Cheon Jeong Gung, Gapyeong, Gyeonggi, Korea
(Hoon Dok Hae of the message titled “The True Shepherd and the True Flock, the False Shepherd and the False Flock,” in Sermons of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, Vol. 4.)
You yourselves must answer the question: centered on what shall I bring my life to its conclusion?
If you say, “This is how I shall draw my conclusion,” then the matter is what kind of hilltop must be crossed, what kind of mountain must be pushed flat, and if there is a deep place, not only how it must be filled in, but what one will leave behind upon that land.
What standard one lives by—that is the question
The thinking of one in his teens is different; the thinking of one in his twenties is different; the thinking of youth differs from that of old age, and the thinking of old age differs from that one has when facing the boundary of life and death — yet they say this is so, but it must not be so.
Without having a banner of which one can say, “Even crossing the hilltop of death and going to the spirit world, I shall live like this,” it will not do. One cannot live just any way, saying, “This is fine, that is fine.”
Today, by the solar calendar, is Cheon Il Guk Year 10, February 10. Until yesterday, True Father thought he was crossing an indescribable hilltop of trials.
When the time comes to answer whether he truly crossed it or did not cross it, even before I acknowledge it, the people closest to me cannot acknowledge it.
If there are ten people in one family, those ten cannot bring it to a conclusion. If it is a single family, the family itself cannot present that question, centered on the banner, to anyone else, nor can it have it presented to itself.
With whom is one to bring this to a conclusion?
More than anyone else, it must be decided together with the one central being, the central being who holds the right of decision.
If that is Heaven, then it is Heaven — but God alone is not there by Himself. It is not a world harmonized and unified, with all things on earth directly linked to it. All these things are directly linked, and the question is how one establishes their dominion.
When there remains external suffering and conflict — when, rather than being absent, it still remains — internal conflict can only remain even greater. Such is the world after death. Thinking thus, the question is: from what position must I make my decisions?
From now on, what we must do and what True Father must do is great. We have set foot into the world of soccer. Say “Soccer!” “Soccer!” Thereafter, we must conduct the Olympic Games again. There are many nations in the world that, for decades, even a whole lifetime, could not host such a tournament nor invite others to one — and yet we are to hold the Olympics.
Who will hold it?
If there are men and women, one must feel that more than the women, the men must do it, and they must show the example.
If there is a family, then centered on the family, before the children, the parents must show the example; then if there is a nation, the example must be shown to the nation; and if there is a world, the example must be shown to the world — yet today's world is not simple.
Even taking only nations, those that have joined our Abel UN number 194. When one considers that the hilltops yet to be crossed and the work yet to be done remain greater than the world itself, who is to solve those problems? It is not simple.
The conditions of a comprehensive standard
Even in soccer itself, to represent a nation, there must be a representative teacher, and the question is whether, centered on that representative teacher, a single banner can be resolved within the content being taught. Without theory, it cannot be done. Theory must be expounded; theory must be set forth.
On the earth, one cannot simply go wherever he pleases. Suppose I go to visit a friend. If there are several friends, and I go to find the one who is better than the rest, representing the many — to what percentage does the path that better person walks match my own? It is no easy thing to attempt to compare people who have no relation to one another.
So, how are the Olympic Games to be held?
Centered on what banner do we go into the world of martial arts?
We have created Won Hwa Do. Won Hwa Do is a way of finding one's position through circular motion.
Taekwondo is an exercise that applies the force of linear motion centered on the foot. Once such a force is applied, does it dissipate and vanish? It does not. Even after striking by way of a straight line and drawing back, the question is how much following force remains.
Won Hwa Do strikes from above, strikes from below, and strikes while turning around. So when one looks at directionality, the one who can fulfill the task of a banner that can prevail in the whole world is not the practitioner of Taekwondo but the practitioner of Won Hwa Do.
There are many who believe in religion. Religions, too, are many. It is just as if there are seven colors. Religion does not have seven colors. Christianity has more than a hundred denominations.
Even if there are hundreds of denominations, the question is, which among them is the denomination that is the banner?
