road we must revolutionize the individual and make him submit before the tribe, revolutionize the tribe and make it submit before the people, revolutionize the people and make it submit before the nation, revolutionize the nation and make it submit before the world, and revolutionize the world and make it contribute to heavenly fortune.

We must know that this is the final purpose toward which humanity today, centering on the conscience, must aim.

If one becomes one with goodness, one prospers; if one becomes one with evil, one perishes. You are placed upon the road of dividing good and evil, centering on the individual, and you are living in the midst of such rise and fall, prosperity and decline. And not only you individually but the family, society, nation, and world are so.

We must know the fact that not only the world but also heaven and earth are placed in such a destiny.

What a Wise Person Is

What kind of person do people today upon this earth call a wise person?

He is a person who, centering on himself, manages his own way of life well in his fashion. But that is no more than a wise person within a limited sphere of the age.

Even if, being wise, he achieves the desire of his generation and boasts of that authority, when the nation comes to perish, he is placed in the destiny of perishing.

Even looking at the modern history of the Republic of Korea, we can see that when we fell under the rule of Japanese imperialism, however excellent a person, however able to uphold heavenly fortune an individual was born, he too was no more than an empty shell.

Therefore, in drawing the boundary line of good and evil centered on us individuals today, the general standard is whether a thing is public or private. Since what is public remains and what is private disappears, the public is more good than the private.

Then what kind of standard is the public standard?

Looking at one family, if a member of that family puts the family before himself, he stands in a public position. And when it comes to standing forth for the sake of the people and the nation, though it be regrettable, he must sacrifice the family. Then, centering on the people and the nation, we reach the conclusion that he stands squarely in a public position.

Even looking at the patriots and the historical great figures of our country today, they stood forth, abandoning not only the individual but even the family for the sake of the nation and the people. For the sake of goodness, for the sake of public work, they stood forth, abandoning all that was private. Seen one-to-one, this looks like evil. It looks like something that ought rightly to be denounced by those around. But when it remains as the more public thing of the nation, all the accounts and circumstances that made them denounced, and all the evil conditions tangled up there, must be judged by a fair public standard.

Therefore, for those people who endured and overcame all such difficult circumstances and fought for the nation and the people, all those facts that were hard because they were denounced by those around can absolutely never remain as conditions that bind that person.

On the contrary, we know well, through historical proof, the fact that these become conditions of liberation and are set up as shields of victory.

Then, if there are two roads—the road of working for the nation and the people and the road of working for the world’s humanity—which road must you go? The road of working for the nation and the people cannot stand in a worldwide public position.

There is the saying, too, that one should be loyal to the Republic of Korea. But the world is not within the Republic of Korea. The Republic of Korea is within the world. The Republic of Korea exists for the sake of the world; the world does not exist for the sake of the Republic of Korea.

Yet despite this, if one stands in a position of working only for one’s own nation, one will surely bring about the result of the appearance of a dictatorship that, emphasizing the self-determination of that people, tries to conquer the world.

But if, following the law of the public person, there is a leader who takes responsibility and guides, tying the direction of our people to the worldwide general trend, for the sake of a settled position where these people can dwell not merely in the comfortable position available at present but ten years, a hundred years, or even several centuries hence, then he can become a worldwide figure who will remain in history. And if there is a people that holds the ideology of such a leader, then even if the world comes to perish, through that nation the world will be healed; and we must know that this is the final result history will leave.

The Highest Goal the Conscience Aims For

Thinking from this standpoint, living centered on one’s own single lifetime is not the road human life must go. Nor is living only for the sake of one’s own family, people, and nation the road human life must go.

We must know that only the road of living, from a position united with the great Way of the Heavenly relationship, together with heaven and earth and all the people of the world, is the standard that reaches the result of goodness that can remain to the very last.

Therefore, none of the sages and wise ones of the past, until they came forth bearing the name of sage, put forward their assertion or the assertion of their people or nation. They could not but come forth bearing Heaven upon their backs, together with the great trend of heavenly fortune. There can be no sage who does not come forth bearing Heaven, and if it could be done without that, then anyone at all could become a sage.

Therefore, we must know that the road toward which a people that comes forth bearing Heaven, a nation that comes forth bearing Heaven, a world that comes forth bearing Heaven, and the heavenly fortune that comes forth bearing Heaven aim is the road goodness can go, and that road, not only you individually but the world’s humanity living upon the earth today, must go.

Then which place does your conscience wish to follow?

The conscience, though it learned nowhere and was taught nowhere, seeks what is more good. That is why your conscience, even if all thirty million people of the Republic of Korea live in comfort, does not say, “Now that my individual desire is fulfilled, let us rest.” It urges us to go further. It says, “Not only the people of the Republic of Korea, but for the comfort of the 3.5 billion of the world’s humanity, let us, if we can, do an even greater work,” and it wishes to go all the way to the highest position.

Where is the final terminal at which your mind can come to rest?

Even if you have sought God and made Him your own, your mind does not wish to rest there. Then where is the final terminal of your mind? It is the position of capturing God and capturing God’s love. So if you cannot capture God’s love, all things are in vain.

What is the final purpose of human life?

Here the problem is not meeting Him, who is the center of Heaven, centering on God. Living together with Him—that is the problem.

The problem is: in what position do we meet Him, and in what position do we live? It is that we meet Him and live with Him in the central position, and that central position is the position of God’s love.

Therefore, the highest goal toward which the conscience of humanity aims is to follow heavenly fortune, become one with God, and make God’s love our own. That is the conclusion.

Therefore, among the sages of history, which sage is the great sage—the one who teaches what? He is the one who clearly teaches the direction that has appeared in God and in heavenly fortune, presents the direction that the world’s humanity must take, and clearly teaches what God’s love is like.

On the day such content appears in heaven and earth, the world will automatically become one.

The Origin of Rise and Fall

Seen from this position, what has, on the whole, imitated such a system until now has not been any nation. Faintly, though, what has looked upon this as a standard and imitated its background and purpose has been religion. Therefore, though countless nations perished, religion did not perish. As you know from history today, religion has been the foundation of the world’s historical culture until now.

Even when Christianity suffered terrible persecution and slaughter for four hundred years in Rome, though the sovereignty of that nation perished, Christianity did not perish. Why is that? What is united with the axiom and public law through which heavenly fortune passes, the more it is struck in an attempt to rule and shatter it, the greater it grows.

Seen from this point, what is a true religion?

It teaches goodness—but that goodness is not the goodness of the individual. The concept of goodness we have thought of conceptually until now differs according to the law of the people or the nation, so we have taken it to be goodness for each to walk the moral road according to his society. Therefore, we must consider what the standard of living is that can become the model within the individual life that humanity today commonly desires, and that can be united with the direction the conscience aims for. The problem is right there.

If a certain person is born in such a position, lives in such a position, and dies in such a position, then he cannot but go to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Then what is evil?

It is what is opposed to goodness. The standard by which evil is decided lies in knowing the true goodness and being opposed to that goodness. Therefore, if one departs from the public standard, one’s direction necessarily differs from the direction of goodness. Is it not so when you think about it? Take any village, and looking at it generally, people dislike a person who tries to draw others in, centering on himself.

Even over a small matter, they come to hate that person. To be hated is to perish. It means one has entered the sphere of the destiny of perishing. But everyone likes a person who forgets himself and tries to work for others and toils to the point of death.

Then the direction that individual fortune, family fortune, and national fortune go—where is it decided? It is not decided, centering on some worldwide affair. This is decided within the sphere of your daily living. One who tries to solve the whole thing, centering on himself, will surely perish.

If one says, “What is yours is mine, and what is mine is mine too,” one perishes. Therefore one must say, “What is yours is not mine but the nation’s, the world’s. And what is mine is likewise.”

Rise and fall are divided, centering on good and evil. Then from where does the parting of good and evil come about? Where is the boundary line? It is not divided on the day the Republic of Korea perishes. It is divided right now, within the sphere of your daily living. As you eat your meal and live, the two worlds are divided in the very midst of holding the spoon.

Therefore, that meal you eat—where did it come from? That is, the problem is whether that meal arose in a position that can be united with the public law of heaven and earth on a public standard, or whether it arose through my greed.

