Daegu Church, Korea
We know that, from the past down to the present age, the countless people who live upon this earth exert all manner of effort to pursue the true. All the more, we ourselves, who lead a life of faith, well know that we go forward adoring the One who is the true center and wishing to become our true selves.
The Human Being, Who Pursues the True
The true individual, the true family, the true nation, the true world—this is not pursued only by us today; it was pursued in the past, is pursued in the present, and will be so in the future.
Then where will the true center pursued through the past, present, and future come to be concluded?
It is not concluded in the world, nor concluded in some nation, nor concluded in some society. That standard of being “true” must be concluded in the individual and make a new departure. Otherwise, there can be no true family, and there can be no true society, true nation, or true world.
Therefore, who is the being that can become the center of the true? It is precisely each of us. Because each of us pursues the true self, we exalt God, who is the true center. But the center of the truth must not remain in God alone. The human being must become the center of the true.
The saying that a human being must become the center does not mean, vaguely, that human beings in this world must become the center. Each of us must become that center and stand in a place where we can appear as the world's center. Without that, one cannot become the central being of the true.
However true God is, God alone will not do. He must, without fail, form a tie with an environment. The vertical God cannot equip the tie of the true without forming a tie with a horizontal environment. To equip all four directions and accomplish a three-dimensional purpose, one must, without fail, equip the object sphere and settle the center.
The Human Being, Who Must Become the Central Being That Realizes the True World
According to the principle of creation, all existing things, all things of Heaven and earth, are set to survive centering on dual characteristics. Likewise, however much God is the spiritual center, unless God is settled as the center within the human mind, He cannot completely subsist as the true. The purpose for which God has until now come seeking human beings lies precisely here.
Therefore, we must know that our humankind itself has the mission of seeking and setting up God as the central being of itself. So we must know that the one insignificant being called “I” today is not a mere individual who comes and goes in flowing history but bears the immense and grave mission of having to appear in a true figure as the center of this world today that blocks flowing history and as the new pioneer of the future.
Because the individual thus holds the content of true value, Jesus too said,
“What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” (Matt. 16:26).
Seen from this, my self holds a value-content that crosses beyond the whole.
Therefore, we must know the fact that, without equipping true content centering on this self of mine, one cannot realize the true world. In this broad sense, we must know the fact that Jesus too could not but appraise the value of the individual’s character in that way.
The Bible says, “There is none righteous, no, not one.”
This word means that the human being by himself alone will not do. We must know the fact that only when one appears as the center of the whole from a place united with God, centering on God—in other words, appearing as the being who stands in for God—can one be settled as a true figure, a figure of righteousness, a figure of goodness.
If a man, one man, has become a true figure, it must not end with one man; one must, without fail, develop it into a true family. A true family must not end with the family alone; one must, without fail, develop it into a true society, and a true society into a true people, a true people into a true nation, a true nation into a true world.
Therefore, the world is not the center, the nation is not the center, and no family is the center. One must clearly know that the center is, in every respect, ourselves.
Jesus too did not, from the time of his birth, hold the recognition that he was the Son of God. From birth he did not enter the sphere of recognition where he could stand confidently before God. It was through a lifetime of some thirty-odd years that he came to enter that place. And Jesus died on the cross while struggling over the problem of how to reflect the self-subjective recognition he had entered into the sphere of that object world.
That is why holding an awakening about the self is more important than anything. One must carry out subjective recognition such that one’s own center becomes the motive, and taking it as the standard, one can go left if left, right if right, forward if forward, back if back, still if still, and moving if moving. Thereby we must know that one must not be moved by some object partner but must, from a subjective position, move the object.
In the flow of history, the one person called “I” is no more than one who exists for a single instant. In the eternal course of history over hundreds of millions of years, our lifetime, living out a life of seventy or eighty years, is truly no more than a blinking instant. To live, we human beings must breathe, and our whole life corresponds to a period the same as a single breath among countless breaths.
Therefore, seen centering on eternity, we are living an extremely short period. If, in this short period, one can sway the wish of the whole and settle the center of what the whole wishes, we must know how precious and grave this time is.
Some people, centering only on themselves, give up their lifetime. It is that they decide their lifetime as they please. But it is not set up to be done that way. If one is a citizen of the Republic of Korea, one must decide one’s lifetime together with the fate of the Republic of Korea.
If one has become a member of the world’s humankind, one must decide one’s lifetime together with the fate of the world. Going further, if one is in a position of going forward holding the tie of Heaven, one must decide one’s lifetime centering on Heaven’s fortune.
In an individual’s life, if there is some fortune centered on the individual, that fortune must, without fail, keep step with the fortune of the nation, if the nation, of the world, if the world, of Heaven, if Heaven. Thereby, if there is a person who can connect the individual’s fortune to the family’s fortune that needs the individual’s fortune, to the nation’s fortune that needs the individual’s fortune, to the world’s fortune that needs the individual’s fortune, and to Heaven’s fortune that needs the individual’s fortune, such a person can be considered one who, as an individual, goes the course of a true life.
What is called a life course refers to one’s whole lifetime, and daily living refers to every single day. Then, to leave a true life course, how must one do?
One must live a true daily life, day by day. If the living of one day fails, one comes to hold a factor of failure in one’s life course. Therefore, we must know how tense a life of daily living must be and how much of a decisive fight it must be.
To Become a True Central Being
What our fallen human beings wish for is to be restored to the true individual. But in being restored to the true individual, one cannot be restored alone. We human beings, who betrayed God and were driven out before God, must, from that very place of being driven out, attend to the God we betrayed and go forward. That path is the path of Restoration we must go today. To that end, we ourselves must equip the true original posture. Without that, one cannot attend God.
When Adam and Eve fell, they disbelieved God and came to hold their center before God. That center was self-centered apart from God. Because they departed from a place where God and human beings were not united but were separated and estranged, one cannot set up a true standard by the human being alone. We must know that one must, without fail, set it up centering on God.
From this viewpoint, within God, what must one become one with God?
One does not become one by work. In every respect, one must become one centering on God’s heartistic, inner-heart problem. Next, one must become one centering on the Will. Therefore, one cannot but interpose God’s heart and Will here. In that sense, our Unification Church is seeking God’s heart.
To form a blood tie by which one can be united with God’s heart, one must live together with God’s Will. Where is the absolute place centered on God’s heart—that is, the place that can settle the standard of infinite value? It is the place united with God’s heart, the place united with God’s love. One must know that unless I settle the object standard of true love, however much I go along in loyalty for the sake of the Will, I cannot be together with God forever.