From childhood, through youth, manhood, and old age, and even through death, if one has not held a banner, what then? It makes no sense for one to stand in the position of the banner with nothing but knowledge of Jesus' name.
Looking at it this way, what is the task we must now solve?
Who is responsible for the matter of soccer? We are about to begin the Olympics — if possible, how should it be done? Over these ten days from the day before yesterday in Seoul, when True Father calls the people he wishes to meet, how many people can always hold their position and wait?
Now, since the last days have come, we have made textbooks and teaching materials.
For whom is this teaching material?
If ten kinds of content have gone into it, who will be the owners of those ten things? Why is True Father making them? Once I have made them and gone, what will become of the banner itself?
Everyone, after passing through youth, manhood, and old age, goes to the spirit world, and the spirit world is the gathering of all those who lived upon the earth for tens of millions of years.
The people who lived on Earth for tens of millions of years have not lost the ideological foundation, the nuclear matter, that they had championed. Even there, they search for their fellow workers and desire that what they championed be realized. Everyone thinks so.
When I open my eyes and look around, I feel, “There is not a single thing I can set up as my banner! It is more complicated than the world.” Why? The earth, where 6.5 billion humans live, is complicated; in that other world, tens of billions live. Tens of billions lived possessing thousands of strands of nations, and they lived holding every sort of banner.
What will you do when you go to that other world?
You will not sit still; you must labor. You must pray all the more. You must labor all the more to seek God.
Then what can be presented as the condition of a comprehensive banner that can settle the world?
Well, how about soccer?
When we speak of soccer, every nation takes an interest. No nation can fail to take an interest in the Olympic Games either. Thereafter, every nation takes an interest in the world of art, the world of science and technology, and the world of martial arts as well.
Live by the standard of love
Then what of the world of love?
If one goes to the very root, the essence of love must be one — what is it that presents that single love? The father presents it, yet the sons and daughters do not follow. The husband presents it, yet the wife does not follow.
God says, “Live by the banner of love,” yet humanity does not even show that it lives so. Then, centered on what banner do I stand? Up until now, is there a banner that I have carried, exchanged for nothing else? The time has come to think about that question.
So, have you had an interest in sports?
Even the Olympic Games and the sports of the world have nothing they can present as a banner regarding the realities of the spirit world or the realities of the future. A new banner must be put forth. It is a world of competition.
Saying, “I am better than you,” representative figures wage countless competitions centered on a single banner that has been presented.
If there are three hundred events in the Olympic Games, those three hundred events change every year. The one who breaks the record changes every year. So one cannot boast of records that are past. That is the record of its time, not the record of today. Yesterday and today are different.
Today and tomorrow are again different. This year and next year are different. To say, “A banner does not matter—I shall just live as it goes!” is to say it would have been better not to have been born. There is no such “I” who can live as it goes.
If we take the eye, what is the core that my eye has been seeking up until now, centered on the eye?
If there is a nose, what does that nose hold throughout a lifetime as the content of its banner? Even all four limbs and the body each have different exercises they prefer. The exercise the feet prefer is different, and the exercise the eyes prefer is different. The exercises preferred by the organs of the body are all different.
In the divisional content of the five viscera and six bowels, there is an environment of countless up-and-downs, left-and-right, front-and-back; and in that environment, countless people say, “Here I must break the record.”
Having reached that central banner, in the world of the banner, centered on the way I have lived, one must set forth a foundational discourse. In some particular field, it was such-and-such in youth, such-and-such in young manhood, such-and-such in old age. The task was different.
Then, centered on the problem that has presently become the foundational banner of the whole, one must say, “There is still a field that I must enter. There is still something I have not yet reached!” When you hear the words True Father has now read in Hoon Dok Hae, the question is how different from or similar to the problem of the banner I would leave behind — the banner I, now past ninety and before going to the spirit world, would leave — are the words spoken in my youth? We are aligning them and seeing.
When we align them, we say, “An ordinary person might be able to follow one-third in aligning the banner. He might follow one-tenth.” Centered on that banner, when we look at what remains, the question is what fraction one will follow. He lived his whole life intending to make teaching materials and textbooks — but whose textbooks and teaching materials did he live as?
