Belvedere
Man always thinks of centering on himself and so leads his life centering on himself.
Where does that tendency to value himself most of all come from?
It comes from God Himself. As a man finds himself elevated, he is happy, and he hates to find things the other way around.
Each person always has a past, present, and future; in addition, he is surrounded by their family, clan, and social environment. Farther away is the rest of the world and the spirit world.
Just as we want to elevate ourselves individually, we also want to elevate our families. This extends to other levels, such that an individual would like to see his society elevated; an American would like to see America become more developed than any other country, for instance.
All those in the spirit world would like to see their world improved and respected by others. That is quite understandable, for certainly God is much like this.
When you examine yourself closely, you see that you are part of everything else around you and it is part of you; you live in a common realm of existence.
How can both you and your family be elevated at the same time?
This is an important matter when you seriously consider it. Actually, it is rather simple-if an individual is completely united with his family, then he will cherish the family and think highly of its other members.
In addition, if all the family members want to live for something higher than themselves, then we can say they are not only united but are also being constantly elevated. This is not just logical reasoning, but is the way our mind naturally moves.
If a clan is united, then they discover that they are looking upward and desiring to live for a higher cause; in living that way, they discover over time that they are gradually being elevated, in the sense of developing or improving.
If you desire to be elevated but not to see others elevated in relation to you, you will always be in conflict. The other person will never give in but will fight back.
You will not only find yourself to be ineffective but also actually declining as well.
According to the principle of development, two people can advance by uniting for a higher purpose.
Sun Myung Moon
Who among men would be the center in each step along the way?
We can generalize and say that it is the one whom God loves most. What is the standard for finding such a person? Yes, it is the person who always wants to better himself, but we have to determine how God wants an individual to elevate himself.
We want to elevate ourselves, not by asking other people to do it for us, but by coming under them instead.
How does this actually work?
If a person places himself in that position, then the very environment will lift him, even though he himself may not want to go higher.
We have all experienced dislike for the person who only wants to elevate himself, regardless of whether he has the potential to be higher. This has been true in the past and present and is a typical problem everywhere.
This formula is always present, working on every level. If this element is removed from man's life, then no one would get anywhere, for no matter how high a person advanced, it would have no meaning. God took notice of this element and taught people through religion to be humble and to sacrifice themselves.
If God is really God, then this is likely to be His advice. When a person is like this, then he is welcome wherever he goes, in his family, society, nation, and in the spirit world, and even God will like him very much. Is this understandable?
In Unification Church terminology, this means to live for the sake of others. Many people can't understand why they shouldn't live only for themselves, but there is a difference of heaven and earth between living for others and living for oneself. By living for ourselves, we are sure to destroy any possibility of elevating ourselves, while living for others is the surest way of elevating ourselves.
What is the significance of living for others?
It has the meaning of recreating something. In living for others, we must commit and make something out of nothing by adding on. Because of you, something will come to exist where there was nothing before.
If a person tries to live for others, then he has left many works behind them on earth, and their achievements are accumulated there to benefit everyone. There are a great variety of ways of living for others-some will do so by giving money, teaching, or doing medical or military work.
What is the primary way, however?
By giving love. There are many kinds of love and many steps in love. We are not just thinking about the smaller-scale love in a single family between a man and woman, but the largest possible love of God as an infinite subject loving His object.
Even in love, we find an order; not all love is the same. Love for God would be the highest plane of love; love of the world would be next, and so on down to love of the familycherishes.
We find this concept of order in the categories of love: Love of God is the greatest; next to it is love of the nation, society, clan, family, and then the individual.
Of course, we love ourselves, but if we love the family more, then our love remains in greater form. You may sacrifice in loving the family, but you are losing nothing by forgetting yourself; the remainder of the family cherishes you in your place. That is much better than trying to cherish yourself.
By loving ten other people, you have found ten other places to live centering on love. Then you remain in ever greater form in the minds of those ten other people. Wherever such a person goes, those ten people will follow him.
Why would they follow him instead of going their own way?
The explanation is not difficult to understand. When subject and object become one in give and take, God joins them there and relates to them both. When God visits there and decides to stay, it means that the family becomes perfect; then it will never perish but remain eternally.
If a nation chooses to sacrifice itself for the sake of the world, the world will cherish it and make it the central nation. If the spirit world decides to sacrifice itself for the sake of God, then the degree of love there will become even greater.
We have an innate element that pushes us to want to become bigger and bigger and have more and more value.
