Tokyo Church, Japan.
People live feeling sorrow in meeting and parting. And now we have come to the stage of having to part from you in Japan. Yet now, what the Teacher thinks is this: between the standard of heart (심정) one held before meeting, while thinking of meeting, and the standard of heart after having met and parted, which will be the higher?
If, perchance, your heart after having met the Teacher is no higher than your heart before meeting him, that is meaningless; and that is what the one responsible who guides you, and Heaven, and the Teacher, who think of you, are concerned about.
The Meaning of Meeting and Parting
Seen from this standpoint, the question becomes whether, being together with you for some days, I have indeed raised a great wave in the world of your heart or have instead stilled a wave that had been rising.
Meeting the Teacher is not the problem. If, after the Teacher has gone back, there is a mind that thinks of the Teacher, I hope that beyond that you will think of the nation and fully carry out the heavenly responsibility toward Heaven.
What becomes the problem is the attitude toward the responsibility that now remains and the degree of that responsibility.
Now, how will the restoration of Japan be carried forward?
This is the problem. I pray from my heart that, holding the conviction that you are children of God, you press toward the appointed goal, calmly overcome any working whatsoever, boldly manifest the dignity of children of God, and become the final victors.
For the church of Japan to advance more and more hereafter, young people like you are most needed. Young people are needed who, with redoubled courage, will seize and throw aside every difficulty that comes to block the way and call forth the final victory. But, as there is a saying, “above and below, left and right,” I felt keenly, while guiding the church, that it cannot be done by the hands of the young alone. To take courage and fight is what the young must do, but for the young who fight, there must be those who watch over them and guard the surroundings and the environment and supply them in various ways.
In the senior division, there are the men’s senior division and the women’s division, but especially because Japan is the nation of Eve, a woman as good soil is needed. And, more than that, a good Adam is needed. It is the seniors who can guard the young people, who eat heartily, so that they do not worry.
However fertile the soil, what actually bears fruit is the rice. One must know what to do to make the senior division flourish even more than the women’s division and obtain a great harvest.
The members of the senior division hold social positions and support children and aged parents. There will be some degree of social hindrance, but one must overcome it. Yet if among one’s own children there is a young person, one can move centered on him.
How much the senior division, acting in place of the youth division, has bound itself together and expanded, and whether the youth division and the women’s division are developing together—this is the problem of Japan.
To Develop
To see a great development, a strong counterpart is needed. In headquarters and in the regions, in the witnessing structure, one must not forget this. To guide a certain senior, the young people must first become that person’s children. And one must make an environment in which that person can watch over them as their children.
Even toward the one responsible for the church, I hope you will regard and treat him as your father and mother. And so, regarding those young people as your children and making them the mediators, compose a new spiritual relationship of the family and the clan.
Now I am living with such faith. Truly, unless we bring about such a change, we cannot be saved. We cannot save Japan either.
What is the present state of Japan?
Linking it with Communist China or the Soviet Union, or with the world situation, what will Japan’s position be hereafter? To save this Japan, such an ideal and such a truth must not be lacking.
If you do not put the truth into practice, what will become of you yourselves?
You must not consider it to be another’s affair.
When it becomes so, the parent will love all the family earnestly, and so will be questioned in heart.
If one does not fully carry out one’s responsibility as a parent, what becomes of that child?
Recalling, in that very scene, the pain and the heart of the moment when one’s own child faced a dangerous state from illness, one receives an awakening and realizes that one must rightly educate one’s children and for the first time thinks, “Ah! That is so. I, too, must send my young daughter to the church.” And one cannot but think this. And on returning from witnessing, one must, without fail, write a letter. A single letter is a simple thing, but by that letter one leaves a true exchange of the heart. By one letter.
I think you have forgotten that. Because the human being has intelligence, one comes to think, “A person I met for the first time has such kindness and sense of responsibility toward me.
Until now, there has been no one who treated me like this. The person closest to me—one who drinks together or does something with me—was kind to me but did not treat me with such a bone-piercing feeling. Ah, this is indeed different.” So one writes a letter. And as one makes the rounds of one person, two people, three people, one grows gradually closer.
