Belvedere
America is a country that represents hope and the ideal for many people around the world.
However, their understanding of this country is rather vague. They only think in terms of an abundant economy, advanced technology, and unprecedented freedom because these are the things that comprise their hopes and ideals.
Looking closer at this country, it is clear that many homes and families are in disrepair. The family is the building block of any society, so any great nation must be built upon great families.
However, many American husbands and wives are full of distrust for each other; even parents and children cannot trust each other.
There is no one closer to an individual than the members of his family, so if he cannot trust them, who can he trust in the whole world?
How can he trust his teachers, his politicians, or even the president of the nation? Therefore, distrust is very widespread throughout this nation.
An individual suffers tremendous damage from being unable to trust the people around him. He feels a tremendous need to find something strong in which to place his trust. If a person cannot trust his family, they seem far away from him.
Therefore, the society, nation, and world will be extremely far away from him. It stands to reason that the concepts of religion, the Heavenly Kingdom, and so forth are even farther away still from that person's reality.
Many people become totally imprisoned by their inability to trust. They tell themselves, “I don't need the world, I don't need this country, and I don't need my parents. I can even do without a wife or husband.” They dismiss all thought of the ideals of religion, claiming that they don't need them either.
It is natural for an individual to want to feel valuable, but when he realizes that he is not trusted by anyone in his environment, not even his parents and certainly not his society, how can he really believe that he is a valuable person?
Thus, he can easily fall into the philosophy that human beings are no better than animals.
Such a person will deny whatever his parents believe in, simply because he mistrusts them. Religion was flourishing in this country until just a few decades ago, but many of today's young people are trying to deny the value of religion in their lives. Wanting to rebel against past generations, many young people follow their impulses of the moment; whatever they feel like doing, they do.
There is no basic standard or trustworthy model by which such people can measure themselves. Thus, they go after momentary stimulation more and more. Many people, feeling that they cannot trust the opposite sex, turn toward their own sex.
Desiring even more excitement, they start to use drugs, different drugs for different occasions, and so forth. All these things are natural outgrowths of their deep-rooted lack of trust.
If the father and mother of a family do not exhibit respect for each other, how can the child possibly learn respect? Although knowing inside that it is not quite right, many individuals avail themselves to different sexual partners almost every day.
Chastity disappears for them, and they become accustomed to such a lifestyle.
Although people do not talk about it freely, incest has become very common. Parents and even grandparents molest their children! It is estimated that up to 20% of the families in this country are experiencing this terrible thing!
The victims of such abuse lose their self-respect. Imagine a young girl who is the victim of this abuse. She would watch her father and mother going to church, and she would come to despise their hypocrisy. She would do anything to rebel against her parents, especially against their religion.
This is no exaggeration; it is a common reality in America today. If nothing happens to change this situation, it will continue to slide downward further and further. Such things can never revert automatically and start to improve.
This very country, which was founded upon the ideals of religion and, until very recently, was strongly religious, is still practicing the outer trappings of religion. Is there any way to regain the internal morality of this nation?
Why has this decline occurred?
We can blame the abuse of freedom for all the problems we have mentioned.
Those who espouse freedom above all other values do not want any restrictions upon themselves. Such freedom lovers are inherently non-traditional.
If the democratic world cherishes freedom so highly, how can there be any tradition passed on to succeeding generations? Certainly, it is natural for people to desire freedom, but when they put it above all else, they will never achieve it!
Democratic countries pursue freedom, but do they have any common tradition by which they can preserve democracy itself?
We can look back in history and see that when the political ideal of freedom was first espoused in the Middle Ages, it was linked with the guidance of God. But when people started to leave God out of their pursuit of freedom, freedom itself started to collapse.
Only as long as people sincerely tried to live according to God's will was a free society possible. By the same token, Catholicism became corrupted when the clergy started living only for their interests, forgetting the reality of God.
Freedom for all people has become a pursuit devoid of God. Therefore, it has lost its center. When people abandoned God as the proper center of freedom, they put themselves in that center.
They began to deny cherished values of the past, including family and country.
This is as dangerous as playing with fire when one is doused with gasoline. You can be burned up totally.
When this phenomenon is no longer limited to a few people but becomes a nationwide situation, nothing can be saved. If the rest of the world could see clearly what kind of situation America is actually in, they would be so shocked, especially if they were looking to this country as their hope. That is why the slogan, “Yankee go home,” started. People of other countries became disgusted by the way Americans behaved when they came to their countries.
Of course, there is no way for you to understand what I am saying because most of you have never even been outside this country. But since I have come from the outside, I am like a third party observing the situation from an objective viewpoint. Do you think that I am observing things correctly?
Although the Unification Church is supposed to be the hope for eradicating all these problems, there is still a remnant of that distrust lingering among us. Unification Church members from this society have acquired the automatic habit of distrusting their superiors because of their early experiences.
Thus, even though you join the church, you maintain that habit of rebelliousness and destructiveness. Many people have left without a word of goodbye to anyone, just packing up and going off the way they did before, wandering from place to place. That happens to represent the lowest possible way of behaving, according to Oriental customs.
When a person in the Orient leaves a place without saying goodbye, he is lowering himself into the animal kingdom. But Americans have been taught these ways and do not know any better.
Hearing these words, how do you Americans feel?
You feel bad. Once you feel bad, immediately you must try to do whatever is necessary to feel good. In other words, if you have been going in a direction that was wrong or bad, you have to turn around 180 degrees and adjust your course toward the right and good. But in turning, would you want to just turn part of the way, say 90 degrees? No, you should want to turn around completely.
Do you think that can be easy?
You must clearly understand how difficult such a thing is before you can practically seek to achieve it. We could say that the difficulty is comparable to a woman becoming a man, or vice versa. How totally difficult it is to change oneself from bad to good!