When a child is born of parents, if one asks from where it is born, it is not born from some outer condition of the parents. Inheriting the bone of the parents’ bone and the flesh of their flesh—that is, inheriting all inner ties—it is born.
Likewise, we human beings too must be born inheriting all the inner ties of God, who is in the position of parent. That very self, born inheriting God’s inner ties, cannot but be an expression-body of God’s love. Therefore, what God wishes to possess forever from a standard that stands in for the whole value is precisely the child.
We must know that what God wishes to possess forever and ever, not temporarily, is the child. It is we who go forward, centering on that child as the standard. Therefore, to become the true I, one must become completely one, centering on God.
Because the human being has inherited all the inner things that are the innermost of God’s inmost, bone of His bone, flesh of His flesh, in God’s sight the human being is the same as the center of the whole. What manifested as the central substance of God’s whole wish were Adam and Eve, the ancestors of humankind. Therefore, God’s loving Adam and Eve could become loving the whole. We must know that only when one has stood in a place holding a tie by which God can so relate does one at last reach the true and perfect standard God desires.
What is the standard of Restoration spoken of in our Unification Church today? It is the completion of individual restoration. Then how must the completion of individual restoration be accomplished? It is accomplished when one comes to hold the standard of being born anew, centering on God’s inner, heartistic problem. Today we go forward gazing at that standard.
Therefore, everything born until now was born falsely. Because one was born through Satan, one must deny this and be reborn and resurrected. To that end, one individual self of mine must become one centering on God’s absolute and true love. This is the important issue in setting up the truth. Clearly knowing this, one must, without fail, be reborn, centering on that tie, and go the life course.
One Must Become a Person Who Lives Practicing Love
Where does the central driving force of a human being’s life lie?
It lies in God’s love. It must be a life course that goes forward, not centering on the Will but within the sphere of God’s love—savoring God’s love, singing God’s love, and deepening God’s love. Therefore, a human being’s living must begin in love, live in love, and see its end in love.
Is that love a love centered on oneself? It is not. That love must be a love that begins from God’s love and can love the whole world. We human beings must live holding such love. Therefore, before loving the Will, one must hold God’s love. Before living for the sake of the Will, one must live by God’s love. We must know that one must live this way.
From this position, one must fulfill the duty of loyalty and filial piety before God. But the time when one can become a filial child before God is not always there. You must know this. The time when one can be filial is not made in the spirit world after death. Seen centering on eternity, one must set up the condition of having loved God within this lifetime, an extremely short period like a tick of the clock, and one must set up the condition of having been filial before God.
Furthermore, while alive, one must settle the decision that one is a son absolutely needed before God. It is while we are alive that we must do such things.
Passing through the course of history until now, countless human beings have pursued a human being holding such value, but no one could say, “I am a son of God who has devoted utmost loyalty before God and, centering on God’s heart, set up the eternal, unchanging duty of true filial conduct.”
Such a person must appear in our age today. One must become an unprecedented and unrepeatable person. One must become such a person as cannot exist even after we die and cannot exist even among our descendants.
The Precious Seven-Year Course, Which Cannot Be Greeted Again
If you yourselves were born holding God’s heartistic tie, by which you can follow the center that holds such infinite value, you must settle this in this age. You must know that the fact that we alone hold such a time—one that did not exist in the past and does not exist even in this age of the world—is an immense and boundless grace and that we have been granted a value that cannot be exchanged for anything.
If one misses this time, one cannot greet it again even after waiting a thousand years. Therefore, you must know how precious this age, in which we live out our lifetime, is.
When we say we live a life of ten, twenty, thirty, or fifty years centering on the Will, that lifetime must, without fail, enter through the Seven-Year Course. If our lifetime enters centering on this Seven-Year Course, how precious is this Seven-Year Course in a lifetime?
If one cannot completely unite this Seven-Year Course with God’s Will, one cannot, in the life-course one must go centering on God, live within the sphere of God’s love together with God’s Will. Thinking from this point, we must know that this period of the Seven-Year Course spoken of in our Unification Church is truly the most precious time, one that cannot be bought even by giving ten million geum.
For a person who has missed this time, there can be no course of a true life. You must know how much toil there was until this instantaneous seven-year period—like the morning dew that soon vanishes—came seeking us. In this one time coming, it does not simply come while one sleeps at ease. God has done boundless toil until now to fit this one time before us.
God, who knows that if one does not hold this one time, one cannot form the tie as a true son or daughter, has done boundless toil to fit this one time. And not only God, but the saints and sages and the prophets and forebears who pursued goodness through the path of the Way have until now been sacrificed to fit this one time. But eventually, they did not greet this one time.
That we today have come to greet it is not a coincidental agreement but an agreement by rule, a necessary agreement. Without this time coming, the necessary family, the necessary nation, the necessary world, and the necessary Cosmos cannot come forth. The family, nation, and world the Will desires cannot arise coincidentally. For such a family, nation, and world to arise, one must, without fail, fit that one time holding a necessary condition.
Therefore, for our fallen life, there must be one time that becomes the standard by which the final fate can be settled. One must not let that one time pass by idly. You must know that only by taking that one time as the origin and pushing forward for a lifetime can a true life remain.
One’s Whole Life Must Be Lived for God with an Unchanging Mind
The people of the world say that if one has much money, one is happy, but such happiness merely flows away. Even a tie or human relation of one time remains for later generations as a condition of lament.
However one is seen by worldly honor or authority, however one has equipped content by which one can boast worldly before all the nations and peoples of the world in every respect, one must know that it does not become a blessed condition for oneself but rather becomes a condition that bites and hooks me.
If it becomes so, even if one has children, in the heavenly world that child will become a condition of han, and however glorious a place one lived in on earth, it will rather become a condition that bites at oneself. All the sense of authority one boasted of and put forward by oneself on this earth will, in the other world and among later generations, remain as a factor that binds oneself.
However one sang of happiness from a fine place on this earth, one must know that the elements of that happiness do not become a condition that can liberate me. It may become a condition that adds to unhappiness, but it does not become a condition that brings me true hope and happiness.
Because God knows such things, He has, through the world of the Way, upheld the one time God desires and driven human beings on until now. Thereby, centering on this one time, the thought of the Messiah, whom all humankind can greet in common, came to appear. It is only this one time.
The one time people wished for in the past, the one time people wish for in the present, the one time future people will wish for, that one time that becomes the center before all humankind—seen about the problem of how to fit it together with God and with Heaven’s fortune, we must know how precious this one time is greeted in our Unification Church today, more than any religion of the historical ages, more than any humankind of the historical ages.