Reaching such a relationship, when by and by they come to visit this side, thereafter, it goes well even without doing again what one did on the rounds.
In that way, one must firmly set up the activity and the goal of the senior division.
Senior division members, do you understand?
The Teacher thinks such things: Ah, if there were a few more saints of unification, one could make a university-students’ church, a high-school-students’ church, a church where only women gather—this, if actively publicized, would move greatly…. And a church where those who have graduated from university or higher gather.
And especially because I think the senior division must be developed, I hope that those who have reached such an age will especially join their strength and strive to develop the senior division. Is that all right?
If, perchance, men alone seem weak, I hope men and women will join together and strive to develop the senior division. When it becomes so, there is something I wish to do centered on Japan.
Japan now has only young people, but when it enters the stage of having to bring the final problem to completion, there must be more seniors than youth. The process of reaching the goal is needed, but to resolve the final problem upon reaching the goal, it is, after all, the seniors.
The Necessity of Organization
To fight is easy, but to fully carry out responsibility—this is not easy. Peter and the others were quite advanced in age. There were aged ones, and there were seniors and young ones too.
When that forms an environment of above and below, left and right, front and back, inside and outside, this makes a leaping development. Engraving this in your hearts, the members of the senior division must strive and must pray to set up as a foothold and move all the branches and stems of more than one-third of Japan.
We do not have Japan alone as our goal. We have the world as our goal. To achieve that, it is not that one person does the whole. One person cannot do the whole. All people must do it in common.
However great the Principle may be, by the Principle itself alone, nothing comes about. It is because there are people that it is the problem. And by one person each, neither this nor that can be done. It comes about only when all take liaison together, set up a common goal, and fully carry out a hundred percent of responsibility in each department.
On the way to its coming about, there is the problem called organization. A relationship that can form a bond with the whole of the church’s movement comes to be needed. To bring the relationship to the surface, the organization becomes the problem. It branches in all directions like branches centered on the stem.
When it becomes so, a chain of command comes to be needed there. Unless one holds it, in the end one becomes troubled in oneself, or else one disappears—it becomes one or the other. Therefore, organization is necessary for us.
Leaving you behind, the Teacher must go. And Mr. Nishikawa (西川; Korean name Cho Bong-chun) also goes to America. When it becomes so, Mr. Kuboki (久保木) must take responsibility. When one comes to think of that, what the Teacher most wishes to emphasize is that one must strengthen the organization and form a close relationship with one another. At that time, if you, a hundred people, look at that one responsible, all are different.
The responsible one is a single person, but a hundred kinds of criticism come out. Because each one’s viewpoint of purpose differs, the viewpoint of criticism too is bound to differ.
If the viewpoint of purpose differs, in the end, one cannot become one. So if he is the central responsible one of a hundred people, he is bearing the burden of a hundred people. There, if you have stood in the position of one hundredth, you must not forget that you must bear ninety-nine percent of the cross and fully carry out your mission from your position.
Do you understand what I am saying?
While being one hundred percent yourself, you must not, leaving the ninety-nine behind, say this and that as one single person.
Stand in the position of speaking while bearing the ninety-nine on your back. This is the problem. To do so, one must become the whole. That is, the responsible one represents the hundred and, bearing the hundred crosses on his back, tries to fully carry out his responsibility—and are you one-hundredth? No, it is not so.
You are the one closest to the responsible one. So the responsible one holds the responsibility of a hundred, but each one holds the responsibility of ninety-nine; each stands in place of ninety-nine.
From such a position, treat the responsible one. From such a position, I hope you will receive the command. If one moves with such a mind, one cannot but become one.
Unless one stands in such a position, the leader’s opinion does not reach all the way to the farthest tip. So the church leader holds the responsibility of a hundred people. I hold the responsibility of ninety-nine people. Such a frame of mind—the frame of mind that I, more than anyone, was at fault…. Why? Because I was of no help in bearing the cross of the ninety-nine.
When one stands in such a position—“Because I was of no help, I was at fault!” —
The one who thus makes the responsibility of the whole his responsibility and reproaches himself will, without fail, be able to become the second responsible one. Then, for what do we make such an organization? It is for the sake of the first responsible one and the second responsible one.