From this standpoint, everything felt through all the senses of my perception must be changed. A person who lives with a self-centered outlook perishes. And when such a one perishes, there is no one to help him. This is a historical fact, and one that cannot be denied within the sphere of your daily living either. There is no one who wants to perish.

If there is anyone who wants to perish, raise your hand. It is not only the people of the Republic of Korea who are so. The Japanese and all the people of the world are the same.

Then why, despite all the people of the world disliking it, does one perish?

This is because—though the person himself does not know it—his way of living and the position he is placed in are not a good position, and he did not stand within the sphere of a nation’s fortune that can be united within the great Way sphere of heavenly fortune. In this way, when the nation perishes, the self perishes too; so one must stand for the sake of the world even by treading upon the nation. A person who can go in that way toward the great fortune of the world must appear. And thereby he must make clear the road all the people of the world must go.

From this point, though Confucius said, “Upon the one who does good (爲善者) Heaven sends down blessing, and upon the one who does not do good (爲不善者) Heaven sends down calamity,” the concept of goodness is vague. The question is: what is the center of that goodness? Moreover, if it is such an impersonal, conceptual Heaven that sends down calamity, then such a Heaven is not needed.

If One Holds a Self-Centered Ideology, One Perishes

The standard of good and evil is not set up upon the judgment seat of the Last Days. Good and evil are divided, centering on your present conscience. This very hour today is like the hour of judgment.

If a whole people goes a road united with heavenly fortune, and heavenly fortune passes through my individual, family, tribe, people, and nation, then that people becomes a chosen people. In the course of history, the people of Israel, the chosen people, thought that they were a people set apart, and looking at that, we can know indirectly the fact that they had a bond with Heaven.

What kind of people are those chosen people?

When the greatest heavenly fortune passes through the sphere of the individual’s daily living, and heavenly fortune passes through the sphere where the family can live, and heavenly fortune passes through the sphere where that people can live, and heavenly fortune passes through the sphere where that nation can live, so that it can pass in every direction through that whole nation, then that people is called a chosen people. It is a chosen people within a purpose that bears heavenly fortune.

Therefore, a person who holds a self-centered doctrine or ideology perishes. When one, for the sake of one’s own desire, harms human life and, for the sake of one’s own desire, inflicts damage upon the nation, one perishes. The nation is not to be used by an individual. Rather, it is the duty of a citizen who is within the sphere of the nation. And that is the direction a citizen must go.

Today the general trend of the world does not wish to be ruled by communism or by democracy.

If democracy, it must stand in a position united with heavenly fortune by adding God’s great fortune to the fortune of that individual and must unite that direction with the family and unite it with the tribe, people, nation, and world, and go forward; then it will not perish.

If communism were like that, then however much we opposed it, it would not perish. The problem is right here.

A human being is originally not made to live only for his own individual self. Yet today upon this earth there are many people who live only for their own individual selves. They say, “I work for myself.” That is, they live for themselves. How pitiable a person! He is like an orphan with neither parent nor sibling. One must be able to say, “I live for the sake of the world’s humanity.”

There is not a single person in this world who holds a conscience and an ideal that wishes to live pettily, like a small-minded man. Yet, just as history until now has been so, you too have lived centered on yourselves. Such a one perishes together with that standard of his. Not only that, but even his descendants become miserable. But a person who lived and departed on the standard of living not centered on himself but standing in a public position, for the sake of others, for the sake of the nation, for the sake of the world, for the sake of heaven and earth—however poorly he lived, and however little he left behind—does not perish. When such a one comes to die, because many people bow their heads and shed tears, Heaven too cannot but bless him.

If Jesus Came in This Age and Prayed

Originally, the human being could have aimed at the destination of goodness and could have gone to a prospering world, but because things went wrong, he came to stand in this position. And so, standing in a position where he must be corrected, he must go centering on content that is more moral and more heavenly. Otherwise, you must know that for this world there is nothing but misery and destruction.

That is why a person such as Jesus lived a public life to come to this earth and fulfill the mission of the Messiah, the Savior of all people.

What was the desire he longed for?

From the very day he came upon the earth, Jesus had to become the worldwide Messiah and, going beyond the people of Israel, save the world’s humanity. And thereby he desired to unite that world with heavenly fortune and to possess God Himself and God’s love. Because that was Jesus’ purpose, Jesus had to set out from this standpoint.

When Jesus, on the road of death, gazing toward the way of the cross, prayed his final prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane at the decisive moment—what was it? Because Jesus too was human, there was a possibility that he might say,

“Abba, Father, if it be possible, let it be according to my will.”

But Jesus did not pray that way. Treading up over the human nature that could become worldly, he said, “Not as I will, but as Thou wilt,” and followed not my will but the great cause of heavenly fortune.

“Let it be according to my will” means there is a will of my own. Then what does “not as I will, but as Thou wilt” mean?

If Jesus had had a family, then, abandoning that family, when he prayed, he would have said, “Let it not be according to the will of our family, but let ours become a family that can live for the will of God’s family.”

Again, if Jesus stood today in the position of leading the whole of world Christianity, what would he pray for?

Would he pray such petty prayers as, “For the sake of our Methodists, for the sake of our Presbyterians, for the sake of our Catholics…”?

If Jesus were alive in this age and prayed, taking the world, would he pray for blessing upon his twelve disciples? No. Rather, he would pray, “God, my setting up of the twelve disciples was for the sake of the world, so set the twelve disciples upon the line of the Will for the sake of the world.

My having prepared the people of Israel for four thousand years was to send me, the one, and give them blessing; so for that, they must walk a road by which they can contribute for the sake of the world. Therefore, the twelve disciples must walk the road of death even while fighting in place of the people.” Only then would he be the worldwide Messiah and Savior, would he not?

Yet Jesus could not even pray such a prayer. His final prayer was, “Not as I will, but as Thou wilt.” How miserable a thing this is! Have you ever once thought how bitterly wronged Jesus must have felt, unable to pray for the Will of God that was united with his will?

You, too, must pray a prayer centered on the will of our church rather than on your own will. When God had prepared the chosen people of Israel for four thousand years, that people should have made a nation and stood as the central nation of the world. The central nation of the world does not come about by subjugating all the nations of the world by force. One must become the central nation of the world by making those nations submit of themselves. It cannot be done with sword and force.

Even looking at today’s Vietnam War, America has national power tens of times greater than Vietnam. Even looking at the ability to carry out any undertaking, Vietnam is only a few hundredths of America. With such power, Vietnam cannot defend its country. And North Vietnam is likewise.

Since America is fighting the war, spending nearly a hundred million dollars a day, one cannot stand against it with economic power, political power, or military power. So North Vietnam, knowing that fact, became discouraged and retreated.

Let Us Become One with Heavenly Fortune

With what will the good world of the future be able to be realized?

All humanity must, not opposing the Heavenly principle but following heavenly fortune, standing in a position like the beginning, even while dying, work for the world more than for their people, for God more than for the world, and to find God’s love. When this becomes universal through the family, the tribe, the people, the nation, and the world, and the direction the conscience of humanity goes becomes all the same and stands in a common position—from that time the ideal world sets out.

When you do a good thing, how is it?

You are not afraid to put yourself forward. Whatever anyone in heaven and earth says, you are not afraid. Even the president of the nation is not to be feared.

We must live for the sake of the world and for the sake of heaven and earth more than the world. Even if the world perishes, heaven and earth do not perish but remain. Even if the priest of the world perishes, heaven and earth remain. So for the sake of this, be strong and bold. That is possible only through religion.

Christianity has woven a history of martyrdom. Then what was the source of the strength by which they could safely overcome the road of death? Whatever cannot be united with the great Way of the Heavenly relationship all perishes. Therefore, they held the conviction, even in the position of perishing and being denounced, that “the wealth, the power, the national forces, and the like mobilized to denounce may be stimulating factors that reap goodness before God, but they can never be stimulating factors that can shatter goodness.”

Christianity, within the sphere of the historical age, held such strength and drove history forward. You must know that.

At our workshop, when the members asked a famous man who had received a doctoral degree, “What is the Will of God?” he answered, “That is an easy and yet difficult problem.” If the Will of God is an easy and yet difficult problem, then the Will will forever not be accomplished. That answer means he does not know the Will of God well.