Of course our life course too is precious, but each day within the Seven-Year Course is precious beyond all else. You must know that when one wrongly fits this period, a thousand years of han lodge here. And, centering on this one time, the life given to you, once gone, is gone. You must know that, equipped with spirit and body on this earth, one can never greet such a time again. Because the spirit is eternal, but the body vanishes.
Just as goodness is realized in the place where God and I are united, and subject and object are completely united, the time when a human being can hold such a tie is only the period of living clothed in a body on earth—that is, one’s lifetime. Therefore, you must know well how precious this lifetime is.
On the day one lives this period wrongly, one is ruined forever. On the other hand, when one sets this period in order well and lives together with God, an eternal ground of happiness is laid. Therefore, you must become a person who, whether coming or going, whether asleep or awake, whether sorrowful or joyful, gazes at the value of this one time and strives to make it a shining life. Such a person is a great person.
In order not to fall below the line of one’s own heartistic standard, one must, aiming at a place beyond it, pass through unchangingly today and tomorrow, through one year, ten years, a lifetime. Thereby, if there is a person who, until reaching death, devotes utmost sincerity to living a true figure centering on one standard of goodness with a one-against-a-hundred mind, that person is blessed and wise.
At such a time we must devote all manner of sincerity. In devoting sincerity, one must not devote sincerity like an ordinary person who merely flows along. One must devote the highest sincerity, such as all the people who came and went in history could concentrate on wholly.
It is similar to when one competes in athletics. When there is an athlete who has competed in the Olympics representing Korea, when he runs, the thirty million citizens of Korea run together with that athlete. That is, when that athlete runs vigorously, the people’s future is vigorous.
If that individual wins a worldwide victory and stands in a place of glory, not only that individual takes part in that place of glory, but the whole people take part.
Just as countless citizens breathe together with that athlete, holding such a tie, we today must know that we are not our individual selves alone.
Become the Central Being God Seeks
We are not our individual selves alone; we are supranational beings, supra-historical beings. We are beings that represent the past, present, and future; represent the whole world and all history; and represent the whole universe and the Cosmos-world. Therefore, we are running from a supra-human and supra-historical position representing the history of humankind.
Behind this running of ours today, the countless prophets and forebears who came and went historically are providing support. A person whom they can support, a person whom today’s humankind can support, a person whom the descendants of the future can support—such a person does not live centering on himself. He does not live centering on his people. In every respect, he lives centered on God.
A person for whom the great figures of history can become his side, and all the hopeful human beings of the present age can become his side, and the hopeful descendants of the future can become his side—to become such a person, one must not live centering on oneself.
You must know that unless one transcends ideology and does not change and stands in a place united, centering on God’s love, one cannot be set up as a supra-historical center.
Born in a place where one can be so, this time of seeking the tie by which one can be so cannot but be the most solemn.
If one misses this one time, a thousand years of han lodges. Therefore, the Unification believers must set forth for the sake of the Will with all manner of sincerity. You must know that if one fails to pass this one time meaningfully, and one’s standard of living is not changed at this one time, that life ends as a false life.
Then, greeting this one time that comes but once in the eternal, boundless historical ages, how much sincerity must one devote? Can the living in which you sleep when you want to sleep, eat when you want to eat, and do everything you want to do be called a life of devoting sincerity? Anyone can do that.
How much sincerity must one devote?
At this one time, which one cannot greet again to devote sincerity even if one wishes to greet it, to become a person whom God wishes for and whom the ancestors of our humankind, the descendants of ten thousand ages, and supra-historical humankind await, one must devote such sincerity as can move them, as they can adore, as they can gather their minds to praise. Is this not the highest standard we, who have greeted this one time, must wish for? Is it not what we must wish for to seek and set up?
The instant in which one can seek and greet such a day is extremely solemn. That day is not one day of flowing history. It is not one instant of flowing history.
The issue is: where is there a person who is loyal from such a place—a place where, before the historical pulse, the Cosmos-historical pulse, one can move if the ideal beings of the universe, who set up the supra-historical right way, move, and be still if they are still, and breathe together with them; a place where every feeling of that movement can be felt in common with such cosmic beings? You must know that God seeks such a place and seeks one person who can be so.
Then in which age is it?
At some one time, in a tick of an instant, it comes seeking you. Even in the Seven-Year Course, short as a tick of an instant, not the whole seven-year period becomes the center. Even within the Seven-Year Course, one must prepare a central point at which one devotes the highest sincerity. It would be good if all seven years became the base point of sincerity, but when that is not so, one must at least leave a standard of indemnity that can resurrect the seven years. Seen this way, you will be able to know how immense the sincerity you devote is and how great the weight of that sincerity.
The only ones who can, by fitting their time perfectly, greet this one time are we who know this Will. However many the humankind hereafter who are born not knowing the Will, those people are extra people. Centering on the fate of our individual selves, who in this age must set up a true figure before the descendants, and the fate of having to walk such a life course, in what figure will we appear before the descendants of the future? The value that will be manifested then, you yourselves must now, at this time, draw out.
Everything of going east and going west, centering on the Will and devoting sincerity and loyalty before the Will, is not for the sake of anyone else. It is to set oneself up before the nation and to set oneself up before the world. In every respect, it is to fit one’s own time well. By fitting one’s own time well, that time can become the time of humankind; by fitting one’s own time well, one can stand in for the time of the nation and stand in for the time of the world.
Therefore, a person who lives in such a place lives together with the nation, one who lives together with humankind, one who lives together with the world, and one who lives together with history. Because that place is a place that becomes the center of all demand and the base point of all hope, you must know that a person who lives at this standard cannot but become the center of history and cannot but become the central being of humankind.
Do Not Become One Who Wastes Time Worth Its Weight in Gold
Therefore, even if the whole seven-year period cannot become such a time, one must leave such a time at some moment of the Seven-Year Course. A person who cannot leave even such a one moment cannot set up even the indemnity-conditional standard for leaving a true life. Of course one must live one’s whole life truly, but if one cannot, one must hold something by which one can at least leave a true condition.
If one has not even that, one has no relation whatever with God.
All of you, think about it. What we seek to do is unprecedented and unrepeatable. It is something that exists but once. Your youth too is an unprecedented and unrepeatable time that exists but once. Can the time of youth come again? The prime of life is likewise. Once it passes, it is gone. However one tries to go back, one cannot go back. When would an age once greeted come again? It never comes again.