If we go forward without forgetting that we need such an organization to complete countless second responsible ones centered on the first responsible one, the church of Japan will leap in development.
Once one takes responsibility, one is the Teacher’s substitute.
If anything arises, the deciding authority at that time lies with the responsible one. All the materials for deciding it are gathered and brought by those around him.
To decide based on those materials must be done by none but the responsible one. To decide such a grave matter, the one who holds responsibility must offer an earnest prayer. He must not do it as he feels or as he thinks. It is because, now having taken responsibility for God’s work, he is about to decide a grave matter.
Here, God will without fail work, but He also works upon the person in the object position. Knowing that the responsible one holds the grave responsibility of having to gather such things together and decide, if you, in every direction, help the responsible one near at hand in resolving such grave problems, you become the one closest to him. You become the closest branch.
If all are such people, you will not collapse wherever you are sent. If you go holding such a standard, wherever you go, even from now, you can again unfold a true organization from there. Certainly, I hope you will unite together as one and fully carry out such a grave mission.
The Three Great Elements for Moving the World
The headquarters has already become cramped. When there is an event like this one, send a liaison throughout the whole country. The brothers throughout the whole country will all want to gather. But that will not do. There, one must make a distinction—that at certain times these people gather, and at certain times those people gather. Unless one does so, the work does not get done.
One must not say, “What is this? I have been in the Unification Church a long time, yet you push me aside and call another?”
At a special event, rather than calling those who can be trusted, it is more effective to call the very opposite people. One must not complain about various positions.
When you are mobilized organizationally, moving with simple sincerity must be the motto of your life and the motto of your lifetime. Because I felt that such training had not yet been done, the teacher said this.
To train you, the headquarters gives commands. Therefore, I hope you will receive every problem with gratitude. Unless one holds such a way of thinking, it is a serious matter. Otherwise, in Japan, one will become unable to act and unable to move the world.
So the liaison quality of the organization, or its quality of overall control (統轄性), is more important than anything, and obedience to it is necessary.
So the first is organization, the second is unity, and the third is action. These are the three great elements for moving the world centered on our Japan.
By standing within a thorough organizational realm, one makes the liaison in all directions a hundred percent, and, to fully carry out the central mission, one must stand at the head and set such a standard.
One must decide one’s position, one’s position within the organizational realm. Without a position, there is no seat to sit in. Only by deciding one’s position can one work.
According to one’s effort, one comes to know how greatly that position grows. Deciding on the position is important in strengthening the organizational power.
For one existence to exist within this universe, the problems of front and back, left and right, and above and below must be resolved. Unless these three are in liaison, they fall apart, one by one. When that happens, one’s own position collapses.
When one comes to decide a position, above and below become the problem.
Going to the family, above me there is my father, and above my father there is my grandfather.
The father, for the sake of the son too, and to make in the future a splendid son, must become a splendid father. To become a splendid father, one must study. It is not for the sake of one’s own success or for getting ahead. It is to become a splendid father.
If one leaves such a thought to one’s descendants and educates the children, that clan can easily guard Japan.
To marry, too, is not for one’s own sake. It is to become a splendid father and mother and, again, to render splendid filial piety. One does it by taking that purpose as the standard. And unless above and below, left and right, and front and back all combine a hundred percent and maintain the relationship with equal force, that position moves. Thinking thus—is there in this world a person who stands centered on such a nation?
There is none. In the religious world, is there a person who stands in such a position centered on the teaching and doctrine of the founder of his religion?
There is none. Each, seeking the position he himself desires, loses the center and collapses. When that happens, one cannot contend with this world.
An organization is needed to decide on a position. One must not fail to know one’s own position. Do you understand? Deciding on a position is for the sake of forming a bond and forming a relationship. One must form it centered on me.
The one who holds the connecting power of authority (權勢力) becomes the subject. The one who receives guidance becomes its object.
So if one forms such a relationship and decides the position in which one stands—that is, forms a bond with all directions and decides one’s own position—then from whatever bearing (方位) one is viewed, front and back, left and right, above and below, one can stand with dignity.
The Universe Is Connected
God Himself, too, cannot harm it. It must become so. Deciding the position, within that three-dimensional realm of all directions, one makes into one the position of every bond, all that is related to oneself. One must be raised by a person who holds such motive power.