Even though you know how virtually impossible it is to change yourself, if you hear someone telling you, “This is the way for you to change,” your eyes would pop out, and you would want to follow them.
What Moonies are to the world, Reverend Moon is to the Moonies. When I speak to you, you become awakened and excited by the ideas. However, when someone who is not in our movement hears what I am saying, they think I must be crazy and seeing ghosts at night, or something. They think we are not just a little wrong but fundamentally wrong in every way.
I can understand that the average American would not be able to understand me or what I am saying. Considering the way America is today, I know that if an ordinary American tried to do the things that I do, all the people around him would think him completely insane.
The Federal Government, which has been in power for two hundred years, may tell me, “Reverend Moon, we have technology, universities, and power of every sort, and we have tried everything possible to bring a better society, so why should we listen to you? What could you possibly have to offer us? You don't even speak English!”
Furthermore, Americans would say, “Even though you criticize America so much, most of the rest of the people of the world admire us and follow our fashions! Do you still insist upon changing America?” They look at Korea, which is always begging for money from America, and they know that is where I came from. Therefore, they cannot understand who or what Reverend Moon is.
Did Reverend Moon know about these problems before he began his task?
Yes, I certainly knew them. One American might ask me, “How do you propose to accomplish your task, Father?” and I might not give him an answer. That is not because I do not know the answer, but it is because that person would not be able to understand the answer.
Someone who has never trusted anyone else will want to trust himself, but he cannot. Such a person will try to assert himself and his freedom, yet he knows he cannot truly trust himself. Centered totally upon himself, he tries to insist upon his total freedom. That is a dangerous situation!
We can see that the sooner this individual gives up that kind of freedom, the better off he will be. But how can that freedom be taken away from him and replaced with proper tradition and God's righteousness?
How difficult it is to replace that kind of freedom, that absence of all inhibition!
Our way of going about changing America has been literally that of confronting each one one-on-one. Until we can penetrate people's false armor, they cannot realize their true selves.
We have been operating this way on an individual basis, while on the cultural or societal level, I have been leading a similar kind of confrontation. The first thing I did after arriving in America was to rearrange the culture that the missionaries before me had built in the Unification Church.
The members of the West Coast church were actually denied entrance to the church on the East Coast. Even the missionaries could not lose their attitude of “my church.” They had the same problem of individualistic, self-centered freedom.
That offended me very much at the time, but even today, we still have the same problem. We can see it when people say, “This is the American way of the Unification Church,” or “This is the way the Japanese members do it.” Some Western people say, “We don't like the Oriental Unification system.
We want an Americanized Unification Church,' But I say such thinking is absolutely wrong. Occasionally, I seem merciless in my attitude, but it is like major surgery—whatever must be cut off simply must be cut off. As we mentioned previously, for a person to really change is as difficult as a man becoming a woman.
Some Americans say, “Yes, I want to change; I want to change!” But then they add, “But I will only change 50 degrees. That is my limit.”
Every Sunday morning, you come here, some of you grumbling inside and unsettled in your minds, yet you come here to listen to me. Then I speak and show you the direction so clearly that even the most stubborn among you can understand the value of what I am saying.
Then everyone raises their hand at the end and pledges themselves, “Yes, Father, I will go that direction, and I will change.” Before you came to that point, you were fighting against change, but finally you gave up your opinions and were willing to change.
However, how many degrees have you changed?
When you say, “Yes, I will go in your direction,” you then have to turn around 180 degrees. But since it is as difficult as a man becoming a woman, even though you pledged yourself to change 180 degrees, you have only changed a tiny little. This is a continual process.
Remember your own pledges and how many times you have said, “Father, I will change 180 degrees,” and then ask yourself how much you have actually changed.
The truth is that you have not turned very far at all. It is as if you were trying to hold on to something great, but it is not so great in reality! Are you that way? Yes, you are; I know you well.
You seem to understand clearly sometimes, beyond any doubt, and I think, “Yes, now they will change.” But the next time you come, I can see that you haven't changed very much at all, and I have to speak all over again about the same things.
It is difficult to explain the same points over and over from different angles. But you begin to see, and then you pledge again. But once you change, you must turn 180 degrees; otherwise, it is not really a change.
Reverend Moon has been working very hard, enduring all kinds of persecution from the Western world, and you feel very sympathetic and sorry to see me going through this. But stop to think, Reverend Moon is in such a pitiful position because the members of the Unification Church themselves are not following him, let alone the people in the secular world.
Have you ever thought that my difficult situation is because of your own poor response?
Certainly, I, too, know that my internal situation is very miserable.
Even though I know how impossible it seems to get you members to listen and follow my direction, I continue. Occasionally, you even seem to ignore what I am saying! So there are times when I feel like just giving up on all of you and letting this country drift the way it wants; I often feel that kind of anger.
I know that you won't change or turn from your position until you can understand the situation, so I explain everything to you. But you can change only to the extent of your changed understanding, not to the extent of my full explanation.
Occasionally, I might provide you with extra information to give you an extra boost of stimulation, but that boost puts you into a spin and turns you around in the wrong direction!
You must be able to think about where you really are. There is a great distance between the ideal home and where you are today. The usual concept of “home sweet home” is very different from the ideal home. The sweet home is just horizontally devoted to itself and all the members of the family, while the ideal home is one in which both the vertical and horizontal relationships are important.
Since there is such widespread incest in this society, undoubtedly, there are some of you who experienced that. This phenomenon alone shows us that the last days are here.
Now that I have spoken to you for one hour, you probably understand one point at least: that you are at a low point, which you must change, but it is very difficult to do. Maybe this accomplishment is enough for this morning.
We must show the correct way of life to the rest of America, and then we must show the rest of the world that they can have hope because of Moonies.