From this viewpoint, seen through the lens of the Will, you are irresponsible. In the daily living in which you eat, sleep, and work, you live holding emotions of joy and sorrow, of the whole range of feeling—but centering on what do you live? It seems you live centering on yourself, but it has no relation to you. You must know that the life you have thus lived may become a factor that makes you lament, but it does not become an absolute factor that keeps you alive.
Seen from our church, we are now entering a grave and weighty point. A point at which we can be connected with the fate of the nation and the fate of the world is drawing near before us.
Then at what time will you yourselves form a tie with such a fate and render a decisive settlement?
At what time will you render the decisive settlement?
In devoting sincerity, one must devote sincerity such that no one can fill up the standard of that sincerity and such that one cannot tear it away even if one tries.
One must devote sincerity surpassing the standard by which countless ancestors devoted sincerity on the path of the Way or the path of goodness—sincerity beyond that. Without such a standard of sincerity, it will not do.
Therefore, our Unification Church, in this sense, set up the Seven-Year Course to set up a condition of sincerity.
Seen from the Teacher’s position, the name True Parents cannot exist as two. Seen from the position of the true child, that child too cannot exist as two. It cannot but be a grave problem how to set up the standard of sincerity that must be set up from the position of the one and only True Parents and true child.
How will one leave a true life course centering on the only true standard?
You must know that it is a life course to be handled not from a place where, passing by, one stops and handles it when one happens to think of it and then passes on again, but from a tense and serious place.
Therefore, in this age when one must set up the standard on which one must devote sincerity as True Parents in history, when one considers how to set up the standard that God demands, the whole world demands, and history demands, one cannot set it up from a place where one rests at ease and does everything one wants to do.
How does one fill the sincerity that is insufficient even when one devotes all sincerity?
The more one thinks about this, the more one feels the insufficiency, and even after devoting all sincerity, when one puts one’s own countenance forward before Heaven, one must hold a shameful mind. Unless one stands in such a position, completely embracing oneself with such a mind and leading one’s life, one must know that one cannot receive even the mind of God’s compassion upon one’s own person.
If one cannot completely practice what God desires, one must live a life by which one can at least receive God’s sympathy, centering on God’s circumstance. Only when one stands in such a place—where, even having done well, one can bow one’s head in shame, and, when one has done poorly, one cannot lift one’s head and can even forget one’s own sense of existence—can one form such a tie.
Looking at our Unification Church members, if one has done some work even a little well, one complains that one is not being acknowledged and so on; but even having done it oneself, one must rather be ashamed lest one be praised. One must be ashamed lest one be praised, and, when praised, one must feel boundless shame. With a mental posture by which, from the place of being praised, one can receive all the more heightened sympathy from God, one must input all of oneself and pour out all sincerity. If one draws a straight line with such a mind, one can draw it beautifully. One must weave such a life course.
Hereafter, even for the Teacher, there remains the problem of how to go forward, devoting sincerity centering on the Teacher’s own lifetime. It is the same for our Unification believers too. For an aged person in the position of having spent two-thirds or three-fourths of his life, when one thinks that one must resolve such a holy problem centering on the remaining one-third or one-fourth of one’s life, it is appalling. It is an appalling problem.
How will one set right a life that has flowed away? With an old body that has almost entirely lost its time, how will one greet such a time as one can, with a vigorous mind, devote all sincerity and utmost sincerity, and go forward vowing more firmly than anyone?
Regarding it as mortifying that one is in a position of at last having to be loyal from a place where vigor is exhausted and hope has dimmed, one must dedicate one’s remaining life with a mind to substitute one day for a thousand years. The question is whether, even though one is an aged person who ought to feel insufficient even doing so, one has truly lived with such a mind.
Young people, to spend the season of youth truly and meaningfully, must offer all of their life before God and put into it all the sincerity one must do in a lifetime. To that end, let us greet all trial and pain with joy. Even if the trial and pain the nation suffers and the trial and pain the world suffers come seeking us, collide with them, and go forward. One must accept and digest them. But how many young men and women are there who devote sincerity, writhing to digest that trial and pain by enduring it? Without that, they too will go the path that aged people lament.
When one considers such a fact, the one time of your youth today is a precious time that cannot be bought even by giving ten million geum. You must not lose the season of youth, which comes but once—which can stand in for the people, can stand in for the world, and is equipped with the ties of the natural environment. You must consider this.
Become One Who Greets Well a Time That Comes But Once
Then from what time will a certain Kim, if a certain Kim, or a certain Park, if a certain Park, begin a true living? Living is precisely living out every single day.
Unless one continually links true living within one’s daily living day by day, it does not become a true life. A person who cannot, through true living, sing of the infinite value of life and vow infinite victory cannot vow the true value of a life course and the true victory of a life course.
The origin of ruinous defeat does not unfold, centering on one, two, three, or a thousand years. The origin of victory or defeat unfolds instantly. When a nation is about to perish, there is a crest. That crest at which a nation perishes is a tick of an instant. It is decided instantly. If one finds this instantaneous standard well, one becomes a victor. From here the history of hope unfolds.
Then, in the course of following the path of the Will over the years past, when Heaven and earth were mobilized to greet you, how much did you try to greet that time? How very much did you yourself mistreat that time of the Will!
Even though God gave you a time that comes but once, you mistreated that time without mercy. When this time is mistreated, it appears again even after descending from the place of being mistreated. In descending, it descends in the reverse of the way one is restored—individual, family, clan, people, nation.
If one mistreats it at a high standard, it comes seeking again at a standard a little lower. Therefore, one must devote sincerity there and be restored to the former place.
If one misses this again, one descends once more. If it becomes so, one must indemnify to restore the former standard within one’s generation. When this indemnity is compounded, one’s lifetime becomes completely blocked. Though one knows it oneself, however one strives, it does not work. This is because one has lost the time.
If it becomes so, setting everything else aside, one must analyze once more the life one has passed through, draw out what went wrong and repent, and tread over that wrong tie and rise. The fight is fierce. One must fight, putting one’s own life on the line. Unless one fights a fight that decides life and death, one cannot escape it. You must know the fact that the tie of the universe thus comes seeking me, centering on stern content, staking the deciding authority of life and death without mercy for even one instant.
Two thousand years ago, how could Joseph greet Jesus, and how could Mary conceive Jesus? These had become masters who could greet a historical one-time event. Therefore, one must greet the one time well.