What on earth is the Will of God?

Is it to go east or to go west? We must accomplish the Will of God, centering on religion. But holding on to the world centering on one’s own religious view, one can absolutely never accomplish the Will. When the Last Days come, countless religions will surely run up against the destiny of ruin. Why? Because they come forth holding on to the fortune of religion and the fortune of their denomination.

Heavenly fortune treads upon the top of the fortune of the world. When the age comes in which heavenly fortune appears upon the earth, the denominationalism and church-authority-ism of the past will collapse; so the religion of such an age must be able to ride heavenly fortune.

The word “unification” is an unpleasant word before the established churches. And it is the same for the Unification Church toward the established churches. What is the Unification Church trying to do? It is a church trying to unify.

What is it trying to unify?

Is it trying to unify man and woman? No. What would we do, pettily unifying man and woman? It is “Let us become one together with heavenly fortune.” Even though a nation is within the sphere of a perishing fortune, only when there is a person who can hold on to heavenly fortune, which can block that and assert it, can that nation live. We must know this clearly.

Therefore, the Unification Church has done much external activity until now. In this way, a religion that does not become a religion that purifies society and presents the direction the nation must go perishes. It must not be a religion that is digested before the nation, a religion absorbed into the circumstances of the world. It must be a religion that digests these.

You of the Unification Church must form the shape of society, nation, and world centering on the standard of living that the conscience of all people commonly pursues. Even though people and traditions differ, you must transcend all and seek the common point of agreement toward which the conscience aims.

The meaning of this lies in preparing a point centered on such a position—where heavenly fortune passes and God can be enthroned—beyond the sphere of a nation such as the Republic of Korea, beyond the world. Once this point is decided and there appears an individual, family, society, people, and nation that possesses such an environment, the world will be unified without any problem.

The Path Through Which Heavenly Fortune Flows

Where does the problem for us today lie?

Christianity until now has divided into countless denominations, and they all insist that they themselves are the most good; so the question is what there is in the Unification Church that can unify all those established churches.

In the Bible it says, “God maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”

What meaning is there here?

It is only by loving one’s enemy and praying for the one who persecutes that one becomes a son of God. Measured against such words of the Bible, a Unification Church member can become a son of God. Until now we have been struck and persecuted by them, but we have come forth praying for them.

Through what does goodness go?

Heavenly fortune flows on the road that goes, holding a motive that can move even an evil person. Jesus did not subjugate Satan by fighting. Even while walking the road of death, standing in a position for the sake of saving humanity, he prayed for blessing upon the Roman soldiers who pierced his side with a spear to kill him. From this we can know that he was a son of God.

The problem we are concerned with today is how to liberate the ten million people of North Korea. For that, we must not beat them down with bullets. In upholding Heaven and being loyal, we must stand forth first.

So firstly, all the people of the Republic of Korea must be in harmony. And thereby we must be more strongly united than the ringleader Kim Il-sung, who united by threat with sword and gun and by counterfeit means.

You must become a group that fulfills its responsibility by holding such a bearing. Then, without fighting, you subjugate the opponent. But if instead you fight and win, in the end you are fighting on someone else’s behalf. Therefore, what you must know is that, centering on goodness, you must build up from the individual through the family, tribe, people, nation, world, and Cosmos.

Today there are countless religions upon this earth. But a religion that offers devotion only to receive blessing for its household perishes. Then the household perishes, and when the household perishes, the nation perishes. When that nation perishes, the people who succeeded in that nation are the first to perish.

Among religions, there are religions for the sake of the family, religions for the sake of the tribe, religions for the sake of the people, and religions for the sake of the nation. Beginning from working for the individual, the wider its scope, the more it becomes a worldwide religion.

If the purpose and ideology a religion aims for holds content that can go on beyond all the people of the world, then that religion does not perish but becomes a historical religion.

To Align with the Direction of Heavenly Fortune

Looking at Jesus’ life, how miserable it was! He was branded a traitor to the nation. He was branded a reactionary who threw society into confusion and died.

Even centering on denomination or sovereignty, he was an untrustworthy element who could find no place to set his foot, one who could not be accepted even by that society.

Jesus lived as an individual centering on the family and lived as a member of society, as one of the Jews, but he lived neither only for the sake of that family nor only for the sake of the nation. Israel entered the sphere of a perishing fortune for two thousand years, but Christianity did not perish and remains until now. The Jews who drove out Jesus perished, but Christianity centered on Jesus, who was driven into a perishing fortune, developed worldwide even while being driven.

Then where is the reason it did not perish?

It is because Jesus placed Christianity upon that orbit along which heavenly fortune could be together with it. Because a Christian, as an individual, could live together with heavenly fortune, and the family centered on that individual could do so, and the denomination could do so, Christianity today has become, in name and reality, a worldwide religion.

Looking at us Unification Church members these days, because they have not been made to be active, in many people the thought for the self has become thicker than the thought for the whole. Everyone, if it is so, you perish. Even when eating a meal, you must not eat for the sake of yourself. You must eat, embracing the people, and eat, embracing the world’s humanity. Your whole living must be so.

If, having lived that way, there is anyone who perishes, then bring an accusation before God. He will not perish. If, standing in such a position, one is struck, then the more one is struck, the more that person’s work is well accomplished.

In the Republic of Korea, the Unification Church has been struck until now, but it did not perish. On the contrary, it has now laid a worldwide foundation. In a few more years, the Republic of Korea will not be able to help taking it seriously. The Unification Church does not perish. Rather, it grows greater and greater.

This is not because I am excellent. This is decided by how one rides heavenly fortune. The problem is how the fortune of the individual keeps time with heavenly fortune, how the fortune of the family keeps time with heavenly fortune, and how one aligns the direction of the denomination with the direction of heavenly fortune.

If this does not fit, everything goes wrong. It means one perishes. Even a naked one who has nothing prepared—the problem turns on how, from this standpoint, he connects with heavenly fortune. Whether the Unification Church develops worldwide or not is also decided here.

Then how does one connect with heavenly fortune?

Being united is simple. It comes about centering on good and evil, and good and evil turn upon whether a thing is centered on oneself or centered on the whole.

Therefore, we Unification Church members today must do away with what is centered on the self. We must all agree to this completely. And thereby we must go the road of goodness.

If it is a nation, one must go forward with that nation as the foundation. For this nation not to perish today, uniting the external aspect is an inevitable fact, but one must also keep step with the direction the inner Heavenly principle is going.

If these people do not know this, then someone must become the leader and pull it forward. This is not the word of Teacher Moon of the Unification Church himself. If it is not done so, one perishes at once.

One must become a leader who offers devotion before God.

If there is such a leader, that nation does not perish. If there is a person who works, laboring through the night as through the day, shedding tears for the people, worrying about the future of this nation and these people, making his own flesh an offering, becoming a self that is united morning and evening with the way of Heaven, with a true heart that can attend the Heavenly Father—then it does not perish. Otherwise it perishes.

Even If Opposed, One Who Holds a Heart of Love Does Not Perish

Though I, who have fought for the Will until now, be buried, that is fine. But for the sake of that road we can go, for the sake of a foundation where heavenly fortune can dwell, we must not perish. Because we must not perish, even when an indignant heart surged up, I did not harbor indignation. Because it was a heart wishing to be a people that does not perish, I could not harbor indignation. To have a nation that does not perish, one cannot harbor indignation.

You must know that God too has worked His providence in this way. This is God’s heart for the sake of saving the world; but if one goes wrong, God too comes to see the people He loves perish. Even while wishing that the group opposing Him perish, if one goes wrong, the people He loves may perish before that group. Why is that? Because they betrayed God. God, who takes responsibility behind history and comes forth, before striking the enemy, must first strike the people, family, and individual who followed Him if they go wrong. Therefore, you must understand God’s position, in which He cannot judge this evil world.

Therefore, the work Unification Church members must do today is to save the nation. When, holding a burning heart, we go forward united with heavenly fortune, even if all the nations and peoples of the world perish, this people does not perish.