So, if one needs an organization, one must decide on a position. To decide a position, one must make one realm of the subject (主體圈). To make a realm of the subject, unless one, centered on him, rightly sets up one object existence and then makes that realm (圈), it cannot endure forever as one existence. It collapses. The position is naturally winnowed out.
When organizational power and the power of unity become one, only then can one act. When the center, in doing such a thing, says, “It has no relation to me. You go west; I go east,” that soon becomes a state of ruin.
So organization and unity and action—these are all the elements of the development of society.
So one must quickly make a thing whereby everything, toward that purpose, sets up an object standard from the standard of having decided such a position, and the whole can be unified. A unified action must be taken. When it becomes so, it prospers anywhere. That is a principle.
If, perchance, in carrying out national policy in the nation of Japan, each one first decides the framework in which he stands, enters that organizational realm and decides his position, and forms front and back, left and right, above and below in a well-rounded relationship, and goes the kingly way (王道) from a subjective position—there is development there.
If one does it without standing in such a position, it comes to be centered on one person. That falls into crisis or throws public order into confusion. It is because one is not taking charge of the nation but is heading toward one’s own purpose alone. Therefore, you must make this distinction clearly, enter the organizational realm, and decide your position.
To move position and thereby lose the relationship is the root of the Fall. Not to act according to God’s Word is the beginning of the Fall. So what must be made clear is that one must know one’s position, enter the organizational realm, and form a relationship. To achieve that, one must, without fail, stand in the object position.
One must manifest there a power of unity that can perform a heavenly working. I hope you will think of this in your mind always so as never to forget it. Do you understand?
First, what? Organization. What is an organization?
To decide a position. Second, what? Unity. Centered on the standard of having decided that position, one must decide one’s objective position toward the subject.
When it becomes so, one becomes one. To become one, one must hold one purpose and face one world. It must become so. To go toward a purpose, there must be a unified action. Apart from this principle, nothing comes about. When one does so, one knows clearly who is above. Your relationship of above and below—if you forget this, nothing comes about.
Who is above? Who is the last?
Thinking centered on the family, it is one’s own father and one’s own child. The front-and-back relationship is oneself and wife; the left-and-right relationship is brothers.
If one widens that scope, it becomes such a position. Man and woman are a front-and-back relationship; speaking of the Teacher, the front-and-back relationship is I and all of you. If one makes it large, all are included.
So, centered on oneself, mind and body must become one.
From there, one moves the left and right arms. By that, one advances front and back. Or one performs a historical action. And one leaves a name. What is left returns to one’s descendants. It is composed of such relationships.
The universe is connected. One must clearly know this. What goes against (反) this is, in principle, all disallowed. In the case of going against it, there is absolutely no development, progress, or growth.
Cell division — what is it that this division divides?
When the relationship with the four directions becomes complete and a cell beyond that is about to appear, in the case where there is no place to relate to, it seeks a standard in another place and from there multiplies a new cell. I hope all of you will not forget this principle.
Then you can at once know what position you yourself are taking and what action you are taking. You can know whether this is the side of Satan or the side of God. You have no right to interfere with those above you.
If a leaf complains to the stem, saying, “This stem! Stem! Stem!”, what will become of it?
Unless it passes through the stem, the leaf dies. Therefore, as to who can take issue with the stem — the root can. The root can boldly reproach the stem. That is because it is within the root’s realm of responsibility. It is so arranged.
When One Goes Against (反) the Principle
Developing this: in the case where one’s superior has done wrong, one must strive to bring it to light even by sacrificing oneself. Unless one does so, both die. One must bring at least one to life. To achieve that, even cutting off the branch itself, one must bring the more excellent side to life. This is a principle.
This is a little difficult for the people of individualism within the modern democratic view of thought.
If, in the manner of “You are you and I am I,” all stand at their standard, the world splits apart. It splits apart, and in the end, nothing can be done, and at the end, it collapses.
So modern civilization, eventually, all comes to a close through the self.
If one goes against (反) the Principle, one cannot but naturally collide with such a result. So, as a branch, one must not complain about the stem. To bring the stem to life, one may perish — it is a sacrifice.