Then, if that one time comes, will it come with joy, or with sorrow, or will it come with disheartenment, or come as a standard of hope, or come as a standard of happiness? In that one time coming, it does not come only as a standard of happiness. It does not come only as a standard I like. It comes equipped with both the standard I dislike and the standard of hope—in other words, equipped with both mutually opposing directions.
In sum, it would be good if it came as an element of happiness, but when it appears as an element of unhappiness, what will you do?
The majority of people reject this. Such a one does not come seeking only the content of happiness; it comes seeking through the crossroads of unhappiness and death. So our humankind easily misses this one time. It comes seeking not in a joyful and good environment, but in a sorrowful, unjust, and wretched place. It cannot but be so.
To Live a True Life
For fallen humankind, unhappiness and happiness began at a crossroads of a single point. And before happiness comes, unhappiness must, without fail, appear first. For a human being fallen to the place of unhappiness to rise to the place of happiness, one must tread over the fruit of unhappiness and rise. You must know that without that, one cannot find happiness.
That is why the path of religion is the path of the cross. Among these, the Unification Church must walk the path of the cross inside and out. It must bear the cross of the people alone, bear the cross of the world alone, and go.
You must know the fact that the time of happiness is coming, seeking that very place from which all humankind flees, waving their hands and saying that ill fortune lodges there.
Seen from this viewpoint, for the Unification Church, the year 1960 was a period in which a time of happiness came seeking. That time was truly a one-time event that could conclude the history of the world. That time was, for our Unification Church believers, a time that brought happiness more precious than in any age. You must know that it was a period that besieged the environment for the sake of a tie of true happiness.
But there are many who missed that time. Only when one completely greets that time meaningfully and comes to praise victory together with God, together with a one-time history, together with a Cosmos-historical one-time, is cosmic value at last settled. Therefore, for you to live a true life, how truthful you are in each instant that can settle a true one day is a critical problem.
Seen from this viewpoint, a person like the Teacher is the only such person since the beginning of history. He is an unprecedented and unrepeatable person within history, one who can come but once. When one gazes at the world from such a place, the Teacher stands at the very top. The problem for the Teacher is how, from the top, to draw this one time up and make a straight line with the top.
It will not do for that to lean even a little to one side. If it leans even a little, it topples. It is a position of having to walk the life course feeling such things. If one goes even a little wrong, Heaven and earth are overturned. If one goes even a little wrong in a problem I must settle, Heaven and earth tilt.
What is important in building a house is laying the foundation stone straight. If one cannot lay this straight, however splendid a cultural altar or high building one has piled up, it collapses instantly. The higher and the greater it is, the more it is destroyed, overturned to the very root.
Therefore, one must equip an unswerving standard of historical victory and make a foundation of living and a foundation of life. To achieve that, one must wage a battle fiercer than any battle that appeared in the course of history. A fight centered on the problems of the outer world is all resolved when one dies, but this is a problem that cannot be resolved even by dying. Therefore, you must know that the problem of how to set up a true standard of living is the most important.
When one can resolve all such problems with the crossroads of death before one, that instant is truly solemn. When one thinks that the grudge of a thousand years of history and historical ill fortune are all resolved, that the flag of victory is planted in the course of history, and that a bright new morning dawns, however solemn an instant that sways life comes, one can accept it as an indemnity condition that stands in for tomorrow’s hope and the true life of humankind. To that end, one must, without fail, absorb and digest any difficulty with joy. One must not digest it with sorrow.
You must know that one must continue a fight by which one can leave it as a tie of joy. The life of a person who lives for the sake of such a one time has infinite value. We must leave such a life and go.
If, going and then looking back again, one holds a past that must be filled and, with lingering attachment, adores the land one lived in in the past, that life becomes wretched.
Then how does one set up a true standard by which one will leave no lingering attachment to this earth? It is to devote all manner of sincerity. If there is a valley of sincerity, enter the deepest valley; if there is a summit of sincerity, climb the highest summit. To that end, one must hold a mind by which one can repent even after sleeping and repent even after eating.
Become a Person God Can Take
Countless people praise God’s Will, but we must praise the merit of God’s toil.
Furthermore, forgetting all of myself, my emotions, and my whole life must become ones that arise from God. One must not forget that one must live weighing one’s own life, centering on the problem of how one can remain as an eternal tie rather than a temporary one.
True living begins from a true day, and a true day begins from a true instant. Therefore, how to continue a day like a true instant, a year like a true instant, a lifetime like a true instant, is the task left in your life.
Some, as they please, spend in vain the season of youth that comes but once, saying, “Living this way is my lifetime.” Such a living is a common living. Satan too dislikes such a person. Is there any reason God would like what even Satan dislikes? One must live a life that even Satan envies and God envies for it to remain.
Then how will you live a true life in such an instantaneous life course?
When God weighs the true value centered on God’s heart against this world, which will He take? If He casts aside the world, completely forgets the world, and completely takes that person, then, because God has found that person, it is all right even if He gives that person the world. So it is important to settle the value of the “I” who can be so.
The Unification Church family members throughout the country have until now been active, centering on witnessing, but presently they will step forth onto the business stage too.
Today, under the banner of unification, the history of humankind is being woven, centering on us. In such a course, if it is business, how will one do true business in the business field, and if it is witnessing, how will one do true witnessing? When one thinks of it, the problem is not simple.
How Good and Evil Are Decided
At a time that, once come and gone, cannot come again, how will one draw and settle the accounts of a life course of infinite value?
In departing, you depart, centering on a single line on a flat plane. But in going, one goes splitting apart. The mind wishes to rise in a straight line toward a good place, but the body does not go only in a straight line.
How does it go?
At some times it goes to this place, at some times to that place, and at some times it descends, and at some times it ascends—all manner of things unfold. There are even people who break off midway and die. In such a way one lives out one’s life.
At death one comes to be measured as to plus or minus. And according to how much plus and how much minus one is divided into going to the Kingdom of Heaven or going to hell. If minus one hundred comes out, one goes straight to hell. Then at what time does it become plus? The problem lies there.
When you say a single word, it is decided according to whether, seen centering on the horizon of Heaven and earth, it is a word that has risen above or a word that has gone below. Even that smiling expression is entirely weighted. Even if one grinned without any thought, it is distinguished as a minus smile or a plus smile. What do you call a person who laughs without meaning, who laughs frivolously? You call him a scatterbrain, do you not? Is that not so?
Your eyes are likewise. Centering on what one sees, one is weighed whether it is a plus eye or a minus eye. The ears too are so. A plus ear or a minus ear, and the mind too, likewise, is judged whether it is a plus mind or a minus mind.
