Belvedere International Training Center
The topic of Father's sermon this morning is na eui shinang saenghwal My Life of Faith.
The life of faith began as the result of the Fall. We know that centering upon the four major religions, there are numerous religions all following a certain direction of faith.
However, there is only one life of true faith. The object of that life is absolute God Himself. The life of faith is to lead life in such a way as God desires us to do and to be.
It does not begin from oneself, but rather from God. It is not a matter of what an individual wants but what God wants. It is simple enough if everyone goes in one direction.
However, confusion arises when the people in the world inject themselves into this understanding of the way to go.
Within the individual life, we face many problems. The problems always arise from human relationships. As science progresses and makes one discovery of nature after another, then mankind can progress by following the scientific formula, whereas it is difficult to find the formula for the life of faith, the religious life.
Naturally, the question arises as to what the unit and formula are for the individual life of faith. We always discover that this unit and formula is the family. The family is the unit and formula of life itself.
The unit is that one couple and their relationship with their children and their children's relationship with them. That unit forms a family which becomes the formula for our life. Everything else is the mere expansion of this family.
We are all familiar with these eight stages of individual, family, race, clan, nation, world, cosmos, and God. We must always understand that it intersects at a ninety-degree angle. That which is fit to settle down permanently is the family. Only the family can do this.
Sun Myung Moon
The father-son relationship
The family about God vertically creates the father-son relationship. The other is the horizontal relationship of husband and wife. Brothers' and sisters' relationships are like front and back.
Up and down, right and left, and front and back. These relationships of father and son, husband and wife and children, or, up and down, east and west, front and back, all comprise the family. This forms a global shape and becomes a formula.
These being brothers and sisters and these are the children, [indicating to the board] these four are all represented. This being the smallest family, the race, clan, and nation all have these within them. They are merely extensions of this unit. Just as we have these four elements within the family, they also exist within the country.
In America, we have a person in the position of parents, couples, brothers, and children. This being the formula, it can be found wherever you go in the world without exception.
Since this is forming a global shape it cannot be divided into a smaller scale or different shape. [Father is drawing on the board.] Here is the vertical relationship [indicating to the diagram].
Centering upon this relationship, the globe is automatically formed. It is like the seed of a tree. This relationship is always present in the design of the family life. Therefore, wherever you may go, you cannot help but from this. Just as the seed of a tree can always grow into a tree, so can the human family.
Here are the upper and lower hemispheres, and the d right and left hemispheres [indicating to the board]. Such is the system of the family. When they all join it forms a sphere. As we can see here, there are six divided spheres, and counting the center makes seven [indicating to the board]. This position is occupied by True Love.
The sphere can move in any direction possible. No matter how you move and where you go, when the ball comes to stand still it is always upright. It is the formula. No matter which part of the surface you choose, it intersects with the vertical line at a ninety-degree angle.
Therefore, this is ideal. There are no differences, no prejudice, no different ways of being treated. All are equal. This surface is always difficult to protect everything inside. As can be observed in the seed of a tree, we see the bran [indicating Father's drawing].
Centering on this line [indicating to the drawing] these different parts embrace the part that will later form the root of the tree, the trunk of the tree, and will eventually grow to be the leaves of the tree. All are situated likewise, around the seed.
The trees prosper when they grow because all of these elements are present: the root, trunk, strong branches, and leaves. This can be applied to the human family also and extends into the spiritual world where the family will join and live. When we refer to son, we immediately think about parents.
The beginning of the concept of the son is parents. Is that correct?
Whenever we think of the wife, the pre-supposition is the husband. When we refer to younger brother, then elder brother is in mind and vice versa. We may refer to the right, but the left is equally important. They are included with each other. This concept is important.
The right side exists for the left side, not for its own sake. This is the very beginning of existence. You did not begin for yourself. You began for somebody else apart from yourself. In the case of a man, he came into existence for a woman.
And everyone came into existence for the sake of their parents. The East exists for the sake of the West and vice versa.