Did he live as the teaching materials of some Mr. Moon?
The question is whether, having gone to that other world—a world that develops eternally and infinitely—one will live there holding to that banner.
When you enter the spirit world, the environment changes, and your position changes too. It becomes a full 360 degrees different from the human world.
The field of vision I see, the environment in which I smell, and the way I sense taste—these change. The way I move my hands and feet changes too. I move like this and do not know how to move.
For that reason, the question is, has there ever been a time when you concerned yourself with finding, in every direction, the settling place of the banner you must leave behind? When you leave something, centered on what do you mean to leave it?
Now is the time to set the standard
If it is true love, what is the banner of true love?
It must be such that body and mind can harmonize with it. Between husband and wife, when I set forth the banner, the question is in what position the wife stands. If we go into the ultimate content of this, the world of the True Parents becomes a separate-orbiting world. What is the content of the love and banner they long for? Is it God, or Jesus?
If you are gathered here, who among you is it?
The question is, who is the banner I shall take as my model?
The question is, who among you would follow the banner I have set up? If I say, “I shall live not centering on myself but centering on Jesus,” then what is Jesus' banner? If I say I shall live centering on God, what is God's banner? Is it “this is fine, that is fine”?
When you pray, “Forgive me, I have done wrong,” what is the core banner of “I have done wrong”?
If it is a banner God dislikes, then even if it is forgiven, you stand rather in the position of having to bear that problem. The path of human life is a very difficult thing. Thus it is said, “Insim-eun josuk-byeon-iyo, sansaek-eun gogeum-dong” — the human heart changes morning and evening, while the colors of the mountains are the same in ancient times and now.
There is a book called The Owner of Peace, the Owner of the Lineage.
What owns peace?
The stage of peace is broad, and the question is whether the center is one. If there are a thousand people, those thousand people will each long for a different peace. Was peace spoken of where the buds have already sprouted, or was it spoken of where not even a shoot has yet broken forth?
The problem is great. How hard is it for a shoot to break forth?
Sprouting is easy enough, but how hard is it to grow? The ordinary affair of common men is harder than dying. Dying once and dying a hundred times are different.
Looking at it this way, when “I” am called the owner of peace centered on the banner, the question is what number “I” compete with 6.5 billion humanity. Have I crossed the horizontal line, or am I below the horizontal line? They do not even know that. The time has come to settle everything. The question is, what banner have I held?
If I am now to live for ten years, what must I leave behind in those ten years?
What is the banner? If one has not been able to love his family and has not been able to love his parents, then he must love his family more than anyone and must love his parents more than anyone. He must gather back the homeland that he has forgotten all this while and stand at least in a position of trust such that those who lived there can attend him in God's stead and follow him.
Then, when I go to the spirit world without a banner, if there is a higher banner there, I must follow it. Which person there shall I follow? I must follow someone within the sphere of the four great sages, the five great sages, or the ten great sages. Among the four great sages, who is first? The question is why he is first among sages. It is because he crossed the boundary of life and death.
For Jesus, centered on the matter of the banner, exchanging it for life or death was an ordinary affair. I see that he never once disliked it. “He held the condition of a banner that man cannot refuse! What of me?” Everyone hates to die.
If Jesus were to come back to life and say before God that he would die once more, how would it be? Anyone would say it is fearful to follow him. That is the problem.
Is there one who, whenever he is in trouble, thinks, “I shall solve that person's banner-matter, esteeming it above my banner”?
Does he love?
Loving in an ordinary way anyone can do. Even a man who has committed a capital crime and is being led to the execution ground can say, “The banner of love I hold is greater than that of the lawyer who defended this condemned man, and greater than that of the prosecutor who decided his case or the judge who handed down the comprehensive verdict.”
Even of Jesus' disciples, even of Jesus' sons and daughters, how much do they think they will fulfill, centered on such a banner, of what Jesus taught and showed while he was alive?