When one considers that all the actions you raise—thinking and moving centering on the stimuli of the five senses—are divided into plus and minus, it is fearsome. Does Satan snatch it away, or does God take it? Believing only by words will not do. Saying only in words that one loves God will not do.
However unhappy a person is, if one asks whether he knows he has parents, there is no one who says he does not know. And if one asks whether one’s parents toiled for one, even a person who answers that they did not toil inwardly says the parents toiled. Everyone knows.
If one did not know that one’s parents toiled for one, what greater unfilial conduct could there be? Is that not so? However unfilial a child is, one who scratches away at his parents’ hearts, he at least knows that his parents love him. He at least cannot forget that they love him. It is not that he does not know.
You yourselves know whether what you do is well done or ill done. Even when sinning, one does not fail to know that one is sinning. One knows. Because one sins knowingly, one cannot be forgiven. Even in the world, if one commits a crime intentionally, one cannot be forgiven. Is that not so? It differs from the case where, driven by circumstances, one unavoidably commits a crime passively. In a criminal investigation, terms like “principal offender,” “accessory,” and “accomplice” speak of whether it was intentional or passive.
Then is there an unfilial person not knowing it is unfilial?
Does a person who does the deed of selling out the nation do it not knowing?
Everyone knows. When you do a bad thing, do you do it not knowing it is bad? Do you do it knowingly or unknowingly? There is not one thing done not knowing.
So to whom will one make excuses for what one did knowingly? To whom will one make excuses for what one did even while knowing? One must bear responsibility oneself; there is no one to resent. As the price of a wrong done knowingly, one must indemnify that person.
Even in listening to a song, there is good and evil. In seeing and hearing, in eating rice, whether asleep or awake, in everything there is good and evil. In a time of turmoil when war has broken out and a fierce battle is unfolding and everyone is going out to fight, is it not to lie down alone and only sleep?
In ordinary times, one can sleep however much without one’s conscience being pricked, but if, in wartime, while one’s comrades go out to fight, one alone stays behind and does not fight, one’s conscience is pricked. One knows it all oneself.
Good and evil are decided by the whole of the actions that you yourselves raise as you go the course of your life. Even a single word is so. Even what the Teacher now speaks is entirely discerned as to how good a word and how evil a word he speaks. Within it, the wrong word and the substantial word are sorted out.
One Must Strive to Become a Life in Which All Can Rejoice
Then what kind of One is God?
God is the One who does not descend to the place of the minus standard. Satan, however he strives, cannot rise to the plus standard. But people are in a position of being pulled up and pulled down in between.
Seen centering on your lifetime, at birth everyone is probably born gladly. Then, when you go hereafter, the accounts are settled as to how much minus, how much plus. Then there ought to be more; how does one leave more plus?
One must take what one can truly say was good throughout one’s life as the model of one’s life. It is enjoined not to think even in dreams of what was dreadful.
Extending one’s life, centering on the good side, is precisely the living of human ethics and morality.
Then does it do for that standard of what was good to be good for me alone? It must be a standard the nation can like, the world can like, and Heaven and earth can like. There is certainly, within this universe, a standard that Heaven and earth can like together.
If God exists, it must be forming a relationship with God. Because God is fair, He makes it so that many human beings can hold that standard in common.
At what time within your life course will there be such a one-time?
Centering on that time, one must strive not to descend but to ascend. If one strove ten at that time, then a person who next strives hard to do the work of twenty, or a hundred, absolutely does not perish. A person who rests because he has succeeded perishes. That success must not be centered on oneself alone. When the Republic of Korea has not succeeded, if one becomes oneself and one’s descendants who strive so that it can succeed, those people remain together with the fortune of the Republic of Korea.
Today, the Unification Church members must not end there because the individual has succeeded but must go forward for the success of the Republic of Korea. And, not stopping there, if one runs again for the success of the world, we develop and remain all the way to where we run.
Today we must ceaselessly strive to unify Heaven and earth, centering on the thought of Cosmos-ism. That this movement will hereafter become worldwide is a certain fact. In the course of it becoming so, the question is whether you have truly become ones who can boast before Heaven and earth.
In Heaven and earth—in Heaven and earth—heaven (天) arose first, and then earth (地) arose, so if there is a tie, at some time they will stand facing each other. Just as the sun and moon can stand facing each other, just as the time when morning and night can stand facing each other, Heaven and earth will stand facing each other at a ninety-degree angle. That time is the highest. The important problem is how, at that time, one leaves the sincerity devoted until then.
Therefore, one must value the precious lifetime that comes but once and, to find one's own lost self, must spend each day valuably and win the fight of the instant. That is why all must go through the Seven-Year Course. But some follow along with a thief’s intent, thinking, “If I only go about three years, He will surely give the Blessing.” The purpose of following for three years is the Blessing. Then when the Blessing is broken, what will happen? Everything is broken. One must not center only on marrying, not even knowing whether it is Heaven or earth.
Until one receives the Blessing, one must pass through many circumstances. That period of three years is not a period you can think of as you please. After passing seven years, one must pass through a three-year course. But you hold the thought that it is enough to go only three years, not knowing that it is a course you must go through grafted onto the Teacher’s Seven-Year Course.
Did You Love the Will More Than Your Body?
You must know that the time when you must resolve your lifetime by yourself comes but once.
So is your lifetime precious, or not precious?
If you bought a woman a diamond ring worth about 700,000 won per carat, she would guard it with all manner of sincerity, day and night, lest it be damaged or spoiled. Then did you love the Will as much as you love that one-carat diamond ring? Speak frankly. Is the Will precious, or are you precious? Seen large, the Will is precious; seen small, I am precious.
Is one finger of yours precious, or is the Will precious?
If blood comes from your finger, you will apply medicine to the wound and wrap a bandage. But if the Will is wounded like that finger, will you treat it with such sincerity? Have you done so? When something is said, one says, “What God could there be? I just do not know.” And then one grumbles, “The Teacher is telling us to go the Seven-Year Course again,” and disturbs the atmosphere of the church. Some people complain that they are made to work too much while not doing it themselves.
Suppose there is a person who diligently cleans every day; there is someone who slanders that person, saying, “Was that fellow born a cleaning-resurrection-body from birth?” While there is such a person, there is also a person who throws a broom even to a passing woman and orders her to clean. That person is the fearsome person.