Let me ask you a question, and each individual must consult their heart: How much have you changed your direction? Have you turned around 15 degrees, or 50, or 90, or 180?
Knowing that you must change, the second point you must understand is how difficult it is.
If you think it is easy, you might as well forget about changing. If you think back to the toughest examination you ever had in school, you should realize that changing is more difficult than even that.
Another comparison is that of a war between countries. Imagine that you were a soldier doing hand-to-hand combat in a fierce fight. This is the same kind of battle you should consider yourself engaged in when you are trying to change yourself. In fact, the battle with yourself is more difficult and fierce.
The internal battle is more difficult than any physical war. In that case, how can you say, “We Americans have freedom and democracy; with these invincible qualities, we will win the battle”?
The reason Americanism will never succeed in winning this battle is that the basic attitude here is humanism and pragmatism. Pragmatism is even lower than humanism because it is only interested in bringing some kind of profit to a situation. That profit is more often centered upon material than spiritual values. Neither humanism nor pragmatism will be able to help in the individual's internal battle.
I know that if I expected secular Americans to understand these things, I would be too naive. This culture is saturated with humanism and pragmatism, and it has known virtually no other way of thinking. Naturally, I will be denounced by this culture. But what we are proposing is Godism, God's way.
Before you can write something on a dirty blackboard, you must first erase what is already written there. First, materialism, humanism, and pragmatism must be erased in America, and then we can introduce Godism. This is the only way we can go to save America, especially the white people and the white culture.
We are going through many things here and discovering how feasible it is to do this. I haven't yet seen anyone who can be the prototype for restoration here.
When I asked you who had changed 180 degrees, no one raised their hand, so our work is continuing.
What is the unmistakable sign that someone has changed 180 degrees?
If I see someone who is working day and night, putting his life on the line for God's sake, I know he has changed. What I am saying here is not just Reverend Moon's teaching.
I am exactly repeating what Jesus said 2000 years ago:
“Those who are willing to lose their lives for my sake will gain them; those who want to gain their lives will lose them.”
If Reverend Moon is going the same direction as Jesus, then I can repeat the words of Jesus even one hundred times, and there can be nothing wrong with that.
Do you suppose that Jesus would say, “Hey, Reverend Moon, you can't use my words without permission!” Would he claim a copyright? No, Jesus would be only too happy to hear me using his words.
Do you think my attitude has been, “I will not put my life at risk for this dispensation,” or have I been putting my life on the line from the very beginning?
How about you? Are you willing to put your life on the line in doing your mission?
Are you putting your very life into what you are doing?
Here is a secret: This way of life is very difficult, but once you have committed your life, there is nothing to it.
Suppose there was a Unification Church woman who had no time to comb her hair or put on her makeup, so her hair always looked messy. Suppose that she grew old and never got blessed; she had nothing except her gray hair.
If she felt most fortunate for being in the Unification Church and doing this work, God would really praise her. She would be in a most wonderful situation.
How do American women feel about that? What about you men?
You are following me in this impossible task, but I have already succeeded. I have succeeded in the religious realm but also in the realm of economics, technology, media, and culture. Do you really know that I have won these things, or do you just recognize it with your mind?
I am a smart person, so I could condense ten hours' worth of speaking into one hour if I chose to. You might say, “Father, your sermon jumps from one topic to another, and your grammar is sometimes difficult to follow.” This is true.
Even in Korean, my sentences are sometimes very long, but they are absolutely logical and grammatically correct. The reason I use such long sentences is that the thought I am expressing requires many phrases and clauses. They have to be pulled together to convey the meaning. But my talks are always consistent in the overall view.
Occasionally, I will speak for such a long time that I could have made a journey by jet all the way from Korea to America, gone to a restaurant, had a nice meal, and then returned to Korea!
Even if I speak for 17 hours, it is like a jet traveling by jet; my topic is always aiming toward a goal, and it always gets there and lands safely. I have never done it, but I could speak for 24 hours straight. Likewise, I could give 24 different 1-hour sermons in one day! If that was needed, I could do it.
As you see, I haven't really spoken to you today about our topic, “Our Ideal Home.” Unless you are prepared to receive it, there is no use speaking about it.
First, you will not appreciate the value of the words, and second, you will just forget them because you took them for granted. Perhaps I will speak again next week or next month about this topic. Meanwhile, you can think more deeply about it.
What I have told you today has already filled you up. To turn around 180 degrees in the shortest possible time, you must simply bet your neck.
If you are already sticking your neck out, you don't need any more sermons. It is only when you put your life on the line—when you Bet Your neck—that you can achieve your ideal home.
Perhaps you say to me, “I have been working in this or that office for five years, and you can't change me unless I give you my permission.” That is not a good response because you are not betting your neck.
Let me ask you, do you want to achieve your ideal home?
Certainly, that is a desire of everyone. Please think deeply about that idea and then conclude on your own that you must risk your life to achieve that goal
That would be fine.
Without this attitude, Bet Your Neck saving America, or any individual, is just rhetoric. Betting your neck is not just a one-year affair; all throughout our lives, we have to continue this attitude.
If you live that way, you won't even have to look for me in the spirit world. We will all come together naturally in Heaven if we share that attitude.
Suppose your husband was given a new assignment without your ever being consulted.
Would your wives complain?
Actually, you should have the attitude that if God needed it, you would even give up your spouse and take another one. Betting your life and changing 180 degrees involves such a total willingness. You should be willing to let your spouse be sent behind the Iron Curtain for missionary work.
We have a missionary in Zaire who has been very successful. However, when I first saw him, I just shook my head and thought, “That person is too difficult to deal with. How can he ever make it?”
Then he went to Africa and established a successful mission. He didn't have to tell me all the details because I understood that he had truly put his life on the line for Africa. For that reason, all the future descendants in Zaire will bow down to him.