The lower part exists for the upper part. Let us assume that a plus entity came into being. Then immediately one asks for what this plus exists. Naturally, it exists for its object which is minus. If there is no minus, then there is no reason for the plus to exist. Plus only exists for the sake of the minus.
Sun Myung Moon
What then is the significance of family?
What are we to do centering upon family?
Without the family, there is no connection vertically above. In the Unification Church, we have already formulated this in the description of Cain and Abel's relationship.
When we observe that every small element, without exception, contains common elements, then we know that this is the formula. Wherever we place the family it fits into this formula.
My religious life, or my life of faith means I always have my subject in mind. Do you follow?
We belong in either the subject or object category. Whichever I might be, I'll be living for the sake of the other. Each family desires to be the center of the whole cosmos. To climb to a high place we need a ladder, and we need to climb step by step. [Father draws on the board.]
Like so, the family, clan, race, and nation. When you ascend, when your family goes up, it needs a ninety-degree angle. You cannot climb with one step. The restoration history of God is the same. It follows the ladder, step by step.
The family does not change, but it ascends to a higher place. Our family does not just rise automatically, but as we rise we have to expand our realm horizontally like so [indicating to the board]. As we go up we have to expand the territory of our realm so that it becomes bigger.
The universe is formed in this way. The universe always has a core and surroundings in much the same way as our bones and flesh. Always there is the core and the surrounding part to that. Always the center or core is in the subject position and the surrounding part is in the object position.
As we go up as a family unit, we have to expand. A tree will bear fruit and this fruit is the result of eight stages of development within the tree. A big tree is like a universe in and of itself.
When that family becomes intact then the family lives for the sake of the clan, and the clan lives for the sake of the nation.
This direction is the only one in human life. That direction is ninety degrees. Two families can never live differently; there is only one direction. The ninety-degree angle is not something that changes, but it remains eternally. It is not only vertical but horizontal also.
Just as the tree has only one way in which to grow, so it is with the family. We therefore come to conclude that what comprises the universe, small or large, is always subject and object.
For subjects and objects to exist and develop, they need to work for the sake of one another. This will not work if one demands that the other exist and work only for them. The role of the subject is to invest.
The object's role is to be invested in, but also to reciprocate with a grateful heart. Even if your subject gives you something personally, you must not consider that it is for yourself alone.
Rather you must consider that it belongs to all and so be ready to return it to the subject with a grateful heart. As the subject continues to invest and give, through returning gratitude the object will stimulate the subject to give more. This sense of love grows more and everybody is stimulated to do more for the sake of the other.
Within the religious life, we find that the subject and object relationship is to interact vigorously one with another. Why?
The purpose is to reach up to a higher place and finally reach God again from where all mankind fell.
As we go up, we also expand horizontally. Anyone who is in the subject position must invest.
When Father speaks and invests in you as members of the Unification Church, if you in turn miss this opportunity and cannot grow, then maybe you will remain as a leaf. You might never grow into a trunk or big branch. The leaves become fertilizer every year.
Unlike a branch and trunk which remain, leaves are only annual. The trunk must be large and strong before you can expect to rise higher vertically. Furthermore, the branches must become horizontally larger year by year so that they may form a more prosperous domain for the tree.
We breathe every minute, and yet we rarely notice that our heart is beating continuously. These functions never rest, but are continuous and sure. We human beings for the sake of goodness, like a heart, must beat every day regularly without ceasing.
If you only inhale or only exhale you will die. Air is also a plus and a minus. Some air is dense and some is sparse as it moves from one place to another. Like the rhythm of a wave, so the air moves even though we may not see it.
Storms are very necessary to change and recharge the air that has begun to stagnate. It has a cleansing action.
In the Unification Church, we also have ups and downs. This is the rhythm of life. When we face a big persecution we are down, but when this passes again, then we are up.