In giving awards too, there are many ranks. Even in giving awards to those who clean, there are many ranks—a world-class cleaning rank, a national cleaning rank, and so on. When one becomes the prince of the cleaning world, God takes that person as a being of first-rank value in that field. Even among beggars, there is a world-class beggar. The world-representing beggar can go to the Kingdom of Heaven. Even in the beggars’ world, there is a boss. There is a center that can save that beggar’s world. Such a center exists in every rank.
But if one treats with contempt those living in the beggars’ world, they boast loudly, “This life of begging and living with no dwelling is the best.” Therefore, one must not, because one is in a position of living well oneself, treat them as one pleases.
Likewise, hereafter, when you go the path of the Will, there may be various forms, but it is enjoined not to boast. Everyone holds something in his own way: “Do you think you alone are splendid? Because history and environment turned out this way, I am now in such a place, but in my world I do not lose to anyone I contend with.”
The Teacher’s place looks good to you, does it not?
This place may look good, but the Teacher’s place is a dangerous place. It is a place where one cannot live with an easy mind for even one instant. Even if one sleeps a little deeply, upon rising one must repent. Even after eating one’s fill, one does not feel good but must repent. One must not end it at that because one is in a good place. One must not be excessively pleased for oneself alone.
If God, out of sympathy, set one in a good place, one must look down below and be able to extend sympathy for the sake of the people and all the peoples of the world who are not in such a place. One must always go forward understanding the relations of above and below, before and after. Therefore, in speaking and acting, one must not depart from principle.
Then did you love the Will as much as you loved one finger of your own? Seen centering on our Will, would it be better for one church to close its doors or for one of my fingers to be cut off? What must one do?
If one were told, “A certain church is about to disappear, so cut off one of your fingers and save the church,” is there anyone who could say it is fine? Even one who seemed about to do so would hesitate again. The majority of people are so.
So God’s providence cannot but take six thousand years. Because it is all such people, the Teacher cannot but suffer hardship. When one thinks about it, it cannot but be a serious problem.
Only by Crossing the Crest of Death Can One Win
At some point, one must be able to say to one’s ear, “Ear, at some time you must hold your one time and hold your one day.”
If a worldwide and historical ear contest were held in the spirit world, there would be all manner of ears. And if one asked, “What did you like to hear?” minus ears saying, “I liked to hear fleshly things,” would swarm like a mountain. But among the ears gathered there, there would be one ear God likes most—that is, a great king ear. Regardless of being handsome or homely, there is such an ear.
The eye is likewise. If an eye contest were held in the spirit world, God's eye God cannot take two. There is only one. Everything is the same. God’s eye and humankind’s eye, God’s ear and humankind’s ear, God’s nose and humankind’s nose, God’s character and humankind’s character—centering on that standard, one must be able to become one. A person who, centering on a tie by which all can be good, can attend the Father and live together with Him—how good would such a person be? But you must know how sorrowful, how difficult, how toilsome, and how wretched things were on the other side. That place one can call the best is a place attained by crossing countless crests of death.
Then, when one considers how much price of sacrifice one paid to stand in that place one can call eternally good, one must know that our standard of faith and standard of sincerity today do not even reach the kindergarten standard. If there is a person who, even holding a standard above university, says he does not even reach the kindergarten standard, he is the most fearsome person. Such a person can ride God upside down.
He who would be exalted is abased, and he who would be abased is exalted. If there is a person who, even having set up all merit under Heaven, continues to strive to set up merit, God cannot but set that person up. Such a person is one who, even having toiled himself, hides it lest it be called his toil.
Let Us Live for the Sake of the Will
In a nation, what kind of person is a patriot?
It is not a person in a well-fed, commanding position. It is a person who, at the lowest place, wearing rags and eating barley rice with salt soup, lives impoverished, yet fears lest foreigners passing by see that barley rice table and, thinking of the nation’s dignity, holds a mind to hide himself secretly lest his figure be exposed.
One must not, without thinking of one’s nation’s face and dignity, be jealous and act without decorum. A patriot is a person who, though in such a figure himself, to set up the nation’s dignity and face, can say there is no one like him in our nation and strives to reveal his country more beautifully and valuably. When such a person dies, his descendants too become patriots, and a patriot is born in that household.
Among our Unification Church members, there are all kinds of people. I still remember a certain young woman. She was a graduate holding a degree, and she went out to the provinces and did witnessing activity.
In the course of that activity, she suffered indescribable persecution. One year, two years, three years—the persecution continued, and that life was wretched beyond words. In her school days, her dreams were higher than anyone's, and there was nothing under Heaven she envied. She had ability, a good head, and a good family. But upon entering the gate of unification, what she collided with was wretched things from one to ten. As one, two, three years passed, the outer environment and difficulties of living she collided with drove her on one after another, and she came to yearn for the worldly people she had once scorned.
The wretched circumstance of a hungry person is not known unless one has been hungry. That young woman grasped through experience the circumstance of hunger and even shed tears. And when she became a figure who, being hungry, yearned for rice, she even criticized herself, who had once scorned the hungry. She experienced the very place she had regarded as worthless, and she knew how to criticize her past self, but she failed to overcome that environment and began to be drawn into it. Setting white rice and barley rice before her, she gritted her teeth and vowed to eat the barley rice for the sake of the Will, but her hand had already gone to the white rice.
The deeper one enters a hard place, the more one must grit one’s teeth and vow centering on the Will. Even in the place of the cross, where death crosses, one must shed blood and sweat, grit one’s teeth, forget all one’s sense of existence, and firm one’s resolve.
The Reason for Making One Suffer Hardship
When Jesus offered his final third prayer—“Abba, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt”—you must know that at the passage “as Thou wilt” he spoke pouring out a strength and full vigor not found in the world. When he said, “as Thou wilt,” it was not a word spoken smoothly. That is why he could not but shed blood and sweat. He entreated pouring out a strength not found in the world and made a resolve not found in the world.
Then will you suffer hardship for three years for the sake of the Will, or suffer hardship for ten years?
If one wishes to live a true life, how must one do it? Which is the more true? (Suffering hardship for ten years.) Will you suffer hardship for ten years or a hundred years? Between ten years and a hundred years, which way of suffering hardship is more true? (Suffering hardship for a hundred years.)
Then in your suffering hardship, will you end it with the hardship of your generation alone, or make even the descendants of dozens or hundreds of generations suffer hardship?
Which way is true?
If there is a person who says he will make only the Unification Church suffer hardship and a person who says he will mobilize and make the whole thirty million people of the Republic of Korea suffer hardship, which person is the true patriot? Not a person who says he will make only the Unification Church suffer hardship, but a person who says he will make thirty million suffer hardship becomes the patriot of that nation.