There is no one who thinks of that. While saying they believe in Jesus, they go this way and that as they please. Now the time has come to set the banner.
Who is the center of the standard?
In your family, whom have you set as the figure of the banner who can be left behind in my stead?
Among our family, our schoolmates, those in general society, or the upper class of our country, who is it? They, too, are dying, and they leave nothing behind as they go. Even among the five great religious bodies left by the sages, the question is who is the figure that can stand in place of that banner. Is True Father the same as Jesus? Between Jesus and True Father, who is the center of the banner? That is the question.
Here, many are husbands, and many are wives. To what degree do you love your wives?
If in the present position your wife is the hundredth in the figures of the banner, what if you love her only enough that she can remain at the hundredth?
When we look at the Bible, Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life…” (John 14:6) — why did he omit the word “love”? When True Father read the Bible, he prayed centered on the question, “Why did he leave out the word 'love'?” “I do not know even the shadow of love. To speak in terms of the form of a human being, I am not even a seven-month or eight-month preemie, but a person of less than fourteen days — what does it mean for one as the figure of the banner to say 'love'?”
If we count the number of people gathered here, it appears to be about ninety. Under what banner did these ninety gather? It is to take up True Father's teaching materials. Among those teaching materials, there are seven volumes. Among those seven volumes, for the sake of which book did you gather?
Here we have set out the Cheonjamun, the “Untitled Poem,” the Myeongsim Bogam, and also the Analects and the Mencius — the Four Books and Three Classics — and suppose you took and lived by whichever you wished: is there anything by which you could say, “Even Jesus died because he did not reach my banner”?
Centered on the scriptures of Buddhism, the scriptures of Confucianism, or the Bible of Christianity — how is it? Centered on the scriptures of religion, the question is, by what score of a banner have I lived? What — does believing in Jesus send you to paradise?
How does one believe?
If one loves Jesus, how does one love? The problem is great.
For that reason, in the Last Days (끝날), the time comes when one must decide centered on the banner.
If it was Noah's time, then centered on the banner of Noah's time, those who boarded Noah's ark — if eight family members, then all eight — boarded; yet one who should not have boarded boarded. And so they erred upon Noah's ark. The son brought a garment and covered the naked Noah.
Why did he not go forward but go backward to cover him?
Because of that, in the world that Grandfather Noah had set up as the banner, not a single thing could be accepted. There, neither foundational discourse, nor theory, nor material was needed.
What is this?
Because the banner was different, everything about Noah was overturned as a result of a downfall. The family members around him who did not welcome Grandfather Noah and thought ill of him all vanished.
Grandfather Noah, too, vanished. Was there anyone left who could establish a banner greater than Grandfather Noah's?
Grandfather Noah established the banner for 120 years. Ordinary people could not have established it even for twelve years, twelve months, twelve days, twelve hours.
For what did God carry out the judgment?
Even if that judgment had been done a hundred or a thousand times, what good would it have done?
Everything should have been brought to its conclusion. Now in the Unification Church, it is said that religion too must end, the nation too must end, and God's Providence (섭리) too must turn 180 degrees.
The standard of the new earthly and heavenly Kingdom of Heaven
Now there are only three or four days left until True Father's ninetieth birthday.
Who is the one who would give his life in exchange for this foundational discourse and these teaching materials?
Who among you is it? You all say it is not you. Then what becomes of you? Even though I have said it is not I, if, after ten generations, one among my descendants says, “I shall acknowledge it and go on,” what would happen?
If, having opposed for ten generations, one comes after ten generations and does so, what would happen?
Ten generations of ancestors are hanging upon him, and he must go on ahead alone, educate them, and set them right. Can he set them right? That is the problem. I have thought much about such serious problems.
Today is the tenth, and only four days remain. February, the month in which True Father was born, will end on the twenty-eighth. Then the first day of March, the new year of the new millennium, will come. When True Father came to set the banner of his whole life, he said, “Centered on the one banner of content in this notebook, I must stake my life upon it and go on for thirteen years.”
It is October 3, 2001. Not January 1, 2001, nor January 3 — I have written the banner as October 3, 2001. To others, it is a riddle.