There was an individual persecution time, a family persecution time, a racial persecution time,e and even a world persecution time. When that ends, then the spiritual world will persecute us. That is the last persecution and then level ground will be formed. Then we find stability.
We have many concepts to deal with, but they are so important for our life.
True Parents and the Completed Testament Era is here. However, although we experience this here, still many people remain unaware. Even though our families and Father's family are the same because they consist of the same formula, there is a difference in stages.
If Father's stage is up here while ours is down here [indicating to the board], then we are not in the same stage. Father's family did not rise instantly, just as Father has already explained to us. And they have to continually do more work, and we must realize this.
Sun Myung Moon
Where is my family going? What am I doing?
What am I living for?
We must always refer to and think about these eight stages. We are ascending when we try harder and harder, and we need to have our sense of direction correctly and firmly set.
What are the chances of meeting Father in our lifetime?
When we meet Father, that is where everything flows down to me: the life, words, everything. It is such a precious opportunity. Historically, how long mankind had to wait just to arrive at the time when we could meet Father.
If we waste that opportunity it means we are unaware of what we are living for. It is so precious an opportunity that you cannot think of missing it because you miss that much of life. We have a long way to go.
Why is Father so necessary?
We have a destiny to go up here [indicating to the board] but we cannot go by ourselves. We have to cling to the historical Father and never let him go.
That is the only hope for us to reach from here to here [indicating to the board]. It is like a fly that happens to stray into an airplane in Narita airport, Japan, and a few hours later finds itself in New York.
There is no way that a Japanese fly would be able to fly over to New York from Japan. There is no chance. And so it is with heaven. What chance do you think that we all have to reach heaven as we have historically? Do you understand?
We all have a desire to do something and make it our own. Father has already given us the formula of living for the sake of others. Why? It appears that he is losing all the time.
The reason Father does this is that automatically he will find himself in the center. This is the law. If we make it a habit to live for the sake of others, we will never go sideways but will always find ourselves right at the center.
We have an ideal formula whatever belongs to me belongs to the family. Whatever belongs to the family belongs to the clan.
Whatever the clan has belongs to the nation and so forth. Then whatever the nation has belongs to God and whatever God has belongs to me. God is a big plus, and we are a small minus. Communism believes that whatever belongs to everyone else also belongs to me. This cuts off all the different stages. That was their belief.
Whatever belongs to God, is mine. That completes the circle. Ever since Father came to America he has invested whatever he owned into America. People, property, money, all the skills, and whatever he had, Father invested into America. For the sake of the world, Father invested.
Now through the Washington Times, we see that the world now responds to Father and feels that they need him. We Unificationists are always wondering where we are going and why we are suffering, but we should not be this way. If we are going to reach here [indicated in the diagram] then no wonder that we suffer the way that we do. Maybe we should suffer even more.
The one who follows continuously can never become the center or the master. However, the one who leads and takes initiative will find himself in the center position.
In the past, America was always playing the central role. However, today it seems that America will never be able to digest the East, and it seems likely that the Orient may well digest America.
Unless America follows this formula and advances up the ladder to reach God, it will plummet down. If a nation is high level and loses track of the ladder, the only way is to crash down.
The Unification Church is the only entity that has a clear ladder and is taught clearly about this by the Father.
Is there anyone here who is confident to say that if they pass to the spirit world today they can be in the same place as Father there?
It is not likely because of what Father went through to reach that ladder. The world at that level is very different from the world where we are.
Father has already told us that we need to go through many stages. Without going through all of these stages, we cannot go to the same spiritual world as Father.
No matter what position, you can always make this angle the same [indicating to the board]. Do you understand? (Yes.)
The title of Father's sermon today is My Life of Faith, but there is nothing that is mine in my life. Would you desire a limited kind of 'my' or a farsighted, limitless 'my'? (The big one.)
The purpose of 'my' should be here [indicating to the board]. Therefore, is my life of faith centered upon this limited 'my' or this big 'my'? On which one is your religious life centered?
In reality, we begin here [indicating to the board] because we are an individual.