Furthermore, if, after the twentieth century, the thought and conception that we Unification Church members cry out and assert today have proved to be united and connected with the center of heavenly fortune, then the world must surely be set in order, centering on our assertion. The world must be unified. We fight from this standpoint.

Even if one becomes a body confined (囹圄), fettered in prison, one must not resent the nation. Toward the Republic of Korea, if it be the Republic of Korea, one must not resent it. One must become a person who endures and fights on with the heart that this is because one has not fulfilled the responsibility one ought to fulfill before these people. If there is such a group, that group absolutely does not perish. Even if the Republic of Korea perishes, that group does not perish.

Then for how long must such activity be carried on?

Here we must set up the way of loyalty, and we must transcend the sphere of time and transcend spatiality. A people that considers a thousand years to be one day and holds single-minded devotion, that can hold a heart the same a thousand years before as a thousand years after, and seeks the road that follows heavenly fortune—that people does not perish.

From this standpoint, we must clearly examine how the individual life must be. And we must clearly examine how family life must be. Furthermore, if there has begun in the Unification Church an ideology that can clearly examine even how the tribe, people, nation, and world must go forward, then the Unification Church absolutely does not perish. The more it collides, the more all those accounts become occasions that set fire to and raise a wind in the Unification Church; they cannot make the Unification Church perish. You must know this.

For what have we been born today?

For what do we live? And for what do we fight? For the sake of goodness. Studying, eating, and sleeping too are all for the sake of goodness. Though I be defeated and vanish, what remains absolutely from among what I have fought for is goodness. Therefore, we must hold such a Will that all people can long for that goodness.

For What Do I Live

What did I hope for before the countless peoples as I toured dozens of countries? Those people look upon Koreans lightly. They take Koreans to be dirty, mean people. And yet they are placed in a destiny in which they cannot but follow this person named Moon in Korea—for what good reason? But what I desire is not that they follow Teacher Moon, but that they follow God. If you would love Teacher Moon, love God first and then love him.

In dealing with such people, there is one thing I, as the one in charge, have not lost. It is a matter of whether I go bearing a debt to them or go having put them in my debt. I absolutely incur no debt.

If you have stayed up through the night offering devotion, then I too stay up through the night. Therefore, even if sleep comes and I am weary, that is no problem.

If the countless grieving spirits (哀魂) who have passed through this nation are exalting me, then I must agonize for their sake. The problem is how I unite with their heart. I absolutely incur no debt.

Therefore, what remains to them after I have come and gone is indemnity. That is, “the Teacher came and toiled and went”—they must go bearing the two words “hardship.” There need be no immediate result there. It is to drive something into their hearts that I do so. Though the people differ, the cultural background differs, and the feeling of living differs; why do I do it? Because of God.

The Teacher told you to pray for 120 days. Therefore, you must offer devotion holding the heart, “I am a sinner. Among sinners I am a great sinner.” And in offering devotion, you must incur no debt. Whether eating a meal, or walking a road, or wherever you are, you must have no heart apart from that.

If among you there is anyone who thinks he himself did best, he will be punished. Such a position is not the purpose. There is something I have in mind in my own way. If you think in human terms, all the conditions become unfavorable.

So what remains forever?

It is the leaving behind of a standard that can be good. One who follows the Unification Church does that. But it follows whether one does that work or not. When you have slept a nap out of weariness, you must know to become a person who repents. There will be no one who, holding his heart wrongly, can be happy. You must know that.

Having entered the Unification Church, you know the Unification Church that has appeared, but you do not know the Unification Church that has not appeared. Moreover, the content that lies in the deep place I cannot yet speak of.

If you dig it up and argue this way and that, you may be broken off. But the Teacher is not broken off. Because he does not speak until the time comes. The final purpose is goodness. Living too must be for the sake of this, and dying too must be for the sake of this.

Do Not Despair Even on the Path of Suffering

As one member of the citizenry of the Republic of Korea, there are times when I lament that I was not born in America, bearing such a destiny. But I do not resent that I was born a Korean. Because it can also become a condition that shines more highly.

When one crosses over a difficult course and greets one terminal, the more difficult that course is, the more it becomes material for historical revival and a foundation that can ignite the heart. Therefore, even though the Unification Church walks a road of suffering that no one else can pass through, I do not despair. I will go to the end. Even if the nation perishes and the world perishes, I will go. Even if dozens of bullets come in at once from the east, west, south, and north, I will go. Even when I fall, I will not fall backward.

Many of the people who opposed the Unification Church have perished. I have seen many such individuals. Because I know that when I pray in indignation, the matter is resolved before long, I do not pray. It is not that I do not know how to pray.

The desire we must, without fail, accomplish today is goodness. And in goodness, there is individual goodness, familial goodness, tribal goodness, national goodness, and the goodness of the nation.

The Unification Church has, until now, gone out to the provinces and worked while starving, worked while selling its blood, and worked while eating dog’s food—there are many such miserable episodes. We could curse the Republic of Korea and could curse the world’s humanity, but it will not end there. Because the age that can like us is drawing near, we have endured, holding a heart that can forgive them.

Therefore, even if the Republic of Korea does not give the Unification Church public recognition, the time is coming when many nations of the world can give it recognition. We must know this.

Some people say that Teacher Moon of the Unification Church has an excellent head and is skilled at strategy. How much skill would there be? The principle is simple.

If one has made some wrong decision, God too likes that one to settle it, staying up through the night saying, “Is it ’a’ or is it ’b’?” I ask, “Has this world been united before God, or not?” This is what is different from other people.

Even If the Will Is Realized, If I Cannot Take Responsibility, It Has Nothing to Do with Me

How does one go to the Kingdom of Heaven?

The Teacher knows that. Teacher Moon of the Unification Church knows it better than anyone in the world. I am also confident in judging what the world will become in the future. That is why, whenever placed in a pressing, touch-and-go position where I cannot but perish, though the present is contradictory and unwelcome, I resolutely judge, centering on God, that in the future it will not be so. Going along that way, in the end one succeeds.

A person who has taken responsibility must know how to adjust everything from such a standpoint. To adjust this, there must be a certain firm source. Only then does a good result appear.

The people who follow the Unification Church today must not think that everything cultivated until now, since entering the Unification Church, is a foundation they cultivated. You must know that much blood has gone into this.

When looking upon the people, there were times when we could not stand squarely before the people, times when we were driven into a shameful position before the people. But for the people to live, such misery was necessary.

We must become a group that is born for the sake of goodness together with heavenly fortune, lives for the sake of goodness together with heavenly fortune, and dies for the sake of goodness together with heavenly fortune. But if you wish for the Will to be accomplished right this moment, that is no different from being a thief.

If God were a God who, in the position you say is good, permitted things as good according to your demand, would He become the God of this world? Rather than worrying about when the Will is to be accomplished, the problem is whether I fulfill my responsibility in what I do.

If I cannot fulfill the responsibility in accomplishing the Will, then what does that Will have to do with me? From this standpoint, you must think straight.

Therefore, one must stake one’s whole life. And the question is whether one stands on that standard as firm as sticky rice cake. To go that way is not a sacrifice. On that road, there can be ups and downs, rising and falling.

When one climbs aiming at a high peak, if it ends only with that peak, everyone freezes to death. There is neither an animal nor a flower that can live. That is why a valley is needed. There the harmony of heaven and earth is bound together. There one can greet the birds and can greet the warm days of spring too.

The Teacher thinks he must hasten along the road of the Will. Even now we are in a mountain fully filled with snow. But the deeper the valley below where flowers bloom, the more one can see a forest that forms harmony. A people that wishes only for the heights perishes. America too comes to perish, and the communist party too is placed on the brink of perishing. Khrushchev took off his shoe at the podium of the U.N. General Assembly and struck the lectern. From that time it goes down. America too goes down. The time has come when it must yield the leadership of the world. Now who succeeds it? The communist party too could not cross over the end of the world, and America, which leads the democratic world, could not digest the world.

Then who must digest it?

Now, who will be the second master that remains?

The second master automatically becomes the first master. Who is the one who can become such a first master? It is the group that comes forth in the latter half of the twentieth century henceforth, receiving the most reviling and much persecution—the very group of unification.