In the same way, I bet my life for the sake of America and the world. Those who didn't do that will want to bow down to the person who did. Saints are those who laid their lives on the line for the sake of God.
Occasionally, I have been so badly seasick on the boat that I thought my intestines would come up, but I said, “No matter. I will not return to land.”
These days, I am taking the children of blessed couples out to sea to train them. They are working so very hard. I watch their faces and can see that they become very weary. But they, too, are betting their necks. They are living up to our tradition.
That attitude is what matters.
If everyone in our movement had that attitude, we wouldn't even need as many people as we have! Only a handful of people are more than enough to accomplish our historical goal. Those of you who can pledge yourselves now to be the ones who can bet your neck for the cause, please raise your hands! God bless you.
What aspect of an individual is the most precious?
That part of the individual should be connected with the most precious aspect of the family. The family's most precious aspects should also be connected with the clan. This is true for the nation, world, cosmos, and all the way up to God.
Every cell in our bodies has a relationship with every other cell. The cells on the tip of the finger are related to the veins and to the heart. For that reason, we can say that our bodies are living in their ideal state.
Only when our bodies are in this ideal state can we enjoy true physical freedom.
Likewise, we must become ideal people to lead an ideal life. We must have nothing restricting us.
When your whole body is living in an ideal state, you can say that your eyes are ideal. 'Mat is because they can see and enjoy everything they look at, with no restrictions. Your ears, limbs, and so forth are all ideal and free as well.
What is the purpose of the ideal self?
That is an important question. The purpose of an ideal, free self is none other than love. Love is not something vague. When love is at the center of our lives, our eyes and everything else, our ears, nose, mouth, etc., are united and directing our attention to love.
As we know, man has not only five senses but ten senses because he has a spiritual body in addition to his physical one. If the attention of the physical body can be directed toward love, certainly the same will hold for the senses of the spiritual body. Our eyes or our ears are not the center of our body. It is none other than love itself that is the center of our whole being.
It makes sense to you that love is the central purpose of life. But there are many people who think that money is the center of life. They believe that enough money will solve all their problems.
Likewise, some people think that with enough worldly authority, they can have everything they need. Or they think that with enough understanding and knowledge, they will have success.
Can anyone walk into a library and say, “Here is the source of my love”? That is a ridiculous idea, isn't it?
Likewise, it is only a madman who would think, “If I could gain the position of president, my life would automatically be happy.” There is no head of state anywhere who would say that he is the happiest person in the world because of his position and that he has no need for love.
Likewise, if someone owned a huge gold mine, he wouldn't look at it and say, “Oh, my love!” If he actually spoke to his gold mine in that way, everyone would know that he was crazy.
Why, then, do so many so-called normal people pursue money, power, and knowledge?
It is because they do not understand what comes first and what comes second. It is only after we have become ideal and free people that we should be seeking after those accessories to our primary goal, which is love.
We can say that most people are “accessory people,” that is, they pursue the accessories of life first. However, there is no single accessory that is sufficient; many things are needed in each different situation.
Therefore, people yearn for more and more of life's accessories and then get dragged down in that pursuit. This is upside down from the original way of life.
What should actually be the primary desire that moves people in their lives? It is love. Do you feel that you seriously desire that goal? When you are young and idealistic, you desire it, but what about when you get old?
Let us go back to the question, “Why was I born?”
Many people answer, “I was born for the sake of freedom, more than love or law.”
However, if we put freedom in the primary position of our lives, we are actually saying, “Anything goes.” The eyes can be situated on the soles of the feet or on the fingertips, and that has to be all right.
When you look at it this way, it is obviously insane; yet most American young people are actually thinking this way.
If someone you love has the entirely wrong way of thinking, wouldn't you be willing to shatter that to pieces and set them straight?
Hopefully, America will soon discover that it needs such a person as Reverend Moon, because that is what he is doing. When we seriously consider the situation, we can see that America absolutely needs the kind of person who will straighten out its wrong ways.
I have been saying to America that this country will perish unless it changes. Every level of America, including the top government, must repent and change, but no one wants to listen.
When will they change their attitude?
How about you? Even you Moonies, who were educated by me directly, are in the same situation as America. Should you listen to me, or should I listen to you?
You tell me, “I will listen to you, Father, but you have to respect my perspective first. I will only listen to you if you show you value me.” Is this the way you are holding back, or have you realized that your situation is so serious that you want to forget about your “self'? Do you listen to me with all your soul and your senses because this is so important?
Isn't it true that you are always listening to me with part of your mind, comparing what I say to the way you were educated in the past? Don't you think, “This is different from what I already learned”?
If something doesn't suit you, you immediately think, “Father is Oriental, and we are Western, therefore he doesn't understand us, and that is why he is doing that.”
You can clearly see the differences between my hair color, eyes, etc., and you automatically consider me to be an Oriental.
When you travel with me and you get hungry, you hope for a big meal of a hamburger. But then I take you to a Korean restaurant, and you are expected to eat kimchee, which is so strange and garlicky!
Finally, it is time to sleep, and you are expecting a bed, but I just lie down on my back on a mat on the floor. It is not so comfortable for you to sleep like that, is it?
What is the direction in which we should all be going?
Should we go to the east or to the west, or to where?
You know that mankind must change its direction; that means we must turn around. If you are moving around the world in a certain direction, eventually you will automatically turn around and begin in a different direction.
For example, if you are heading due south, you will have to turn north eventually.
Many people move in a certain direction throughout their lives, and eventually they encounter all kinds of problems. At some point, perhaps a person will even think of killing himself to put an end to his problems. But could that be a solution? No, it couldn't. When such a situation arises in a person's life, one thing is certainly lacking, and that is success.
The only way for a person going east to meet with someone going west is to turn toward the north or the south. Those are the only two possibilities.