It starts from here [Father draws on the board], then goes around and returns to the center where we began and forms a circle. Do you understand? (Yes, Father.)
Those who are present this morning to listen to Father, do you belong to this category here [indicating to the board] or is your aspiration here? This is like a grammar school level, whereas this one is like a Ph.D. course.
All too often you are in elementary grammar school, but it is such a fantastic school that you think you are going through a Ph.D. course. But nobody recognizes that.
Even God will deny that. All things will reject you. If we continually think in this arrogant way then all things will come against us and we will drop away. My religious life, or my life of faith is lived for the sake of others, not for myself. God is not making me live this way, but rather by my volition, and I decide to go this way.
Then this becomes a legitimate condition. I will choose my religious life to liberate God, and we will find ourselves liberated. God has to be happy before He can liberate me, or I can liberate myself.
When God is unhappy, we cannot liberate ourselves, neither can God liberate us.
The 'my' in my religious life is not mine but exists for the sake of God. God is the subject and we are the object. We must live for the sake of God as He is already living for the sake of us.
We give everything back to God with a grateful heart because eventually, it all is mine. It cannot belong to anybody else except me.
The Unification Church'sh perspective concerning this way of life must be crystal clear. We live for the sake of God. If we follow in Father's wake we will go to heaven. Even if we follow somebody else, who is going in the same direction, then we will go to heaven as well.
That means there is only one correct way of life, not two. Do you understand? Furthermore, we must always continually remind ourselves what position we are in the eight stages.
Where are we?
Are you confident as to where you are and where you will be going? When Father reaches up here he wants to go even further and begin something even more gigantic. But where are we? We have followed Father well until a certain point, but then we say we can go no further.
How can we say such a thing?
Father has always insisted that America must do better than any other country because it is destined to go higher. Once Father invests so much into America, then it must live up to Father's expectations. Otherwise, see what will happen. It will completely fall. Do you understand? (Yes.)
Sun Myung Moon
For whom are you leading your religious life?
(For God.) We have a good contrast with the Christians who proclaim to believe in God to be saved by Him. It is not 'I' who will be saved, but rather God wishes for the whole world to be saved, not only the Christians.
If we will be a rightful partner and object, then we must follow God's ideal.
The whole world is our goal, never the Unification Church. Until now, Father can point out that we have been focusing literally upon 'my' religious life and this is wrong.
If some feel that it is cold and therefore don't want to come to Belvedere to listen to the Father, God will certainly not be happy with us. When God comes here and sees only a few faces, naturally His heart is sad.
Every higher level than myself would be sad because of my absence. Do you understand? (Yes.)
We see that Father's life has been so public and so open, and at the age of eighty, he still works as hard as in his twenties and thirties. This is the way that we pass to the spirit world: not in bed, but doing the work.
There are other continents to which Father did not give so much attention. Father has invested everything in America, but now Father has to go to South America and Africa because these countries have not been visited by Father for long periods. Father will go around the world and will eventually come to rest in Korea. Therefore, are we all going to follow in Father's wake? (Yes.)
We have to make a big circle. Do you understand? How wonderful if our aspiration is for the liberation of the universe and the liberation of God, rather than any lesser purpose.
How wonderful it is! Christians are declining sharply because they do not know God's Will. It doesn't take a genius or a holy man to understand God. If you were God, would you be happy with the way America is? Of course not. Neither is God.
Times are changing now, and the Christian world cannot adapt itself. It is a sorrowful thing. Yet, here we are.
Sun Myung Moon
Do you think that God can do wonders and liberate Christians? (No.) Then which living being can?
Who must love, teach, and liberate?
It is our mission, but to accomplish it, we need this philosophy clearly in our minds. We are the only group of people who have God's ideal in mind. This is what Father teaches us and that is what the Unification Church is. Father is the only living being who thinks in this way.
If we live as Father has taught us, then the whole universe will follow us and heavenly fortune will follow us as well. John 3:16 states, “God so loved the world.”