So, in the Eastern spirit, there is what is called loyalty and filial piety. In the West, at present, that is not allowed. But at a certain stage, because the human being has fallen, there is no other way than to do so. Unless one does so, both the fallen and the not-fallen weep in the end.
Where is one? If a branch, what kind of branch?
A branch on the east, or a branch on the west? Or south, or north?
If, standing in any of the four directions — east, west, south, north — one says toward the center, “What are you?”, that tree dies. Unless all go to the standard of the center, one cannot stand in the complete realm of purpose. So all, centered on the headquarters, must organize, and must not cut off this central stem.
If it is a mind that tries to cut, that is not, on principle, a mind that tries to criticize. To make that criticism, one must know the position and the unity and the power, such directionality, such a position.
If one centers on oneself, because there is then neither root nor stem, one becomes ash. Satan became so. Because he left his position, he became the protagonist who pushes everything into the realm of death. Knowing such things clearly, one must know what kind of path we go is.
When such things are clearly resolved, one must discard what is called church-centeredness and one’s own individual problem of emotion. Whether one is speaking representing ten people, or speaking to make ten people one’s own side — which will be acknowledged as the center? — This one can at once know.
If, perchance, one cannot judge there, one must instead change direction in another direction. If one’s own thoughts come chasing after one, it is better to shut the window and sleep.
Therefore, we must thus thoroughly secure our position, and, guarding our position from Satan—who, from all around, takes aim at us and means to wedge in if there is a gap—we must go all the way to the final realm of the purpose of victory. Even if one dies a hundred times, one must go.
One must go, thinking of the destiny of such a world. One must clearly know this standard. When one does, one can know well how one must move in moving such an organization.
So, organization, unity, action. The position that decides it is only one.
If there are two of these, the world becomes two. This is a responsibility that God must carry out, even staking eternity; and if the Teacher has held that responsibility, it is a responsibility you too must carry out. It is a painful thing.
The very fact that we have already been born, God does not acknowledge, yet we are within a certain organizational realm. I, too, have entered the realm of connection and hold a relationship.
The action one is doing now, alive — where will it go if it goes on as it is?
One must ride over one stage. In the present age, the path of the cross remains for each one. Each must ride over that path of death.
That is the cross of the individual; and as for the church, it is the cross that appears as it advances toward society; or it is the cross that appears there when Japan tries to go toward the world — you must bear that worldwide cross.
You must not forget that ahead of where you advance, the cross is waiting. I say this: you who stand just before it must advance with courage and confidence.
What Has Become of You?
Next, I wish to speak about the problem in the church and the problem of you yourselves.
The relationship of Cain and Abel—what kind of thing is it, do you know?
Absolutely standing on Heaven’s path, even though Abel gives whatever command, night or day, I hope you will obey that command and act exactly a hundred percent. If one stands in such a position, one is completely alive. What is alive grows. This is a principle.
So, observing oneself from the viewpoint of whether one is alive or not, one must take care at all times. Watching young people feels good, but on the other hand, there is much worry. Even Adam, who was the only son of God, fell.
Are you standing in a position better than Adam?
You are not. The elements of falling are scattered around you tens, hundreds of times over. Always looking straight at goodness, one must quickly cross this limit.
If you do not tread the Principle and principles, you will be blown away into the Pacific Ocean.
Do you know what being blown away into the Pacific Ocean means?
You, too, must fight. At that time, if one makes a good person even by striking with a whip, that is not evil.
For Satan to take a whip and strike and carry a good person off to Satan’s side is the supreme evil. But to strike, with God’s whip, one who is Satan, the supreme evil, and set him up in the position of a prince of Heaven—that is good. One must know it thus, in reverse.
If one does not listen, perhaps one will strike with a whip. One strikes Japan’s delinquents and idlers, or those who throw society into disorder. To desire Japan, too, is not for the sake of my own self-centered wish but because I desire the world. One must not forget that.
So if one looks at the Teacher and thinks, “Ah, that teacher is a teacher of Korea, yet he desires Japan; nationally seen, this is ‘bad’—that is troublesome. To desire Japan is because one desires the world. To desire the world is to desire the Cosmos (천주), and to desire the Cosmos is to make God our God.