Once you turn in another direction, you must encounter differences, digest them, and keep on going. How far around the globe would you like to go, halfway or all the way back to where you started?
Between man and woman, the ideal is for a man to go to the woman's position and then take her back into his position and vice versa. But many American women just want to lead men. There is no other country with women like those in America. Some women don't think men are even as precious as one of their accessories.
Men and women each have their realm or domain. They need to learn from each other about those realms. A woman will want to harmonize with the man's world and learn whatever she can.
Likewise, a man will try to fit in and harmonize with the woman's world. When a man finds himself in the woman's world, he must learn how to become smaller and more humble. The woman learns from the man's world how to be bolder, larger, and taller.
Why is it that women are normally smaller than men?
Why didn't God create them of equal height? I believe this is the “textbook” of God, a way in which men could learn how to become smaller and women how to become larger. Both of them can go from small to Imp and then back again, and in this way, they fulfill the universal law of motion.
If man were not created taller and larger, this kind of motion would never be possible. The bigger man can embrace the smaller woman and carry her to the farthest point of his domain, and then they can go back together into the woman's domain. It is like two people dancing; they turn all around the floor and move all around the room. That is a microcosm of the law of motion; everything moves like that.
People have different ways of breathing—some people inhale slowly and exhale slowly, while others inhale slowly but exhale in a short burst. You can observe for yourself that this is true. People breathe according to their personality and character. Certainly, breathing is significant—our lives depend upon it.
Men have more physical power than women, so when a woman needs power, she will immediately seek a man. When a powerful man starts to feel lonely, he will seek a woman. We have spent an hour so far discussing these basic points, but it is necessary for our lives.
Homosexuals are not thinking along these lines. They are not even consistent with the universal law of motion, so they cannot be protected and will eventually perish.
They can exist for one hundred years at the most, but then there will be no trace of them. However, those people who live in accordance with the universal law of motion will live eternally.
As a person becomes bigger and bigger, he must always maintain his connection with the center. If he does not, he will lose sight of his direction and will eventually perish.
When a person acquires money, authority, and fame, he normally wants to return to the central point of his life, his home, and show off what he has. No one wants to acquire many things and then go off to some foreign country and live there alone.
Perhaps a person might think, “I hate my native country,” and will set off to travel around the world. No matter where he goes, however, every place is basically the same, and he will not feel at home anywhere. That would be a terrible feeling, and he would eventually want to return to his native land.
Just like a wheel, an individual makes a circular motion in their life. Would you prefer a distorted circle or a perfectly smooth round one?
Perhaps the most perfect circular motion is that of a top, which looks like it is not even moving at first, but when you look closely, you can see that it is spinning very rapidly.
Suppose an automobile had wheels that were misshapen and not round. It would move in a very rough and bumpy way.
If the wheel is not perfectly balanced, you will bounce around when you ride in the car. But if the wheels are perfectly round, you can't see that they are moving, even if they are turning at a very fast pace.
For the wheel to turn around so perfectly, it must have a perfect center. In that way, the car will move smoothly, and when you are inside it, you can hardly feel that you are moving.
You might wish your life and your family's life could enjoy such a perfect circular motion. For the wheel to go around perfectly, every part of it must be perfectly balanced. Men are mostly plus, but they also have an element of minus; likewise, women have an element of plus in them.
There is a magnetic field around the Earth that involves not only the atmosphere but also the composition of the Earth itself. Because of the action of positive and negative, pushing and pulling, the Earth can maintain a round shape.
Otherwise, it would have an oblong shape. By the same token, a power exists between men and women that causes them to maintain the roundness of their relationship.
No matter what the woman does, she is always basically in the minus position, her initial and primary position. Women, as well as men, have personality and dignity of character. If a man ignores women or fails to respect them, he will perish.
No law provides for plus and to work together harmoniously, so the universe will push out anyone who does not work within the plus/minus relationship. They cannot be protected by the universe.
People may tend to be “gay,” but universal law requires that men and women must absolutely pursue each other. This is not Reverend Moon's law; it is the universal and absolute law.
The family is the place where man and woman can come together from their opposite poles and begin their legitimate motion under universal law.
Through their marriage, they make a public promise to the universe that they will live together, responding to one another in accordance with the law of motion of the universe. Before that time, they were not a part of the universal law on the fullest scale.
If someone refuses to marry while on earth, he will be in a miserable situation in the spirit world because he will have to wander, with no objective and no happiness. He is not in conformity with the universe. That is how important marriage is.
Animals obey the law of the universe in their own way. They may only come together once a year, but when they do, it is for the purpose of reproducing their species. Those humans who do not live according to universal law are lower than the animals, and they are therefore worthy of being despised by the rest of the universe. Such a person ought to bow down to the animals. This is not “our” perspective; it is the universal perspective and law.
The ideal family is based upon this understanding of law. We can see that America needs such an ideal family. The hardest thing for men and women to control is their desire for love.
Horses, with much larger sexual organs, can still wait for the right time to express their instincts. But many men cannot control their needs and do not conform to any law or discipline. Some women are in the same situation. In this respect, instead of being the highest species of animal, man is the lowest.
Among the deer, the strongest buck fights the others and wins the right to all the females. This is according to the law of nature. Each species of the animal kingdom has a primary characteristic. Horses are runners, for example.
What is the most important characteristic of mankind?
It is love. Love is the highest level of intelligence, and because of that quality, man is considered the highest being.
Love must conform rigidly to the highest law. When a human being fails to do that, he immediately plummets to the lowest level, lower than the horse or dog. On the other hand, when an ideal man understands his position and abides by the law of love, he can create an ideal family, nation, and world and go all the way to God.
Our goal is to reach such a high level, and to achieve this, we must know where we are. We must know why we are there, how we can get out of there, and how we can get to our originally intended point.