The world is neither some Christian denomination nor even a nation.
But scripture says, “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten son, that whosoever believes in him will gain eternal life.”
That is a world concept, not a national one. America is not the world itself. Is that clear? (Yes.)
We have to pull like we are an engine. However, we don't like to pull something.
We always want an easy life. If we choose only the easy life we will go through a thousand times more pain in the spiritual world.
The whole world, including America, is here [indicating to the board] and its goal is to reach this high plateau. Can one engine pull a big train such as that? Can your family bring everybody up here? There is a big gap between what we believe we can do and what we do. Father has been leading this way of life.
You will see that as time goes by, Father will become more and more famous around the world. What is your guess? (Yes.) We must understand that the money our movement is investing in America if this were to be invested someplace else, that whole continent would live.
Do you think that Father has that sense of comparison? We must understand that Father is working for the sake of the world without ceasing. Do you follow? (Yes.)
Those among you who are Blessed couples, please raise your hands. Almost all of you are.
Sun Myung Moon
Is your tribal messiah work going well?
Do you think that the occupants of the spiritual world are awaiting the appearance of the tribal messiah in their tribes?
When you arrive in the spirit world what will you say to your ancestors? No matter how hard we may think that this way of life is, we have no other alternative. We must go this way.
Are you going to lead a religious life that is narrow, or a religious life of universal scale? (Universal.) We have to actively save the people and love God.
What are you doing?
God is looking down at hell. We must understand where we stand today. If this is the only way of life and Father has been going this way, do you think that the people of the world would follow this way at any cost or not? (Yes.) Are we going to follow Father's way of life at any cost? (Yes, we are.)
There is no other way for us to get close to God in reality, other than to follow this already-built road. We have to get to this point [indicating to the board] no matter what.
Are we trying very hard to elevate one step after another?
Is that truly what my religious life is all about?
Are we consciously trying to do this? If we decide to stop here at this point [indicating to the board] then all the rest will be left to be accomplished in the spiritual world.
And we have learned from Father that it is infinitely more difficult to accomplish things in the spiritual realm. In this world, we are surrounded by air. In the spiritual world, there is no air or indemnity law.
What is air to earth, to spirit is love. Unless we practice love in our physical body we will not be able to breathe in the spiritual world. It takes tens of millions of years to reach from here to here [indicating to the board] in the spirit world. Later on, we cannot claim that we did not understand what Father has been teaching us.
We will be without excuse. This is not some conceptual teaching. In reality, Father is inheriting to us a way of life.
This is the first day and the first week of December. One more month and we will meet in 1995, which is the fiftieth year since the liberation of Korea. It is precisely half of a century.
History is about to enter into a yet different realm. When the clock strikes midnight, the whole atmosphere changes, but we cannot detect that. That is the official beginning. Even though we may not be so sure, still the dawn surely will come. We must be ready for the dawn; otherwise, we will have nothing to do with it. We must be perpetually awake and alert. What is Father's topic this morning? (My Life of Faith.)
In the place of God, we work for the sake of the world.
That is what Father urges us to do. You have to understand this well, and we must live this way for the rest of our lives. If we are unable to do this, we should cry in desperation and repentance. At least we could gain God's sympathy.
Be sure that when you shed tears God will accompany you. He will protect you whenever you give your heart. Even if you did not make a tangible result, if you always live with this kind of heart then surely you will go near to God.
Father sees so many faithful Japanese faces here. You should get ahead of people right next to Father, and you should not follow the crowd which happens to be Americans. Do you understand?
We should be the leader, not the follower. Do not become Americanized, but rather become like God and True Parents. Everybody becomes Americanized, but Father does not.
What is the way of prosperity, the American way or the True Parent's way?
(True Parents' way.) You know the correct answer, but your activity does not reflect your answer.
Those of you who pledge to live up to the standard that Father has commended to us, please raise your hands. God bless you.
Hak Ja Han Moon