What is True Father's banner?
The first page and this are partners. Here, the partner condition must remain. Ten years have passed, and the banner has one page remaining. Here is written “May 4, 2009,” and in parentheses “May 6.” Thereafter, it is a blank page.
How have I lived through that period? I have lived by aligning everything with what is written here. What this notebook presents as content comes to nothing at the very end. What has been continued up to now cannot be inherited by me. It must be something new.
If True Father is the True Parent, how seriously has he thought of such things?
In this notebook is the content of the banner that the True Parents, together with God, must achieve to found the heavenly Kingdom of Heaven. What is the content of that banner? It is faith, love, and hope. One must obey within faith, one must obey within hope, and one must obey within love — that is the banner. Such is the conclusion being drawn.
What is the content in the middle here? It is: What is the sacrificial offering?
It is the question of what offering accords with this banner. In Christianity, what is the offering of the banner? It is the Ark of the Covenant. Centered on the Ark of the Covenant, what is the object of the banner?
Who established the Ark of the Covenant?
Jesus did not establish it, Noah did not establish it, and Adam did not establish it. Nor was it set up upon Abraham's failure. Abraham did not establish it either. Who established it? Moses established it.
The banner of the Ark of the Covenant could not be established by God, could not be established by anyone, but Moses established it as a banner — what was done with it? God did not establish it; how did Moses establish it on his own? The banner of the True Parents does not follow the banner established in history.
The banner of the new heaven and new earth — the new earthly and heavenly Kingdom of Heaven—is something no one has been able to establish, and therefore one cannot follow what anyone has taken as a banner. One must become a person who can make it a blank page.
Moreover, no one who shall set up a banner in the future will be able to leave behind that which can stand in place of history's banner because of the Fall.
Then what was the banner before the Fall?
That is the problem. There on the wall is hung the inscription “Realm of the Sabbath of Heaven, Earth, Parents, and the Cosmos (天地父母天宙安息圈).” The banner of Heaven and Earth is not something the Parents follow. The Realm of the Sabbath of the Cosmos does not follow the content of the banner called “Heaven, Earth, Parents.”
It is written “July 7, 1997” — how many sevens are there?
In history, if I sought content that could have been taken as a banner up until now, what would there be? I would have had to hold something that could connect what stands behind here with what is called “Heaven, Earth, Parents” — but I did not hold it.
The standard of the King-Father
This is so even when one looks at the content I spoke about more than fifty years ago in my thirties. I sought not to follow the history of the world. Were my mother and father, and my grandfather eminent? They were not eminent.
When that banner cannot become the center of a nation, what is one to do?
If there is a center of the nation, one should think to go and find a disciple to teach, whether in Manchuria or anywhere else — so why did they not come to seek me out?
The dead, taking me as the banner, should have come down from Heaven to earth, and following at the heels of me — the very youngest younger brother — should have said, “Because there has been no banner of the ancestors, we must at least follow what your banner is.” But there was none of that. Had such a banner been there from the beginning, they would have said, “Ah, that is the right thing!”
Among the banners of the historical age, is there such a thing?
History flows on. There is nothing among banners subject to judgment and vanishing.
Then what is the banner of the new Heaven and new Earth?
When one looks at the content of the banner — that the Kingdom of Heaven is established from two persons and that body and mind must become one — one says, “Ah, that is worthwhile.”
In that sense, is there one who will follow the banner of “Realm of the Sabbath of Heaven, Earth, Parents, and the Cosmos”? Have you followed it? Within that banner, what have you followed?
Have you followed it by diligently doing Hoon Dok Hae?
It can be done with greater diligence than Hoon Dok Hae. Going one day without sleep is ordinary. I bear a history of going three or four days, even a week, without sleep, and of opening my eyes to find the sun was not even visible.
Among those things, what was the banner I was able to resolve? What is the banner of which God says, “Ah, your banner is good!”? — and Jesus and the four great sages say is good, and my grandfather and ancestors say is good, and the generations of descendants for all time, even after I have died, can say, “There is no banner but that of this Grandfather”?