How One Lives Centering on Heavenly Fortune Is What Matters

Originally, if all 3.6 billion of humanity die, nothing can be done. That must not be. Therefore, one must say, “Let me alone die, so give blessing to the world.” Jesus too was so. When there is no side of Heaven, what can be done? When he came to die alone, if he had said, “If God loves me, kill them all,” what would have happened? Then he himself too would die. And to say, “Kill my mother and father first,” is also no good. You may say, if you are to die, “Let you die and let me die too,” but all must not die.

Whatever kind of person, one who has a matter of personal property or a matter of inheritance, flatters well. Then that person falls into the anxiety of how to handle this. Doing so, one keeps getting dyed.

Then what standard must goodness set up?

It must set up an absolute standard of goodness. But because an absolute standard of goodness was not set up and an absolute standard of judgment did not come forth, Israel perished.

Likewise, a hundred percent standard by which Christianity can judge the world has not come forth. One ought to draw the boundary of goodness on such a standard, but that was not done. Ten percent, fifty percent, eighty percent, ninety-nine percent—though there is a slight difference, they are the same. Even if there is only a little evil, all are the same.

Seen from this point, all perish. Jesus treated such a problem seriously and fought over it, staking his life. When such a Jesus came to die, would he say, “God, since I die, give punishment to all”? He lived for the sake of the world. He staked his life for the sake of the world. Then, at the last moment when he was cornered, would the word he had to leave be, “Kill all these and let me live”? Such a person is an evil person. Because he was not so, God was with him, and you must know that he could accomplish the authority of resurrection in an environment where he could die for the sake of God.

A person who can die must forgive with the world in view. There it must become a motive that, driving one’s own self, which cannot but die, with a whip, can set up a second indemnity. That is why we have stood forth for the sake of goodness. You must know that this alone is the model, and the fundamental Will, of people who follow Heaven.

Now, what is the biggest problem?

You must, by whatever effort, set up a standard by which you can connect with the center. To become an individual that can be together with heavenly fortune, you must hold concern and connect with that heavenly fortune. When a public servant works at his job, he must not say, “My salary is small, so living is hard. Proportionate to my household, a hundred thousand won will go out, but the present eighty thousand won is not enough. Three times as much goes out—how shall I make up more than that threefold?”

If one does not set one’s standard of living, which one has kept until now, low, one perishes. The larger that ratio, the more one is melted down.

Arm Yourself with Unification Thought and Hold a Strong Spirit

For the sake of unification, one must go even abandoning one’s own life. Because the Heavenly Way was cultivated behind such a historical background, one can accompany God, and if one does not hold a standard of content that can take part there, one perishes. How one lives the individual life centering on heavenly fortune is what matters. You must know this well.

Everyone, do you want to perish? Do you not want to perish?

That is our desire. So everyone will not want to perish. Do you say, “Since my face is ugly, let it become whatever it will; whatever happens to me, it does not matter”? Not so. A person with an ugly face looks in the mirror all the more. Because his ears are sunken in, or his nose is sunken in, he has all the more concern, thinking, “Shall I get plastic surgery?” Seeing the women laugh, it seems they have such concern.

In the end, is this to perish, or to prosper? It is not to prosper. Doing something to the face is not prospering. Though the face be formed like a pumpkin set upon a roof-tile gutter, let the mind at least hold a mind as lovely as silk. It is that, though the face looks so-so, the mind, when looked at, is quite the opposite—that though the face be ugly, the mind must be good.

So when, comparing face and mind, the mind comes to be more than twice the face, the young man is head over heels smitten. Unification Church members must not lament that their faces are plain. Even with a plain face, there is a road of one’s own.

It is the same for men too. Though born like a pumpkin, like a spineless weakling, like a shriveled radish, so that one could be knocked over a thousand times, ten thousand times, if there is one thing that cannot be looked down upon, the women will take a liking to him. A man must hold content that works for the nation, works for the world, and works for heaven and earth.

Those who talk big in the Republic of Korea—watch and see for a few decades: it does not go beyond three generations. President Park is now saying he will bring about a Second Economic revival, but this Second Economic revival must be done with ideology. The problem is how to digest this. One must not lose this fight.

Looking at a nation like Norway today, it enjoys economic wealth. Yet why does the suicide rate keep rising? Because there is no way to block the inner famine of the mind with an external economic bumper harvest. If it could be so, Sakyamuni would not have left the royal palace. In the course of history, people who held a purpose passed through such a course countless times. The individual was so, and the people and nation were so.

So what is it that becomes a problem for these people today?

Money, power, or position is not the problem. The problem is how to achieve the ideological unification, the ideological arming, by which thirty million people can harmonize into one point. The Unification Church has known that if this is achieved, it will become the highest people. And thereby it must lead this nation, but not stop at the nation—it must lead the world, and not stop at the world—it must follow heavenly fortune. And it must not stop at heavenly fortune but must go forward united with God’s love. This is the unification ideal. The Teacher has done this work for decades, his whole life. The Teacher will incur no debt henceforth either. Though I am now nearing fifty years of age, in doing this work I am confident I can beat the young people.

The Teacher too now enters the ranks of those of many years, so it is unpleasant. But he does not enter the ranks of the old. The Teacher does not like people of many years. He likes young people.

Even now, the ones he likes are young students. But if the students are too pleased, it is troublesome. He likes the young, but they have no content. And he does not like the old, but they have content. So let the old not resent old age itself. Let the body be old, but let the mind not grow old.

When going to hunt wild boar in the mountains of Gangwon Province, do not become a group that cannot follow along. Even if your belly aches and you cannot go, you must become a group that can trudge along all the way to Gangwon. “I should be going up today, but my leg feels a little strange—what shall I do?” — Such a person can go to the mountains of Gangwon but cannot climb. But the people of many years must at least hold such a heart. Therefore, a person of many years must not think, when his grandson is twenty-some years old, “Since I have even gotten a grandson’s wife, I am an old-generation grandfather.” One must not lose youth.

One Must Be Able to Digest Everything

Among people on the government side and among ordinary society, some say that since the Unification Church keeps growing bigger, there is trouble. They say all sorts of things, as if Teacher Moon of the Unification Church were going to run for president.

If the Teacher tried to become president here, he would perish. How to handle the world is the problem, and cultivating the road for the sake of the world is the problem.

So now the Teacher is handling the problem of victory over communism and the problem of anti-communism, which even Japan does not handle. To save Asia, the question is who loves Asians more. It is not Japan, nor Korea, nor anyone else. It is only the Unification Church. Therefore, put it into practice. Before actual achievement, no one can raise his head. So now all of Japan has been caught.

Now if you back me up in accord with my intention even a little, there is much work to do. So will you back up my plan in accord with it? (Yes.) Really? (Yes.) When money runs out, you must send money, and when people are needed, you must support people. Can you do that? (Yes.) Is answering enough? You must firmly resolve that it must be done.

The people of the Unification Church are not a group that gets digested but a group that digests. Then, even if a lump of gold or a lump of iron is put in, will you digest it? (Yes.) Even if your belly bursts, you must digest it. To do so, you must swallow even poisonous herbs.

So, whatever one swallows, one must say that only after it has all rotted and melted and been digested within the belly does one fall. Only if one can be so can one swallow the Communist Party raw and yet digest it.

Then who is the group the evil side hates most? It is the Unification Church. Then who is the group God’s side likes best? The Unification Church. Does it feel bad, or good? (It is good.) If it feels bad, die. Even sitting still, you are bound to die.

From now on we must live for the sake of this. We must go straight. What is the use of holding a religion? Even taking down the Unification Church signboard, we must save the Republic of Korea. The world is more important than the Republic of Korea. Therefore, if the world can live, the Unification Church signboard must fly away instantly. At that time, I intend to take down the Unification Church signboard and burn it up.

The Unification Church signboard is pitiable. It is a signboard of suffering that has been much reviled. Among the histories of signboards in the world, the one that suffers most will be the Unification Church signboard. But you must, being satisfied, stake your life and seek the position where you can surely follow heavenly fortune.

Let us seek the highest position where we can put in at anchor together with heavenly fortune. There must be such a family, such a people, such a nation, such a world. When such a time comes, God becomes one with the world.

Then what is the desire of humanity?