Even after uniting with people of higher value than himself, a person wants to go still higher until he reaches God. We always want to elevate ourselves. Without that desire, we would not go ever higher until we reached God.
This cannot be accomplished without love. Love is the only way to elevate oneself to God and fulfill the pattern of constantly uniting with a higher value. As we do that, we will increasingly resemble God. No one can complain about this; the only complaint could concern a person who doesn't become greater and greater-"You are crazy not to become greater!"
If we have this love, then even though we want to remain mediocre, we will be lifted by others, even turned upside down! Can you really imagine that?
Why is a person born to begin with?
One person might feel he was born to study and be a scholar, while another might feel he is here to make money. Another might think he is born to be a U.S. Senator, while a person of lesser ambition would think he is born to do whatever he wants to do. This question of "Why am I born?" is a serious one. Individuals have always answered in their own way and gotten away with it.
What answer would everyone agree with? Everyone's eyes pop open at the thought of money, and their ears open at the thought of knowledge, but somehow that is not the ultimate answer.
What is the answer that sounds more and more right the more you think about it?
Generally, love sounds like the right answer. Why is love so good? There is much to be gained in love, so for this reason, people find it very attractive, but it can also lead you from place to place.
If a woman is sleeping, will she doze more deeply as love approaches or suddenly wake up when it touches her? Will she snap, "Go away!" or will she suddenly wake up? Why is love so invigorating?
What happens when love touches a supersensitive person who always has trouble sleeping? He will gradually fall into a sound sleep. Love works in many directions or even opposite directions.
If you have been suffering all your life and can find no hope anywhere around you, love will melt you as if you were snow, and you will forget all your suffering. Love is the yeast of harmony.
English doesn't have adequate words for this concept. Without love, blacks and whites don't want to touch each other, even back to back, but in love, they will turn around and embrace face to face, forehead to forehead, and even nose to nose.
As you know, love can be clean or expressed in a dirty way, too. A baby may even lick at his mother's runny nose because he is full of love. I saw one mother who loved her baby so much that there was nothing she didn't touch; once her baby had a dirty diaper, she tasted it to see whether it was acidic and how warm or cold it was. Sometimes a man and woman in love will lick each other's mouth or nose or even their toes. Love can be expressed in a clean or dirty way.
Love is the greatest of all because it brings equality to the lowest and the highest.
Equality and discrimination are much-discussed topics today, but it is ridiculous to even talk about them without love. With love, you could walk sideways, backwards, or upside down and not mind. There is nowhere you cannot go if you have love, and there is nothing that cannot be done with love.
Would it be extremely noteworthy or insignificant if a person lived that way?
Would you alone describe it as holy, or would people in the past feel that way as well? What about people in the future? I am the same in this. What about babies and children? God Himself? Now you know the answer because you know how love works.
Sun Myung Moon
Would you prefer sleep, money, knowledge, or love?
If you already have love, would you just sit idle? Would you give it to us one person a day, or one hundred a day, or one hundred an hour? Isn't love so precious that you have to economize and save it?
No, with love, you have to give as much as possible; otherwise, it will be wasted. You should do this even if you are tired or so sick that you have to force yourself to keep going.
If you are really distributing love in the right way, do you get more and more tired?
When you give love, you want to give still more, and you can also see hope for gaining increasingly by doing so. When a piston starts moving, it gains momentum and goes up and down faster and faster.
Where is such love in this world?
The Bible says that God gave His only begotten Son, and whosoever believes in him will never perish but have everlasting life. The capacity to be everlasting could only come from love, from give and take, which will give more power and continue without becoming exhausted. This is what that statement means.
Love is accompanied by endless power. Even though we live a life of sacrifice and difficulty and seem to be sinking lower and lower, the power of love is always lifting us, and eventually we will find ourselves in the highest heaven. The more we work and the lower we go, the higher it lifts us up, without a tail.
We can be elevated without limit because love goes round and round without end; if it went in only one direction, then it would be finite, but love is the only power that enables us to go in all directions.
The only way for man, who is in the lowest position, to be elevated and join God, who is in the highest position, is through love. Love is what makes everything equal and what can elevate us.
God does not look at anything without the glasses of love; He will never extend His hand without a glove of love, and when He appears, it is in the clothing of love. This is why the whole universe will follow Him.
When you sacrifice yourself for your family, then wherever you go, that family will move in that direction. God is the subject of the whole universe, and when He moves, everything will go in His direction.
If President Carter loves America more than any other president, when he moves, the attention of all the citizens will follow him wherever he goes, right?