If there is a person who says he will mobilize and make not only the thirty million people but all the peoples of the world suffer hardship, that person becomes a saint and martyr of the world.
That is why, from of old, the teaching of the saints and sages was not to eat well and live well in the world. They teach that even if one lives impoverished oneself, one must help others and live extending virtue. Why so? To graft the true worldwide. To graft the tree, one must do so.
Then most people will think, “The Teacher had us suffer hardship for just one year; what grudge does he hold that now he speaks of three years again?” Though we are not enemies to each other, when one thinks about the tie by which one is made to prosper, you must know that even if one is told to suffer hardship not for three years but for ten years, that is precisely the path of receiving blessing.
Choi Ju-chan! Where is Choi Ju-chan?
Where is the business director? (Here he is.) When told to suffer more hardship, he said, “I dislike it. I dislike it”—was that well done or ill done? Working, having received a post from the Teacher, is more meaningful than doing it among yourselves. But some, because what the Teacher entrusts becomes smaller than the cap they took up among themselves, hold a mind wishing how good it would be if the Teacher forgot and passed over it. Is that a good thought? If one does that, one perishes.
The Teacher has until now suffered hardship for the sake of the Will, and even now, whether asleep or awake, he goes that path. A person who has not attended the Teacher up close does not know the Teacher well.
The Teacher, the moment he opens his eyes while sleeping, prostrates himself and prays. Why does he live such a life? Because even in the dead of night, the beloved children spread across the world are relying on me and praying for the sake of God.
Even if I cannot devote sincerity, must I not at least keep step with them, not less than that? When the Teacher is asleep, since he does not know, God forgives it too. At that time, just as, when a child sleeps from fatigue, the father watches over him, God prays in his stead.
The Teacher too, all through his youth, kept faith with such a heart. There was a time when I made a vow before Lake Cheonji on Mount Baekdu. Digging into a rock, I sowed seed and vowed, “Until this seed sprouts and bears fruit on this rock, my resolve will not change.” On a rock where nothing could grow, I made such a vow. It was to test myself, and it was to set up before Heaven a condition of a resolve that would not change.
Peter said before Jesus that even if all others betrayed, he alone would not betray to the death. But before the cock crowed, he denied three times. When one greets a place of trial, one’s mind changes that easily. Therefore, before speaking large words, one must ask oneself whether one can, without fail, keep the tie of an unchanging fidelity.
Can You Become People the Teacher Can Trust?
Then, among you, is there a person the Teacher can trust to the end?
Even the twelve disciples who followed Jesus, at the last, at the place of the cross, all fled and scattered. From the position of the one who is betrayed, there is nothing more wretched than that.
Then hereafter, when a place of trial comes seeking you, will you keep the tie with the Teacher to the end, or will you flee?
You do not know it now, but when such a time comes, one after another falls away. Therefore, before that time comes, you must firm your resolve and drive a nail into your heart. Even if father and mother, and even the whole world, betray you, you must set up a mind by which you alone will not betray to the death. Even if you must die, you must first die for the sake of yourselves, and then die for the sake of the Teacher. If you die that way, you do not die. You live. But if, at the crossroads of death, one seeks to live centering on oneself, one dies.
That is why Jesus said,
“He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it” (Matt. 10:39).
One must die first. One who dies lives, and one who seeks to live dies. This is an iron rule that cannot be changed.
One Must Form a Tie with God in Hard Times
Then at what time does one form a tie with God?
It is not an easy and comfortable time. It is in the hardest time, the most wretched time, the most sorrowful time. In such a time, one forms a deep tie with God.
Therefore, the hard time is not a bad time. The hard time is precisely the time of forming the deepest tie with God.
Even Jesus, in his most wretched place—Gethsemane—prayed most earnestly, and there formed the deepest tie with God. Stephen too, in the place of being stoned to death, prayed, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge” (Acts 7:60), and there formed the deepest tie with God. A person who has formed such a tie does not perish even if he dies.
Therefore, you must not, when a hard time comes, avoid it, saying it is hard, and flee. Rather, you must go into it. You must go into the hard place, the wretched place, the sorrowful place, and there grasp God’s holy lapel. Only then can you form a tie with God that cannot be cut even if Heaven and earth are overturned.
A loyal subject appears in a time when the nation is in danger, and a filial son appears in a house that has fallen into difficulty. In an easy and comfortable house, a filial son does not appear. It is when father and mother fall into hardship and difficulty that the filial son’s heart is revealed. It is the same. Therefore, when a hard and difficult time comes, you must think, “Now the time has come for me to form a tie with God,” and go into it gladly.
Then what kind of person is a loyal subject?
A loyal subject must be dull. A clever, calculating person cannot become a loyal subject. Why? Because a clever person, when a hard time comes, calculates his gain and loss and slips away. But a dull person, once he has resolved, goes straight, knowing nothing else. Therefore, a loyal subject is dull, like a bear.
When a bear is wounded in a trap, it bites off the wounded part of its body and casts it away and goes on. A wild boar too is so. When it is caught in a snare, it bites off its leg and flees. Such a nature is needed. When it comes to the crossroads of the Will, one must be able to bite off and cast away even one’s own flesh and go on. One must be dull and stubborn. Such a person, once he has grasped the Will, does not let go until death.
Become a Pioneer of the Path of Suffering and Leave a True Life
Then in what place will you leave a true life?
It is in a place of suffering hardship for the sake of the Will. It is not in an easy place. When you become the first shovel of earth thrown into a landfill that God is filling in, you become the king of that fill. What is thrown in first goes to the very bottom, but that becomes the foundation of the whole, so it becomes the king.
Would you become the first shovel of earth thrown into the landfill God is filling, or the last? (The first.) A person who says he will become the first is a person who will live a true life.
The Unification Church today is a church that suffers hardship, that is persecuted, that is despised. But it is precisely there that a tie with God is formed, and there that a true life is left. Therefore, being persecuted is not sorrowful. Being despised is not shameful. Being driven out is not wretched. Rather, that is the place where a true life is left. Because the Unification Church is such a suffering church, it becomes the king among churches. Because it goes the lowest and most wretched path, it becomes the highest.
You must become such pioneers. You must become pioneers who, going the path of suffering that no one wishes to go, leave a true life. When you become such people, you become the central beings God seeks, and you become the true individuals, true families, and true peoples who can boast before the descendants of ten thousand generations. I most earnestly ask that you engrave the words spoken today deep in your hearts and become ones who leave a true life.