It is to attend to and live with God in this world. What is the desire of God? It is to become able to embrace and love the world’s humanity like His own children. This is what He purposed and desired from before all people existed.

The meaning of the character “unification” (統) in the word “Unification Church” is “to lead and command.” It is not the “統” of being led. It is not to lead by money or power. It is to govern by heart. In holding the filial piety that loves the family, the patriotism that loves the country, and the philanthropy that loves the world’s humanity, it is to enter all the way to the position God desires. Putting the mind centered on God before my own individual body and, in the family, becoming the subject myself so that through me the whole can be formed, we must form a good family. And thereby we must become a good family that can become the parent body of a tribe, and a good tribe that influences the people.

World Unification Is God’s Wish and Humanity’s Wish

From such a standpoint, our Unification Church today has come into being upon this earth as one unified tribe. Whether in Japan, America, Germany, or any nation, it is all the same if one is a person of the Unification Church. The Unification kindred can be divided by no one and severed by no one.

The fact that a new tribe-forming movement—one that no one can sever, centered on one ideology and one heart upon the horizontal plane of the world—is unfolding upon this earth is a fact that cannot be passed over in silence. It is an astonishing fact. As much as you toil, the world gives recognition.

Therefore, where does the problem lie?

When there comes to be an individual that the individuals of the world can model themselves on, a family that the families of the world can model themselves on, a tribe that the tribes of the world can model themselves on, a people that the peoples of the world can model themselves on, a nation that the nations of the world can model themselves on, and the world becomes one centering on that nation, then that nation becomes the fatherland of the world.

Then where will God be present?

At the place where the new flag of the worldwide fatherland-blessing waves—there God rests. We must fight and win for the sake of that place. And thereby we must greet the time when, embracing a new culture, we can govern the world.

The activity goal of our Unification Church is “total advance.” Who is the opponent? Is it not that, transcending fighting against an enemy, making an origin by which one can seek one’s own tribe and people, and preparing a form of unified nation for the world—this is the desire God wishes for humanity, and the desire humanity wishes toward God?

Since we are a group that has set out on this road centering on such a purpose, the women, though born as women wearing skirts, must hold the confidence to become women who can surpass men. In the future, even if we confront and fight the People’s Army, the women of the Unification Church must hold the confidence to drive back the men of the People’s Army. Do you understand? Are you confident, or not? (We are.)

If I, bearing heavenly fortune, burst out in anger, heaven and earth would perish, so even when I am indignant, I just sit still. If I get angry, all of heaven and earth perishes. Therefore I must say, “God, I endure,” and become a person of whom God says, “It is enough.” Our Unification Church is trying to make such people.

However hard the communist party tries to take our Unification Church group and make them into communist party members, it cannot be done. However many hundreds of times they torture and however much they do brainwashing, it cannot be done. Can it be done, or not? (It cannot.) It is arranged so that it cannot. From birth we were born so as not to become that. When I think of that, I feel perfect.

Twenty years ago from now, when I fled to Busan, I did stevedore’s shoulder-pole hauling on the docks. In labor, I do anything well. Because I am big of build, I fit in well anywhere I go. To become a leader, one must be able to do anything. In a labor gang, one becomes a friend of the laborers; in a beggars’ gang, one must play the part of a top beggar. Even if there were a contest of begging for food there, the Teacher would take first place. It must be so.

Even while begging for food, one must be able to make everyone a friend and get fed, not be lonely. I have lived that way. Wherever I go, if I say it should be good, I make it good.

Because We Advance Believing in God, However Anyone Opposes, We Do Not Perish

When I was in Seodaemun Prison for a few months, people called me Moon So-and-so of the Unification Church. It may sound like a funny story, but once you go into prison, there is no one who is not a prince. Everyone says he is excellent. But whatever they called me, I just sat still without answering. From the day I entered, I stayed still. In that way, one can stay a month and can stay two months. Yet after a week or two passed, they began to be awed by me. Early in the morning, when I went to relieve myself, I was praying, they say. Can that be blocked with fists?

The Teacher took the one who was the biggest headache among them, the one everyone wished were dead, and, speaking with him a few words, admonished him well. Before that, he had been such a headache, but they came to say that after the man named Moon came in, that person changed. When three or four months passed like this, without a word being said, it became known throughout the cells that they all listened well to what Moon So-and-so said.

So I even met the prison warden and gave him a sharp talking-to. That is why, around the time I was released, there were many guards who came to the Unification Church.

Words are not the problem. Why is that? Because the Teacher, too, standing in a position for their sake, holding a heart that even the president does not hold, on behalf of the Republic of Korea, and centering on the present destiny of Korea and the future destiny of Korea and the national ideology this people must go by, shed tears and prayed for them. Because he had become the master of the heart. That one must bow the head before a good person in charge is undoubtedly a Heavenly-principle law.

Today the Unification Church has been rejected, branded a traitor to the nation, and even called an international communist party, taking upon itself all sorts of signboards. It has even been called the ringleader of a heretical cult, but the Teacher is confident he can take off this hat. When an ordinary person puts it on, that is the end of it, but even if the Teacher puts it on, because he goes the road by which it can be taken off, he absolutely does not perish.

These days, the established churches still oppose. They say the Unification Church is a pro-ruling-party faction. How is the Unification Church a ruling-party faction?

For over thirty years, how much persecution has it received?

Because the ruling party cooperates, the talk that it is a pro-ruling-party faction has come out. Did we ask them to cooperate? Whether they cooperate or not, we simply go our road. It is not that we do it relying on anyone, and still less that we do it relying on the present power-holders. Now our Unification Church does it relying on God.

Though we set out on such a holy standard of goodness, the fruit of goodness has not yet formed. When spring is greeted, the sprout comes up; when summer is greeted, the stem and branch stretch out, and leaves grow thick, and the time to flower comes; and when the time to flower arrives, butterflies and bees fly in from all directions. Now the Unification Church has reached the time when countless people will fly in from east, west, south, and north like bees and butterflies.

Americans come, Japanese come, and all gather. What is there that the Teacher has not done for the Republic of Korea? Thinking ten years ago that such days would surely come before the destiny of the Republic of Korea, right after I took off the fetters in Seodaemun Prison and came out, I put a member on a smuggling boat and had him attack Japan. That violated that nation’s law, but because I knew that, to save the nation, even if I were driven before the people, a second country and a third country were needed to pioneer the destiny of the future, I carried out the planned work, even incurring debt to lay this foundation.

Then just wait ten more years. At that time they will say that, in matters of religion, it must be the leading figures of the Unification Church and the young people of the Unification Church, and that in Asia’s anti-communist policy too it must be the Unification Church. We will fly our flag. Teacher Moon of the Unification Church is not doing this work with you to eat well and live well himself. Just wait a little. The time will come when anyone at all at the Korean embassy will come to the Unification Church and pay respects. The Teacher will make it so. Just watch. Does it feel good? (It is good.)

When the Teacher was about to go to America, the U.S. State Department opposed his coming, calling him “a person of concern, Mr. Moon.” But within a year, I restored all of that. Furthermore, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a notice three months in advance to the embassy stationed in Korea, telling them not to let Mr. Moon into Japan, but the Teacher pushed them aside and entered Japan.

They say the incapable fellow plays king at home, and the capable fellow talks big outside. So in Korea, the Teacher is like a small-minded man, but going abroad, he is not so. That is not because I am excellent, but because the Unification Church is excellent. Now I am doing much work you do not know of.

Even Unification Church members are doing much work in which they do not know where or how or what I am doing.

Look to Our Bright Future and Advance with Strength

Now our time is drawing near. The parting of a destiny that will determine the worldwide right of inheritance has drawn near before our eyes. Then what shall we do? Making goodness the subject, holding the authority of goodness, and setting up the achievement of goodness, we must squarely make the parting of good and evil—that goodness is thus and evil is thus.

Individually, familially, tribally, nationally, and worldwide, if the road the Unification Church goes for the sake of Jesus’ mission perishes, Teacher Moon must go to the great hell. Even if the national culture of these people is entirely eroded and wiped out and reduced to a half-dead state, if even one person has been injected with this people’s reverence-for-Heaven thought and holds the truth that even after dozens of centuries it cannot be otherwise than by that thought, then you must know that through that one person the world is unified. Even if that one person remains, the nations and peoples of the world are reorganized.