Do you feel that way toward President Carter?
If he didn't love America or if he was uninterested in his mission, then everyone would be indifferent to what he did. When Jesus moves in a certain direction, then all Christians follow. When Billy Graham goes in a certain direction, will all Christians follow him?
When the central person goes somewhere, everything else will pay attention with all its content and heart. Is that understandable?
If I observe these principles, will you want to do so as well? Wouldn't even God dream of everyone following me to inherit that pattern?
We have been talking much about living in the Unification Church, but what is the Unification Church?
To unify the whole movement, must we have more or less love than the whole Unification Church?
Do you have more love in you than the Unification Church itself? Who has love? When you act, would you like to do so with more or less love than the Unification Church? More? Great! Those who think they have that love, raise your hands. Not so many! Those who want to be like that, raise your hands then.
Are you just deciding that now, or have you always been like that?
If you have always been like that, why haven't you been successful? Have I failed to supervise you successfully? Should I drive you out to do that, or should I sit back and hope you are successful someday?
Do you like it or not when I instruct you to do something?
Do you rejoice or pause to consider it with reservations? Should I come knock on all your doors at the World Mission Center to get you up in the morning, or perhaps push one button to ring bells on every floor at the same time?
Would you jump up and wash quickly and dash out to meet me, or grumble about how sleepy you are? Maybe you would take your time and come late to the dining room for breakfast, complaining about how the bell is never out of order.
Is it more precious to wake up a few minutes early and wait for the bell to ring or wait thirty more minutes after it rings to get up? You could think that the sound of the bell is more inspiring than eating or sleeping.
Have you ever felt that a bell could inspire you that way?
You may never have felt that way because you never knew what was connected with that bell; you never knew God was watching over you as it rang, and that's why you could be so indifferent. Just as love wakes up a sleepy person, that bell should wake us up instead of sending us back to sleep. It is a messenger of love.
When I ask Unification Church members why they were born, they say they were born for home church. When you leave the building to do home church, are you depressed by whether it is raining or snowing, or do you feel very hopeful and loving like the rising sun?
I really feel that those members who grumble and drag their feet while walking to their home church area should be persecuted; if they aren't persecuted by the community, then something is wrong!
If you go out with love, then even dogs will wag their tails at you; if dogs are this sensitive, then how much more aware will men be of whether you have come to share love or not?
If people are persecuting you when you go out to your area with joy and love, then they are violating God's law and Principle, and God will never let it go by. God will do something to them according to the law of love. You can be confident that they should have known this already.
New York has been called a jungle, but you can visualize it as a desert to which you are bringing an oasis; you are bringing the water of life to the city where love is totally lacking. Once people understand what you are doing, there will be an avalanche of people coming to drink.
Sun Myung Moon
Then why are we born? For what, love?
God's love. If you toss a pebble into quiet water, then the ripples will spread; likewise, when you make a big noise of love, the ripples will spread throughout the entire world. You are doing that now in daily life. The only question is whether you are throwing a grain of sand in the water or a big rock that you can hardly carry.
Home church is unprecedented in history, like a big rock that will part the water with a loud smack. Should your home church work be a small pebble or a huge rock? Will it be easy to do or very difficult? YOU don't mind the difficulty? We like difficulty because underneath it all lies the greatest love.
The topic today is Our One Life. Do we live to keep eating every day? Communist doctrine states that man lives for his bread, but such a life has no value and can only be scorned. Do you live for bread?
Would we live for the sake of love even if we starved?
Would we say that if necessary, we wouldn't sleep for the sake of love? We are undergoing all kinds of persecution for the sake of love, and one day that love will touch us and make us forget it all. Would it be appropriate to live that way?
If you women are 34 years old, can you think that for the sake of love, you don't mind being old maids and will find your mate when you are 43? If you can think like that, then could you even say that for the sake of love, you will never marry? No one answered that question rapidly!
Which is better, to live only a short but intense life and then seize a big love, or to live a long, uneventful life and gradually embrace a great love?
A person may live only a short time yet be able to grab a great love, whereas another person may live an extended but unexciting life and have great love at the end.
To live an intense but short life and have that love is better than to have an extended life with the same amount of love. Would you like to be crazy in love or not? The answer is always the same throughout the ages. All people say yes, and God says yes.
Now we know we are living for God's love. You may have shed tears, but if they were for yourself, then they have only limited meaning. If you shed tears for the sake of the country and world, then you receive a passing grade, but if you shed tears for yourself first, then you are a failure.