Once we know these things, we can have the strength to fight very hard to get to where we are going.
Each man and woman needs to become a person the universe will applaud and say, “He is a typical good man and she is a typical good woman.”
Whenever a family sincerely strives to live in obedience to the law of the universe, all the other families of the world will respect them and welcome them. The spirit world will appreciate them among all the families of the world, and God will truly love them.
When a family conforms to the law of the universe, everything around them will benefit. Therefore, everything in the universe will support them and help them to prosper. A family that puts true love at its center will be supported and protected by all the universe. Such a family will be the hope of the universe.
Some of you Western men and women may say, “Oh, Father, you are so square! How can you expect me to love only one person in the whole universe when there are so many people?” But can you deny universal law?
A person who does that would be an element aiming to destroy everything heavenly—the family, the nation, the world. Therefore, no one would welcome him, and he would end up in the worst imaginable hell.
Do you women feel that you seriously need a man?
You must shout out desperately with a giant, “Yes,” not in just a meek little manner. Do you then insist, “Father, I want a man who is pleasing to my eyes and my ears”?
Everybody has different tastes and requirements, but if you really get outside yourself, you will say that any man will do.
On what grounds can you claim your own “self's” desires? You may tell God, “You created me as the highest being,” but you have never truly become the highest being. What you were created to be is quite different from what you truly are.
Can you claim you are the highest being if you have a lot of wealth, authority, or learning? No, you can only claim that position if you have fulfilled yourself in true love.
When you have true love, you can say, “Follow me,” and the whole universe will obey. That is your dignity, your authority, and your privilege. That is the way God looks at things. God doesn't mind if you are blind or if you are the ugliest man or woman; if you have the true standard of love, God will love you.
The most precious thing to hope for is to love and be loved by one man or woman for hundreds and thousands of years and on into eternity. For that, your love must become unchangeable.
Or do you want to be a “romantic poet” who has all different partners and kinds of love experiences?
That would be a poet of hell. Your love must become unchangeable, and in that way, you will create Heaven, regardless of what difficulties you must endure. You must be a champion for the cause of unchangeable love.
You must have this pure, unchangeable love to claim yourself before God. If you do not have this, you have nothing. Therefore, you must cleanse yourselves completely. It is the most serious problem for an individual to cleanse himself and remove the memories of impure love from his mind.
You must come to the point where you cannot even imagine anyone but your spouse touching your most intimate parts. The thought of such a thing should be absolutely intolerable.
Many Americans may wish Reverend Moon would not say such things because they are fearful of this truth. Nevertheless, this is the absolute standard by which all the Moonies must live.
Why do we love and cherish God so much?
Is it simply because He created us?
No, it is because God created us as His object, like His spouse. He lost us, but He has not given up on us for all the thousands of years of history. That is why we come to Him in tears now, and we follow Him.
God's dignity is eternal; it is centered forever upon His love of mankind, His object, His spouse.
Therefore, God is the most precious being for mankind, and that is why we love and worship Him. It is not just because He is the Almighty God. You must feel this deeply in your mind and your body.
Where can we find a place in which the ideal positions of both man and God are established?
It is not in the White House or the State Department; it is only within the Unification movement. You are sitting in such a precious place. You must be grave about this.
Once you become absolutely confident and established in this position and you feel, “For millions of years, I am securely set in this direction,” you will truly start to enjoy freedom.
The point of total freedom is the absolutely central point where you can turn for 360 degrees and go anywhere. God says in the Bible that He is the alpha and omega; that means His love is at the beginning and the end. It is everywhere.
Whether people are principled or not, everyone desires to see a world of peace and unity. There are many ways in which people try to achieve such a world by spending money on cultural projects or building up defense power and so forth, but nothing will work except perfect love. No matter what you try to do, there is no other way to achieve a world of unity.
There are many metals, such as copper, tin, and iron, and every one of them conducts electricity. Likewise, any man and any woman are also conductors of the electricity of love.
However, only one metal is the true standard: 100% pure gold. When two people who are wives of pure gold come together, and the electricity of love flows through them, they are welded together forever. No one can separate them, not even God.
The universe will protect them with all kinds of layers in the same way that we wrap high-voltage electrical wires with many layers so that nothing can invade.
It doesn't matter what such a couple may look like, even if they are both hideous. Suppose you have a small gold ring and a large gold nugget.
Although the ring may be beautiful, is the gold more beautiful than that in the nugget? No, not at all; in fact, the nugget is preferable because it has more gold!
There are many families in the world, grandfathers and grandmothers with dignity, parents with plenty of money, and so forth. But the children know their families. They often sense, for instance, if their parents are unfaithful to each other.
Everyone in the world comes from families of sinfulness of one sort or another. Therefore, a pure-hearted, idealistic person will want to reject that kind of corruption in his family.
You can evaluate everything now from the viewpoint of principle; you can model yourself after a truly exemplary family. You can judge your family according to this viewpoint: five points for someone, ten points for another, maybe even minus a thousand points for someone else.
If your family has someone who committed incest, for instance, that would be a person who would earn minus points.
Grade yourself as well. Even if you haven't committed any grievous sins, how would you grade your thoughts? You know yourself the best. Raise your hand if you would give yourself a mark of 50% on your daily thinking.
If you desperately want to earn a 100% mark, raise your hand.
Everyone wants that.
If you want to achieve this, can you just flirt with danger by relating freely with members of the opposite sex?
Or can you take a vacation from your mission and go home for a while?
Would your spiritual counselor ever advise you to go home and just take it easy? There is always the danger of meeting your former boyfriend or girlfriend and reverting to your old secular ways.
You are basically gold, but there is much impurity mixed in with your gold. You need someone to put you into a refinery, where you can have all your impure metals burned away.
When solid metal melts into liquid, it thinks it is dying. But that mass is being reduced to its purest form.