If there is such a source, one must not live holding only the sorrow of the present reality, but must become a person who can long for the blessing that will come and sing of a romantic happiness. The road such a central man goes is the road of the Unification Church.

This is what is splendid. Even if one wears a necktie and is fettered with handcuffs, what is splendid is splendid.

At the time of the Kim Chang-ryong incident a few years ago, how did Colonel Heo die? Taking responsibility for the whole, he vanished as the dew of the execution ground. A person who holds the Unification Church ideal must hold a conviction beyond that. Otherwise, one cannot become the center of the Unification Church. Are you beyond that? (Yes.)

You Japanese here, are you fighting, staking your lives? (Yes.) May I sincerely believe it? (Yes.) Then do you hold that much heart? (We hold it.) I mean, do you hold strength beyond what can subjugate a population of a hundred million, strength that can subjugate the 1.1 billion population of Asia? (We hold it.) This is the Unification Church way.

Going to America, there are people with big heads. How unsightly they are! Some people have a nose a span long. And some have eyes so big and deep you feel you could be sucked in. Such people feel unpleasant at first sight, but since all are the same human beings, once affection forms, it is all the same. Once affection forms, the distinction of race disappears.

What was it that astonished me when I became the Teacher of the Unification Church? It is the thing called ideology. I have fought considerably, but the people who follow me are the same. Some people see the Teacher for only the second time. When I ask them what road they will go, they give a formulaic answer. They say they will go this road even if they die. Before I even ask, they are excellent enough to answer what I hoped for.

The Teacher is now weaving a net to drive the world into. Placing many nations—America, Japan, and Germany—before me, I am weaving the net. Korea, America, and Japan, in weaving the net, must weave the same net.

If one weaves a pollock net and one weaves a whale net, it is useless whether one weaves or not. Therefore, all must be the same. If America, Germany, and Japan—if every nation casts the same net—the forces of evil can be held in check. Can it be done, or not? (It can.) If it cannot, what will you do? (We must make it be done.)

When I go somewhere, they say the car I rode last year will not do, that I must ride a new car. They say there must be a new house too, and that wherever the Teacher goes, he must go to a first-class hotel. Is this a good ideology or a bad ideology? Especially for Koreans, it is a good ideology.

If I do not tour but you go in my place and say you have come from headquarters, everyone is elevated.

If the father is excellent, the children are excellent too. But what must be the source is what matters. When I go before many people, I do not boast that I am the Teacher of the Unification Church. On our road, we must go lowering ourselves.

Looking at you, there are many magnificent people. Since it would feel bad to you if I spoke of it, I will not.

Goodness Prospers and Evil Perishes

Our ideal is truly splendid. Today you have come forth as individuals before the 3.6 billion of the world’s humanity as Unification Church members, but centering on the family, you must form a complete family, and by forming one tribe centered on the signboard of the Unification Church, you must, centering on a worldwide new nation, lay a bridge in God’s coming from the heavenly world to the human world.

All the content that can connect this end of the bridge with that end of the bridge must be furnished. Therefore, God comes seeking this road, and the human being must go seeking this road. When there is a center God intends, we must seek and connect this road. When is this standard connected? To make a motive that can connect it, one must become a worldwide tribe. In such a situation, we must aim toward goodness with strength.

Goodness prospers, and evil perishes. Evil must be driven out. In the Republic of Korea, centering on the Unification Church, the present must set up a standard by which a tradition can be planted before the descendants. Old and young, we must, taking charge of this world first, become a practicing group that offers the most devotion and can surpass even the communist party.

You must know clearly that how the world is connected and handled, centering on the national problem, is the decisive factor that can determine the destiny of the future world.

We have been called to bear such a solemn task and mission, so the self who has shouldered that responsibility and mission must choose for himself and stand for himself. And thereby we must connect Asia and the world. Even if in actuality it is not so, in the mind we must live together with the members of the world, together with the group of victory spread throughout the world, and we must know clearly that we of the Unification Church have the responsibility of presenting before the world’s humanity, as certain, that living toward the model ideal world that all people of tomorrow desire is the sure thing.

Then how do we lay a foundation on which the whole world can be united, centering on Korea? Since it cannot be done with one road, one must hold a road with a four-directional character. For example, the Unification Church has done, for the sake of the nation, various things others could not do. When we founded the children’s dance troupe, people sneered, saying, “They said the Unification Church dances naked, and sure enough they really dance.” But now it has laid a good foundation that boasts Korea’s culture and art to the world and introduces the Republic of Korea.

Furthermore, when we formed the Victory Over Communism Federation, in the provinces they scoffed, saying all sorts of things: “Is the Unification Church a national religion?

Victory over communism to lead anti-communism—what is the use of doing such a thing?” Yet, in the past three years, seen from the present standard, it has become an organization that takes responsibility for over 95 percent of the government’s lectures and lectures on counter-espionage and victory-over-communism thought. So it has spread nationwide, and now, since every nation knows of it, it cannot be ignored.

Now we must carry out the victory-over-communism movement. Then what must there be first? First, there must be people. There must be individuals, there must be families, there must be a people. In this way we go forward to the nation, world, and Cosmos.

In Asia, if we make Japan and Communist China become one, the whole region of Asia can become one simply. And centering on America, tying Europe into one, we must launch a movement that makes an Abel-type organization like the U.N. General Assembly and presses down the Soviet Union. The Unification Church must do even that work. Everyone, do you agree? (We agree.) The young people must study hard. Of course, study English, but also study French—you must do everything. Without building up ability, one cannot go forward toward the world.

We have not perished. Is the Unification Church dead or not dead?

The Unification Church members who suffered wretchedly for thirty years, who were reviled wretchedly, and who were driven wretchedly, are still alive. We will not retreat. The group born for the sake of goodness, living for the sake of goodness, dying for the sake of goodness, is the Unification Church members. We must become such a group. Those who entered about ten years ago think that time was good. Being of one group with Teacher Moon of the Unification Church, even while being reviled, that time was good, was it not? (It was.) That time was the era of the unification group. Do not feel bad about being called the Unification Church. Becoming the unification group, we become the group of unification, and then become the group of the world. And thereby we become a family of the unification household that can handle even the world.

We Who Must Be Born for Goodness, Live for Goodness, and Die for Goodness

The people of the Unification Church must be born for the sake of goodness, live for the sake of goodness, and die for the sake of goodness. So let my individual take part in this, and let me make my family take part in this, make my tribe take part in this, and make my people and nation take part in this.

When we do victory-over-communism activity, in society there was much talk: “It is a means and method for the Unification Church to expand its own religious power; by what skill would it do anti-communism?” Witnessing is a later problem.

When the nation is about to perish, what use is witnessing?

In this way, when our Unification Church puts a hand to something, it is one of two—die or live, perish or prosper—and it resolutely cannot perish.

The pressing problem of Christianity is to make people believe in God. No word says to believe in the pastor or elder of Christianity. Nor is it to believe in the denomination, Presbyterian or Methodist. It is to believe in God. Whom must one believe like? One must believe like Jesus. And one must know what God is doing now.

Looking at the Republic of Korea, there will be a depth to which God has come and gone until now. There will surely be a road for this nation and these people that boasts of a five-thousand-year history and boasts of being a single-blooded people. Seeing the fact that a nation not worth a rat’s horn in Asia has carried on holding the pride of a cultured people of five thousand years of history, this people did not become so because it wished to. It is because there was a reason it had to remain as a seed that does not die.

That must, in the Last Days, meet a right farmer and be planted in fertile soil. And on the day it all ripens, the world must receive this seed. Seen in that sense, because God was together with it, our people did not perish.

A nation that betrays God perishes. One must be connected with God by the cord of the heart. The Unification Church has that. If that is the case, is the Unification Church needed or not needed? (It is needed.) Whatever denomination apart from the Unification Church, it must do that work.

If you cannot do it, what happens?

Pack up your bundle and go back home, is what I say. Before the countless prophets and martyrs who came and went in the history of the people and the grieving spirits who gave their lives for these people, we must, equipped with the subject-consciousness that can attend God without shame, stand before the people. There is nothing that cannot be done. Therefore, we must do of our accord the work others cannot do.