Japan and Korea compete. Japan, do not lose. Korea, do not lose. America, do not lose. Win quickly. To love the world, Japan is needed. To bring the world to life, Japan is needed.
What is needed cannot be set up in a comfortable seat. It stands in the world. Great waves wash it. It is made to collide. Why? To ride over the waves of the world, one must collide. If one dislikes that, one must run away. If one is such a weakling, one is not needed.
Do you have the confidence to be able to accomplish such a thing?
I wish to walk every place in Japan on foot. In Korea, there is no place the Teacher has not gone. And, treading it with tears, he sought that land and thought of that good nation. For ten years, twenty years, the path he goes does not change.
However, the waves beat upon it, and it stands resolute. Like a rock. A great rock, though it has been washed there for tens of millions of years, stands resolutely. The harder it is, the more resolutely it holds a form close to its very root. The weaker it is, the more full of holes it is.
What has become of you? Are you not full of holes?
The Unification Church does things by conviction. One who has become one, however many thousands or tens of thousands of years pass, is in that very form. I hope you will quickly make all Japan into a nation befitting God’s Will.
If you do not do it, perhaps the Teacher will come and do it. But since you are, in any case, saying, “Please let us do it,” the Teacher means to entrust the wrapping cloth to you and go back. And once he goes back and comes again, he means to see what has become of it.
Yet you must not do this: “There were holes in it, Teacher! This wrapping cloth had holes, so everything fell through and escaped.” Whether there are holes or not, holding the wrapping cloth yourself and thinking it a wrapping cloth that can wrap for a thousand or ten thousand years—if a hole grows large, sew it.
One must patch it. When there is truly no cloth and one is challenged, one must attach anything at all.
If one says one cannot carry it on one’s shoulder and walk, bring it all the way even onto a rock and set it there. And do the wrapping at the end.
The Path of Restoration
It is not that we mean to ruin Japan. To save Japan is our position. To achieve that, one must take, first, organization; second, unity; and third, unified action.
When one does so, the problem of the heart is naturally resolved among you. The Teacher hopes for such things and means to go back with a glad heart. The Teacher thinks of going back as an overjoyed thing.
You too, is it not so?
Not thinking it sorrowful but burning with hope, I hope that when the Teacher goes back, you will face it with the thought, “My first intended plan has failed. I have no face to show. I have no face even to behold the Teacher. But next time I will change this face that has no face to show and appear in a dignified form.” I earnestly hope you will set up in heaven and earth the purport of your face.
Until now, I have spoken about the church; this time I wish to speak centered on you. To win, one does not do restoration from oneself. One does it from the outside.
When God existed and created, He did not create from Himself. Beginning with all things, He made even those things starting from the lowest, the foundational. Restoration is re-creation.
So, leaving the beloved parents behind and having to love the enemy one cannot love is the path of restoration. Unless Satan writes a certificate saying, “You have loved,” one cannot go to where one’s own parents are and love. Because this is established as a principle, God until now has had to sacrifice even His own most beloved children and, if He loved ten times, set up before Satan a condition of sacrifice more than tenfold. Unless He did so, God’s dignity collapses. This was God’s painful position toward the fallen world until now. The believers until now did not know this.
Once one holds responsibility, there is a historical condition by which one must set up a condition of indemnity proportionate to it. Once one has stood in the midst of the world as God’s substitute, it is not allowed to seek the happiness of one’s own family centered on oneself and fulfill one’s wishes.
To serve, sacrificing all those things, toward the world and the nation, the direction the good God purposes, was the ideal of our good ancestors until now. So the Teacher has, until now, sacrificed his family. The Teacher had many family members, and there were many brothers who said they would serve, paying every sacrifice for the Teacher.
Knowing how precious the position of carrying out cosmic restoration toward such a family is, yet because there was a heavenly standard to be paid to my family, I could not preach the Word to them. Thinking of that, you have entered the realm of grace that ought to come.
You have come to a stage where, however much you witness to your family, you cannot be accused by Satan’s side. This is because the Teacher has already passed the stage of victory over Satan.