Which is the larger part of yourself, purity or impurity?
Although you may have more impurity than purity, your pure part is subject to the impure. Therefore, you don't have to worry too much about yourself if that small pure part is your subject. We can see why, logically, we have to deny so much of ourselves. Perhaps we must overcome 98% of ourselves, and only 2% can be valued.
If you can only cherish 2% of yourself, how miserable you must be! Have you ever experienced denying yourself like that? Is the life of a Moonie basically difficult or happy?
What about Reverend Moon, who is at the center of the Moonies' life? Am I miserable or happy? I may be miserable, but I have lots of hope!
Thus, persecution is not such a bad thing for us. You should say to yourself, “If the world persecutes me, I deserve it because I am so far from the universal standard. The way I am, the universe ought to persecute me.”
Persecution will stop when it stops. The fastest way to become pure gold is to stay in the furnace until all the impurity burns away. Since the world has come against me, I have been in the smelting furnace on a world scale for my entire life.
Once the American public realizes that they are putting us into the refinery of persecution, and 100% of what they put in is coming out again as pure gold from start to finish, then they will have to bow down to such a fact.
How do the American people feel about that?
Since you must deny 98% of yourself, how much perseverance do you need? You must continually endure self-denial. Unification Church members must have plenty of patience; short-tempered people cannot endure.
Just like long-distance runners, you have to move forward every day with the determination to endure for the rest of your life. Perhaps the world will look at you and say you are giving 100%, but God has a different standard. God may be wishing to give you the highest marks, but He cannot do so easily.
Perhaps you might gain a 100% rating from God, but you feel, “According to my desire, that is only 80%.”
How does such a thing sound to you?
I want to live according to such an attitude, and I want all of you to live that way, too. I want all of you to be harsh with yourselves, never generous.
Let God be generous with you. The best way to be successful is to try to go beyond God Himself in your standard of giving and self-sacrifice.
What is 100% pure gold? It is gold without any trace of foreign elements. The people who are dedicated for eternity to creating an ideal family with their spouses will have the possibility of becoming 100% pure gold.
Every one of you will become such husbands and wives—how wonderful that is!
How wonderful you are! Once you become pure gold, do you still need God? You will not “need” God because He will already be there, constantly with you; you and He will be one.
Reverend Moon is not your original father; he is an unusual father. You love me even though I am not an ordinary person. It's no secret that I am not tremendously knowledgeable; I did not go to Harvard, but I have love for you.
You are not necessarily happy if you go to a prestigious school, but when you are with the Father who loves you, you are happy. When you are here listening to me, you feel drawn to me in your heart.
What is it that made this Japanese sister come all the way across the ocean, giving up her native land?
She simply wanted to come and be close to her Father. The Japanese brothers and sisters endure so much pain and difficulty here in America, yet they come here anyway out of love. We can call that truly great love.
People in the secular world cannot understand these things. Therefore, they accuse me of doing evil things, like “stealing” their children from them and controlling their minds.
Moonies take it for granted that Black people marry white people, but what about the rest of the world?
Is there any other place where Black and white people are happy to be with each other, cherishing each other for eternity?
The things the Unification Church is doing, as a matter of fact, are actually historical events. The world has never seen such miracles.
When the sun rises, all the plants turn toward it. Likewise, when someone true emerges, people start to turn in that direction. Mankind has never seen such a phenomenon, never heard of anyone with such a high ideal. This is the everyday reality of the Unification Church; we think nothing of it.
True love has the strongest power over everything. It can possess everything; it can do everything and accomplish every miracle. God Himself becomes yours when you have true love.
Today, you are living with the entire universe, but it is really only a concept to you. When you have true love, however, you will feel yourself living and breathing with the universe moment by moment, just like God. You will be living with God Himself, moment by moment. It is not a concept or belief; it is your life.
True love goes anywhere and does all things. How should a man feel when he looks at a beautiful woman? When I look at a beautiful young woman, my first thought is, “I have such a beautiful daughter.”
If she is older, then I look at her as a sister. If I touched her, she would feel that her father or her brother was touching her. She would not feel anything impure or wrong.
Faster and more sensitive than a computer, your mind can judge the intent of another person toward you.
If the leader of the Unification Church was a greedy, self-serving tyrant, how could this worldwide organization continue to work? It is only with true love that I could guide such a massive undertaking. Because of true love, no one else has power over me.
We have missionaries who travel to the remotest parts of the world, risking their lives. They do these things because of the true love they have found. Each of you must become 100% pure gold.
How much perseverance you must exercise! Your nose, your eyes, ears and every part of you must persevere and go this road despite all your desires. When I see you women with fine manicures or wearing eye shadow, I wonder if you attained purity in those eyes before you put that makeup on them. I know that the eyes with true love are much more beautiful than the eyes without true love, even though they may have lots of eye shadow on them.
I have never worn any rings on my fingers; it just wasn't necessary. I wear a watch out of necessity. I love my own bare hands because I know what they have done for the sake of God and mankind, even though they may be rough and sunburned.
Certainly, I never envy the well-manicured hands of other people or their fancy rings.
Perhaps you might think when you are out fundraising, “Here I am on this hot day, and Father is on his yacht somewhere.”
However, when I go out to sea, I do not do it as a pleasant diversion for one day or one week. I go out for many weeks, every day, rain or shine. I created Ocean Church for the sake of mankind; I had to establish the tradition for the future. There is no one else who can do it.
I have spoken extensively about Ocean Church, and some of you American members may think, “I would rather not hear anymore about Ocean Church.”
But who can take responsibility for the ocean in America?
No matter how difficult, I will take that responsibility; that is my determination. No matter how much you hate to go to the ocean, I will continue to do it for the sake of this country.