Your ears must feel like they like to hear encouragement to live for other people. Your ears come early every Sunday morning to Belvedere, and perhaps they feel, "Oh, Father is telling us again to live for other people; it's the same old story." Would your leg say it is tired of living that way?
Would your fact worry that once people thought you were beautiful, but now, after working such long hours under all conditions, you are getting wrinkles? Do you, couples, think, "I waited practically for eternity and finally got married, but now I have to wait another three years to be with my mate"?
Would you feel your figure is pitiful and your hair a mess? But tell your body that it is worth waiting for the sake of a greater love that is really good, and everything will be opened up!
I promised Mother that I would speak for only two hours this morning. But I have an excuse that always works-if I speak with love, then even if it lasts for seventeen hours, I know I can be excused from my promise. Now you know for sure why you were born.
How could this thinking of mine live and spread throughout the world, especially in America, since I only came here by myself?
Is it easy for one person to come into contact with me, much less be inspired to live for other people and for God? But I live every day for other people, and this is what makes it possible. Why do I live that way?
Do I always come here because I enjoy watching all your sleepy faces every Sunday morning?
Some of you fools are very strange! Maybe the best thing I could do would be to let you sleep an extra thirty minutes right now, but instead, I am joking and making faces to stimulate you and wake you up. Morning after morning, I do this. Is that a good or bad profession to be in? What's so good about it?
If there were no love here, it would be miserable, but because love is here, then even if life feels like misery, it will one day be elevated to greatness; that is why we can call this the great way of life.
There are many big churches with comfortable chairs where you are greeted and escorted to your seat. Here, no one greets you, and you don't even have a chair to sit on. But since there is such sweet love here, this discomfort is not miserable.
Even though we go to hell, if we bring love there, then it is heaven. Do you really know this now, or aren't you sure yet?
Do you think you have to wait and see if this really works, or can you tell whether this is the true way by using your own judgment? Is it as real to you as sleepiness when you are tired?"
If you are really sure, then there is not much more to teach you. You are already well prepared, and the only thing left to do is act on it and keep on going. Will you do that?
Even if both God and I tell you not to do it? Will you still do it even if no one is watching or supervising? If this is true, then I am a successful man.
If you were conceived in love, born in love, and living in love, then inevitably you are grateful for being born and for living now. The very fact that you can leave a great love behind on earth when you go to the spirit world is a great thing.
You must realize that you are a participant in your parents' love. Have you ever seen people tight when they were in love? You are born of the love of your parents, who also were participants in their parents' love.
You are the living manifestation of your parents' love. You are a result of their love, so you must live your life waving with love like a flag in the wind. When you see your parents and your brothers and sisters, you have to wave your flag by showing love to other people. Did you do that in the past?
You must become dedicated sons and daughters of filial piety.
What are such children?
Are they the ones who help their parents rest when they are sleepy or who can help their parents sleep comfortably even when they feel uneasy and restless? With what could you do that? With love.
More than bringing food when your parent is hungry, being able to make him happy when he is poor is a higher act of filial piety. With what? With love.
When parents are old and close to dying, you have to treat them better and love them more than if they were little and very young.
When they were young, they may not have needed that care, but now they do. Bringing laughter to ancient parents as though they were in their teens is more important. It is even better if you can make them dance and rejoice.
If your parent was dancing and then had a heart attack as a result, then it was a happy death. Though someone may accuse you of killing him by making him dance, he has no grounds for saying so.
Have you ever thought of how to make your own parents happy in this way? What a great ambition it is to make your parents happy when it has been a long time since they laughed.
When God looks down at the genuine effort you are making for your own parents, will He tell you not to bother wasting your love on them?
Or will He shed tears at the beauty of that scene?
Your parents will cherish you for that. Your parents will sincerely say before God that you are a son or daughter of filial piety and acknowledge you to Him. God will really remember such children.
Many times, people are excited when their parents bequeath land or much money to them in their will, but that is nothing compared to the inheritance of the heavenly task or work.
That is the greatest inheritance a parent can give to a child of filial piety. If a person has a filial mind and cares for his brothers and sisters and society, then everyone will remember him. If he encounters God with that mind, then he will be the most loved one.
Sun Myung Moon
Did Jesus have parents like this or such brothers and sisters?
Was Jesus able to do anything for the sake of his country?
Jesus never had a country he could work for with that heart, and when he comes again, he will indeed do so. The Unification Church is doing exactly that.