So from now on, you must save your parents and relatives. It is such an age. One witnesses to one’s parents. One witnesses to one’s brothers. And, becoming one, one serves God. The whole family must become so.
And so one makes such a clan and serves the Will. When one can serve, unified as one, that clan becomes a clan that moves the whole people.
Are you within such a realm?
To make it, you must not say, “Father! Mother! Listen to my words.” You yourselves must become pure children and, standing in a position where you can render true filial piety, speak the Word to your parents, staking your life.
So, even if one is beaten, if one endures and goes forward, the parent who beat one will soon say to the child, “I was at fault,” and a time comes when the parents themselves kneel and apologize.
When that happens, that household comes to submit to that child. Therefore, even if one is beaten by one’s parent and wounded, I hope you will become a pure child who renders filial piety. I hope you will not regard being beaten by your parent as suffering.
You must not forget that the more one is in a difficult position, the more it becomes the supreme condition deciding the final, eternal victory.
Therefore, one must not think that being driven by people is unfortunate. Even if one is driven by one’s environment, one must not complain. It is, in any case, a thing that will come to be known.
If one dies for its sake, all who opposed will, leading not only themselves but also their descendants and all their relatives, come and repent. They will say, “Forgive all the sins our relatives committed.” That is God’s salvation. Do you understand? You must go with hearts joined.
The Working of Satan
Our children, or our clan, are saved by our hands. Now they do not know. I know. Satan is opposing this. With confidence in that cry, one collides.
When one collides, it is not Satan himself who throttles. He throttles through the closest one. Why? Because if the close one stands at the head and throttles and wins, Satan gains the final victory.
If, perchance, he does not win, it is arranged that he must hand it over to God’s side.
Through one’s closest one, Satan has worked. Why does God permit it? Because there is a purpose of resolving that problem quickly, He sends Satan to the closest one. Do you understand? So at first one’s own family becomes enemies.
One must quickly bring about the settlement. It is because there is such a purpose of God. One takes instantly the quantity one would fight over for ten years and indemnifies it. One draws to one body and receives in one the countless sufferings of ten years. Leaving only one’s life, do what one can do.
So the Teacher prays such a prayer: Let the 3.2 billion of all humankind oppose the Teacher with the indemnity they can pay. He boldly stands against it. It is not yours alone. Satan is added to it. The Teacher always holds such a mind. With such a strategy, one must endure in that environment for one, two, or three years.
If not three years, then seven years. But once three years pass, it becomes a downhill road. This is how the Principle is arranged. So you must restore your family. You must restore it quickly.
To eat good food in comfort will not do. To carry out family restoration, one must become different. When one does, the parents come to say, “Going to the Unification Church, I had thought it bad from what I heard earlier, but looking at my children who are there, something has changed; in the old days, when the father spoke, the child would sulk and frown and roll up his eyes—one could hardly tell whose child it was….” They come to feel that change. When they feel it is no small change, those parents actively stand at the head and go forward.
Therefore, now you must save your family. The teacher, until now, could not do such a thing. That was the Teacher’s heart-aching matter. According to what the Teacher hears, the Teacher’s parents seem already to have gone to the other world.
But I think the Earth is precious. Especially young people must keep their bodies pure. An obedient, clean mind and a clean body become true filial piety toward a clean parent. One who does not have a clean body is a defiled one.
Such a one does not qualify to face a clean one. When that is so, one must repent. One must report one’s true state to one’s parent and repent, saying, “I am such a one. Heavenly Father, wilt Thou receive me?” One must beg forgiveness.
One’s own body is precious. I say, do not defile it, and render filial piety. Holding the responsibility of serving Heaven, with the body acknowledged by God, one must escape from Satan’s realm of death. This is the supreme purpose of a human being, and it is the standard. Speaking in terms of the Principle of Creation, it cannot but become so.
So you, thinking that unless you yourselves stand in such a position, you do not qualify to render filial piety, must repent, seek forgiveness on God’s side, and fully render filial piety to your parents. The Teacher commands you to do so.
Until now, the brothers of the church were closer than one’s own family. We already have the family of Abel. So we must lead along the family of Cain.