Before World Unification, We Must Achieve Unity of Heart with God

Today, before the communist party—which, within a mere fifty years of its founding, is toying with a population of one billion in the world—as it stands forth wielding a sword, we must become selves who can stand forth even with a naked body saying, “Strike me.” Otherwise, it is nothing. Because we are the Unification Church that seeks to accomplish the Will of God. Therefore, we must go forward individually, familially, tribally, and nationally.

Then, centering on what we shall go forward before God?

It is that we go forward united with God’s heart. Our foremost problem is the heart. Next is ideology, and then action. What the Unification Church asserts is that we achieve unity of heart. And thereby we must do away with selfish national feeling or tribal feeling. Where is the place where I can completely explode my feelings for the sake of the world’s humanity? The Unification Church must do its utmost to set up a standard of unity of heart that can be united with the Heavenly heart.

We go forward putting into practice from the beginning, live centering on practice, and connect the course of a lifetime through that living. Centering on living and the course of a lifetime, one must be able to be united with God’s heart. In this world of death, there remains the portion of responsibility God desires. That we must do. Regardless of night or day, we must break through and conquer.

We must hold the conviction that, if it does not sprout, we plant and plant again, and even if it sprouts only once in a hundred times, we will certainly see one sprout and rear it carefully. Even if a thousand, ten thousand storms come, and trials come, the good tree that becomes the seed of love must not be broken. If one retreats toward the evil side, one perishes.

The descendants of the Unification Church must go, holding the conviction that when the time comes, they will restore the true all at once to set up the conditions of the good ancestors and the resolve that they must not grow weary.

Passing through such things, the ideal world comes; and that ideal world is a world without fighting. It is not that east, west, south, and north fight one another, but that the east joins with the west, the west with the east, the south with the north, and the north with the south, and they are connected before one center; so communism upon this earth will disappear.

Today this world is divided into east and west, and unless each loves the other, centering on one center, the world cannot become one. When there appears upon the earth a foundation of goodness that knows how to respect the other—holding that the counterpart is truly more precious and weighty than one’s own nation—then at last the worldwide age of the ideal of creation that God desires cannot but come. Only after passing through this standard must one go seeking the spirit world. That which teaches such a road is today’s Unification thought—you must know this.

The Unification Church, transcending the transitional concept of religion, acting together with the conscience, together with the mind, together with the body, must lay the far-future worldwide foundation that can be united with the law of the Heavenly relationship and be made into ideology.

Through my family and tribe, beyond the people and across the borders of nations, we must, in a free environment, upon the horizontal plane of the world, be able to sing a song, and must build a good kingdom in which we can attend and love the Lord God Jehovah as my Father.

We must greet the day when we can praise the arrival of such a good kingdom and, before the Cosmos, forever and ever praise that the world’s peoples have become citizens of that nation. To conduct such a thing is the ideal world of happiness humanity desires, and you must know that it is the terminal the Unification Church seeks.

For that, we must be together with God and unify our hearts. We must know God’s heart. What teaches this is the doctrine of the Unification Church. We must know how God is operating and then act. We must know what stage of living environment God, who gathers the world, restores it, and works His providence, is seeking.

You must become a group that can go straight toward the enemy line at the front according to the command of the commander. Transcending the given environment, you must live a life that can be united with the Will of God, and you must be agreeing with your neighbors too.

Whether east or west, ancient or modern, all who wish for such a world to come about do so because it is the ideal of all. Centering on such a philosophy of living, arming ourselves with the ideal and ideology of the Unification Church, we must go forth to the world. That cannot be done with words alone. Putting it into practice is what matters.

The countless people of the world are luxuriant with words alone. You must not become a group that is judged in that way.

The Wisdom of One Who Endures

Looking at the things the Teacher has commanded and taught you until now, there is nothing the Teacher taught without putting it into practice. What the Teacher did not put into practice and did not live, he did not teach.

Whatever the world says, you must be able to fulfill your responsibility toward such teaching of the Teacher. That alone is the model and the absolute truth. If such teaching were not a matter of practicing and teaching, but a teaching driven by the pangs of conscience, then it would perish.

The Teacher has fought for the sake of the people. He has also fought for the sake of humanity. He has come forth following God, who came forth bearing a historical heart. In the “final round” of the present, having borne this road with resolve, the Teacher has fought solely for the sake of this road, saying, “Shall prison block the road I go? Shall being killed block it? Is it not the natural law and truth that, once born, one dies?” Therefore we must go, not fearing death. We must fight knowing that this road is our road and that acting in this way is our mission.

God has, until now, worked His providence without a word. He is a God of silence. He has not made excuses for Himself. Then who must sympathize? God does not try to make excuses for the evil world. Because the evil world all the more likes excuses.

We must be ones who can leave behind our hearts and, greeting my time, lift both hands to welcome God and pledge that we will be united with His heart. And we must model ourselves on the endurance of the Father, who has endured thousands of years of history, and we must know Him to be a Father who has managed history in silence and endurance.

Jesus, at the crossroads of dying unjustly on the cross, said,

“I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” (John 16:12)

We must know how sorrowful was the road of the cross’s agony, which he walked silently—having come embracing heaven and earth but, at the moment of having to go, unable to leave behind even one successor, bearing the han of a thousand years, ten thousand years, unable to discuss that heart.

We walked all kinds of roads of suffering in the first seven-year course. We did not refuse the road of prison or the road of death, and we had to become a lot that slept by the roadside. We received harsh persecution, but we did not perish and are going this road.

Once we open our mouths and speak, we have words for days and for months, but we must endure with a silent breast. Because we have taken responsibility for a great work, if we act rashly, we destroy the great law of the Heavenly principle.

Whether ten years pass, or twenty, thirty, or forty years, you must clearly know that God alone is our desire and our plan of practice.

Live Each Day with the Conviction to Realize God’s Will Without Fail

Now we have entered the second seven-year course. Where will you go? Do not follow Teacher Moon of the Unification Church, I say. Before loving Teacher Moon of the Unification Church, love this nation and this people; before loving Teacher Moon of the Unification Church, love this world and love God.

If, thereafter, you come to love the Teacher, the Teacher will, on the contrary, wish to attend to such a person.

It is not for me alone to live well. It is to leave behind content that the world’s humanity, staking their lives through history to repay it, cannot repay, and, leaving it to tens of millions of descendants and making a will asking them to repay the debt, still cannot repay. If there is this traditional thought that is left behind, you must know that that thought is more than enough to handle the world.

You must know that the foundation on which the true can dwell forever is the road goodness can go, and that goodness alone, forever victorious, can build an eternal ideal world. Knowing that it is Unification Church members who must go centering on such a standpoint, you must take part and go forward holding such purpose and awareness.

We must drive out the selfish outlook of the world that centers on one individual, or that boasts of oneself. In this field where good and evil confront each other, since evil is blocking the road of goodness, evil must be removed, and goodness must be held.

Everyone, on the road where good and evil fight, one side surely perishes. Here, a traditional theory examined through history already stands firm. To pull this and stand forth, you must know that one cannot stand forth without gritting the teeth and biting the tongue and holding God more dear.

The road I walk is a road walked quietly. To find me and conquer me, one must pass through and overcome a road of suffering harder than historical suffering.

Only then can one lead the family, lead the tribe, lead the people, cross over the ridges of suffering, and go on to accomplish the single-minded desire of tomorrow.

You must fight toward such a desire, and, from the start, holding an ideology that will forever never change and an absolute philosophy that can remain forever, you must leave behind a resolve and a conviction that can be set up upon a straight line.

You must be born in goodness, live in goodness, and die in goodness; and knowing that achieving unity of heart, unity of living, and unity of ideology is what can hold the authority of taking part in heavenly fortune, you must go, enduring in silence.

You must know that if I do not do it, my sons and daughters, my descendants, get caught by this. With each passing day, and each time the sound of the clock in your room is heard, live each day with the heart that through this time the destiny of our descendants for tens of thousands of generations is divided; and I hope you become ones who, setting up only the result of goodness to accomplish God’s Will without fail, inherit heavenly fortune by which all can be united with the fatherland of goodness.