Since this thought has never been known to the world, we are teaching the concept of true family and parents, and therefore true brothers and sisters. When we apply this everywhere in the world, it will be none other than heaven.
Is it the right attitude to listen to me but not to anyone else?
It is the kindergarten level to listen to me, but when someone else speaks to you with love like mine, you must listen to them as well. Love is everywhere and unchangeable, so you have to listen to that love wherever you find it. It goes beyond time and place.
If you listen only to me and not to someone else who has the same love, then if I go away or to the spirit world, it would mean the Unification Church could no longer exist. That, of course, could never be true.
We must have a tradition, not just loyalty to one person, and that tradition must be respected as much as you respect me now. The True Parents' own love is part of that tradition; therefore, we cherish that tradition and must listen to the person who stands on behalf of it.
In that tradition, you have to be able to treat people all over the world with the same heart, not just your close relatives. Whether you can do that will determine what kind of heaven you can make.
If you were riding on the subway and saw old people standing while young people took the seats, would you ignore the old people and sit as well? Isn't this a free country?
You are free, but freedom comes only on the foundation of the cosmic principle; nothing that lives contrary to that principle can have freedom. The order of the universe is determined according to this principle.
If a person feels he should work harder because he is getting paid more than others, his is not really the highest. The employee who works for the company with a genuine heart, being completely conscientious, no matter how much he is paid, is the only one who is worthy of being paid and is worthy of receiving special notice by the president.
We must think deeply about this because you know that even after joining the Unification Church, you have hurt other people, right?
You must change that. Some American women get married and divorced for the sake of alimony, don't they? Do you think that way?
Did you join the Unification Church to marry a good person or because you wanted to have greater love?
Although you may be inferior to some high-level people in the world, you can still give greater love than they can.
If you were me, would you sympathize more with American men or women? After I came to America and studied American culture, I became more convinced that, subtly, American women had more to do with the cause of evil, while the men were rather obedient to their initiatives, just like servants.
Often, they are easily deceived by their wives' explanation of what they did during the day or in financial matters.
As a rule, in entertainment on television or in the movies, women arouse the most hostile feelings.
Do you think men are more hell-raising than women?
Answer me clearly! Naturally, I sympathize more with the men, and when it came time to distribute indemnity, I thought of how the women should take a greater portion. This is reality, in addition to the fact that Eve was the one who initiated the fall. I am confident of this understanding.
Would any of you say I am not fair?
Is this thinking good if it means the women can receive more love as a result? Do you welcome that or not?
I chased all the women out, even those who were heavy with pregnancy and tired all the time. Looking back, they think that even their husbands couldn't have persuaded them to do this, and then they are genuinely grateful to me.
Because of that gratitude, their whole family will receive a blessing. "I am having this one baby, but spiritually I will have millions of babies, embracing this world with the greatest love." When you feel that, then you are on the right track.
The one great principle we have been talking about this morning is how the individual can sacrifice for his family, and then it is not a sacrifice at all, but will elevate him.
For the clan, the family can be sacrificed, and for the world, the nation can be sacrificed; for the sake of God, everything can be sacrificed. That is good because then everything can be elevated to the level of God.
As a result, the Unification Church can bring up everyone who is in hell on earth to heaven and God. We are doing this with great love.
We go to other countries to love the people there, and when we go to the spirit world and become one with the people there, we will bring them up to God. In doing so, you are like a ladder for them to climb up. They will cherish you for that because, without you, they could never have climbed up.
You can rejoice in serving your purpose. Now you know that you use me as your ladder to climb up to God. Not only that, you can freely use all the highways I have paved on earth.
Will you stop with what you have grasped now or go on and on for the rest of your life?
Since love is eternal, you must determine that you will continue in this for eternity, not that you will go just one certain distance. Will you be exhausted by living this way in love?
Would old couples feel that they have already gone through love and that now just young people will do it, or will they go this way forever too? You have had a great opportunity to be here with me, so now do you feel free to go your own way, or will you live eternally with me?
If you have genuine love and honestly want to live with me, then I will approve it. But if you have your own objective in mind, then I will not welcome your wanting to live with me. Must I like you since you like me? Or, since I like you, will you like me even more? The second answer? Great!
If you are confident to live your life according to this principle, then your one life will be perfected in every way. This is not an easy way, but if you are determined to do so regardless, raise your hands. This is a very, very, very, very long way that continues forever, but do you choose it so you can grow perfectly? Great!
Let us pray.
Sun Myung Moon