The grandchildren call their grandfathers and grandmothers Wang-Appa and Wang-Eomma — King-Father and King-Mother. Having become King-Mother and King-Father, what do they do? They are the royal ancestors. What is the banner of those royal ancestors? They call grandfather Wang-Appa — what is the banner of the King-Father? They are the last words at the time of dying. “You — stand on top of this!” If a hilltop everyone says is difficult to cross can be crossed by them in seven years, I can cross it in a week.
Are there people who have set their banners while thinking such thoughts? They must all be driven out. Even if they weep and wail, saying they would rather not be driven out. “In the historical age, seventy or eighty years ago, I clung to the parents who raised me, the parents who fed me, the parents who poured forth all their affection upon me, and wept and wailed — and what came of it?
When I say, “I hold a banner by which I can revive all the people of several thousand years ago, take responsibility for several hundred million people, and revive even hundreds of millions of later generations, ” is it truly so? Will you truly go that way?
Will God say to a man, “This is the place where I shall lie down”? God cannot make that decision. Would God, too, want to die, or not? Answer! Who is to decide the burial place of God? Filial sons and filial daughters, loyal subjects and chaste women, those who can become His substitute or heir — they must decide. God cannot determine His own burial place.
Where is True Father's burial place?
It would be good to bury me in your garden, but it is the garden of the nation — the garden of the nation. It is the foremost place in the world. By the name of God, where is the house in which God can go and dwell?
God lives alone — yet one builds a house for God, and when the master of that house departs after dwelling there, the one who chose the house must say, “I too shall be buried there.”
The son determines the father's burial place. It must not be done arbitrarily. Even if one says, “I too am a member of the Unification Church and have received the Blessing from Mr. Moon, so being in the same position, wherever in the world I go, all my sins are forgiven,” is one really forgiven thereby? To be forgiven, there must be the signature of True Father's substitute, the signature of the True Parents.
Since people do not believe in that signature, a thumbprint must be affixed, and if even the thumbprint is not believed, what is to be done?
In that case — small though it may be — even the national seal must be stamped.
As one who belongs to a nation, under the authority of the nation, in the position where all the people of the world receive that blessing, only when one thinks, “I too will receive at least one of those blessings,” does one stand in the sphere of recognition in which God can be pleased.
The summit position of the Kingdom of Heaven
For anyone, from the moment I acknowledge him, he finds his position. Yet right now there is not a single one who has found his position. I must give him his position. So it is even with the place of one's dying.
Not everyone can be entered into the Wonjeon. Among the older members, there is one of whom it was said, “Remove him from the Wonjeon.” I don't understand why he was removed, but you have no responsibility to manage that, do you?
What will you do, knowing the history of the ancestors?
If you know it, will you say you will assess whether True Father did well or did poorly? — when you stand in a position to be judged and to vanish.
Will you act as you have, without even standing in the position to trust yourself above the position in which the father trusts the mother?
The one who stands in a position of not trusting even one-hundredth of it and clings to the father and stops him from going goes to the hell of hells. The path the Unification Church must walk can be walked centered on the words of the Principle — why do you block it?
You were told to witness to your mother and father, your kinsmen. Even when you have witnessed to all your kinsmen, you must awaken and teach even the eighth-cousins by marriage and even three or more of the foreign nations, and come back—only then can you go to the summit position of the Kingdom of Heaven. Yet to set aside your brothers and place yourself ahead of your mother and father, and your uncles and to insist on being first—it must not be so.
When you go to that other world, what rank of witnessing will you have? When you are seated not at the center but at the very tail and ask, “Why is this?” — What will they say? They will say, “I do not know either.
You are going as you have done.” “Now you, too, try dying. Try dying again. Meet your fellows of the spirit world and ask whether the place where you went is the wrong position.”
Then they will say, “He went right!" “If you went with such greed, you ought to fall into hell, you wretch!” —that is what they say. Friends of the spirit world will say, “You wretch—you do not even know to be grateful that you went to your proper place, and yet you speak this way?” There is no one who knows this.