After making that kind of foundation, I know American young people will get the message. You might say, “I like what Father says, but I don't like the things he does!” I can swan snag you, those who like what I do and those who don't like what I do.
How about you, American young men?
Do you like Ocean Church?
Are you faithful only with your mouth?
During the tuna season this summer, we will spend half a million dollars, as we have lost money on the tuna fishing, but we must do it anyway.
Nobody else is doing it. The tuna season is only during the summer, so the rest of the year is unproductive. I have a plan to supplement tuna fishing with other fish, flukes, flounders, bluefish, etc., according to their seasons.
We must establish the standard for successful businesses and use all the different fish throughout the year.
Once you get out on the ocean, you come to love it. But until you do, the ocean is a stranger.
Do you think I was born an expert on tuna fishing?
No, I had to learn it from scratch. I kept on working day after day and established the tradition.
Now I am known as an expert among the other tuna fishermen. I developed the plan, putting in seven or eight seasons faithfully, until I learned how to catch tuna. Such a thing cannot be accomplished as a hobby or by someone who just enjoys the ocean.
I spoke yesterday at the seventh graduation of the Seminary. Afterward, with all the parents and professors around, I changed into my fishing clothes and went out to the boat again. The waves were rough in the Hudson, but I went out anyway.
Those people might have thought me eccentric, but they don't understand what our goal is. Even though my feet swell up from standing all day, I reprimand them and command them to continue working. I certainly don't do this because it is enjoyable. I am grave about this work.
People have accused Reverend Moon of living an easy life, having a yacht, many cars, a mansion, and so forth. But I know very well that these so-called luxuries, such as fishing, are for no other purpose than making America a healthier place and bringing life to places like Africa. Therefore, my conscience is not hurting me.
As a religious leader, I certainly do not enjoy killing tuna. When they are bleeding and staining the water all around, I cannot enjoy such a sight. I am in deep prayer, apologizing to those tuna and begging them to understand. I tell them, “You must give yourselves for the sake of the people of America because they are much more important to God and the universe than you. I need you as a sacrifice to offer for all mankind; I beg you to give yourselves.”
Since God and the universe know that, they are helping us, and our ocean business is prospering. You must clearly understand this.
For the sake of mankind, it is righteous to go out to the ocean. From this perspective, who is the noble, righteous American who wants to follow my tradition?
I have been looking for those Americans for over ten years.
Probably, I must bring people from Japan to set the standard here, and then Americans can inherit it. If the Japanese do not succeed, I will use the Korean people.
If they fail, I will send my sons and daughters to make the right tradition.
That is why I have been taking all the blessed children out on the boats this summer. This is the first time I have done such a thing, but we must accomplish our objective on the ocean.
America will lose its chance to take advantage of the resources of the ocean because it is not taking any initiative in that direction. Many other nations are taking the ocean away from them. I have followed the Divine Principle in setting the Ocean Church tradition.
I waited and tried to give every chance to Americans, encouraging you to participate in ocean fishing.
If you still do not respond, what else can I do?
The one who loves the ocean the most will become its master. I am trying to love the ocean the most.
You should not dismiss this thinking of mine. It is critical. All the other shipbuilding companies in the south have gone bankrupt except the Master Marine Company.
Even though we were losing money for a while, too, we did not stop our business. The Unification Church gave up its money and manpower to set the standard for the United States' shipbuilding industry. The government didn't do it; we did it.
The businesses of our church are based on love. If you really put your heart into a business, it cannot fail because God and the universe will support you. You must follow the direction I am giving you. Are you willing to do that?
Think of yourself as pure gold. Last Sunday, I urged you to “bet your neck” and put your life on the line. This Sunday, I am teaching you that you must become pure gold. There must be a continuation of this theme, but today I think that you have received enough.
If you want to become pure gold, you have to go to the furnace and be refined.
There is no other way to do it. All of you will have to go to that refinery. Be persecuted and overcome it.
If I told you just a small portion of the persecution that has come to me, every one of you would weep. I know that I would cry if I told those stories. If I am sad, I know God is sad too; therefore, I try never to be sad.
Do you think the Father and Son, with their hearts saturated with grief, meet with many words?
No, they meet in silence, carrying all of their history inside of them.
You, too, should have a great history inside of you. I have bitten my tongue until it bled to force myself to tolerate the persecution that has come to me. When that blood dripped down, it served as a condition for me to pledge myself to God.
That is what brought about today's Unification Church.
Even though I don't tell you the whole story, you ought to yearn to find out; it is up to you to research.
If someone teaches it to you, you won't learn it; you must seek it out on your own. That is love when you seek to learn the contents of another person's life on your own, without someone pushing you.
God has had many lamentations, but He doesn't complain to anyone. The most precious person is the one who seeks to understand those things.
As the ideal family, you don't have to express your deep feelings toward your spouse in many words. In your deeds, you show they are there, and they are your pure gold. It is not easy for me to speak freely about the ideal family. You must have all the basics and all the right perspectives.
Think about how you are going to become pure gold. Since pure gold doesn't change, it doesn't fear its surroundings. Even though it becomes terribly hot and the gold melts, it has nothing to fear because it remains just as it was, pure gold.
Therefore, if I am pure gold, I have no fear of becoming liquid, solid, or anything because nothing can change me. When you go out to witness, go as pure gold, and you can have no embarrassment, self-consciousness, or fear. Whatever you hear or see, apply the standard of pure gold.
I will continue this topic on another occasion. Meanwhile, think deeply about the things we have discussed today. You might complain if I criticize you Americans, especially you women, when I speak. But the people whom I criticize can become the textbook or training aid for other people. Thus, you should be happy to serve that purpose.
Let us pursue now the golden home instead of just the “home sweet home.” Those of you who pledge to do that, please raise your hands. Thank you. God bless you.
Sun Myung Moon