Render True Filial Piety and Loyalty
One must quickly restore Cain’s family. As for that, unless one renders filial piety in the world of Cain, one must not enter here in the future. Going to the regions, going throughout all Japan, one must seek those who render filial piety and witness to them.
When the time comes, such people come moving forth. Furthermore, seek people who, as brothers, love one another. One must pick out such people. Thinking thus, you too will have to bring your families in. The wife, the husband, the husband, the wife.
If the parents themselves have come to know that they cannot but go this path even unto death, they must lead their children to God’s side. That the parents failed to fulfill their mission was because they did not know; if they had known, they would have led them even as an offering. That is good, even if one strikes with a whip.
So the Teacher says that if the parent stands rightly, there is no case where the child is not saved.
If, perchance, there is an unfilial child toward the parents, one must drive him out. And I hope you will bring into your home one who renders filial piety to his parents and set him up as an adopted son.
Seen from God’s side, that may be the path He desires. It is so arranged. There is a part of it that is difficult for the Teacher to explain one by one in detail.
Until now, to what wretched stages of death has Satan pushed the good people belonging to God?
Even if one applies this method in the opposite direction, Satan cannot accuse. Because it is restoration through indemnity.
You have a public indignation (公憤), a public thought, that cannot stay still toward evil. Such a brother who does cruel things like destroying a family and stirring up discord is unpleasant. One must push him outside the fence of the family.
Holding firm conviction, you must save your families. Let us think of the mission that remains. If it is this many, behind this there hang their families, some ten, some a hundred. There is no case of one not being witnessed.
We, by a life of responsibility and action, form relationships and can prove the fruit of it within the realm of living. This is filial piety toward the parent. But if, as brothers, one cannot love one another, it will not do. The family must be centered on the one who renders filial piety.
Parents or brothers will somehow come around. If even so they do not move, that family becomes the problem. And it comes to be struck from God’s side. With such recognition, I hope you will take responsibility for the problems of the church and of the individual and resolve them.
Thinking of the path the Teacher has groped along until now, I have spoken of the grave points you must carry out, so certainly I hope you will give your full strength in those directions, render filial piety toward Heaven, and fully give loyalty.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we know well how much the path the Father goes is a path of the cross. On the immeasurable course of history, standing in a lonely, or wronged, position that none could believe, and a position in which Thou couldst not but endure—we have been taught and have come to know well that heart of the Father.
Repenting, from our present position, of the wrongs of our ancestors of the past, we have clearly come to know that we, in Japan, must, in the present environment, shoulder the countless crosses the Father is bearing, pioneer the path of the future, and stand in the position of historical forerunners.
Looking at history, we cannot but shed tears and sweat and blood. We have clearly come to know that, unless in this present age we begin to walk such a path of the cross from ourselves, we cannot inherit the cross the Father has borne and give the Father rest.
The many brothers of Japan gathered here hold in their young breasts a boundless desire and hold the conviction that, however difficult things may be in the future, they will render boundless filial conduct toward the Father.
Certainly, set up a standard of victory befitting Thy heart, and, in the midst of the final battle, so that we may receive the proof that we have rendered loyalty and filial piety to the Father—O Father! We earnestly pray that Thou wilt bless and guide us.
This night, we thank Thee for opening such an assembly and giving us all the Word we need. From now on, for some period, such a time may not be ours. Certainly, drawing ever nearer to the Father, fully carrying out the heavenly mission from the position the Father desires, and yearning in our hearts, together with future hope, for the time of such a new assembly, while resolving to accomplish from ourselves the world of joy the Father desires, we pray that we may before long be able to greet such a time; we earnestly pray that the Father will grant such grace.
We must not forget that, even parted, we are within the Father’s heart. Not forgetting that, wherever we may be, the Father is equipped with one standard and governs us and protects us, may He bless us so that, fully carrying out the responsibility entrusted to us, we may become Heaven’s elite who hold a heart of loyalty. And we pray that Thou wilt raise us to become the Father’s true sons and daughters who, at the final victorious stage, behold the Father’s glory and can together hear the song of triumph.
Earnestly praying that, until the day we meet, Thou wilt guide and keep the path of these, we offer this prayer before Thee through the name of the True Parents. Amen.