At this hour I will speak with the content of “Our Value Yesterday and Today.” You will feel well that there is a difference between before you knew the Will and after you came to know the Will. There is a marked difference between the “I” before knowing the Will and the “I” after coming to know the Will. Also, the past I, the present I, and the future I are different.
Now we are placed in a position of sending off the 1960s and welcoming the 1970s. These 1960s and 1970s too become a problem centering on the relationship of yesterday and today.
The Established Religions That Can No Longer Lead Humankind
We have learned through the Principle that history from the day human beings fell until now has been a history of fighting to sort out the destiny of Restoration. Until now, countless religions have appeared and come, pursuing the original figure of the human being. What is a true human being? Can there be a true society, nation, and world? Countless religions appeared in history, hoping that the true figure would be produced from within themselves. Countless religious people have devoted the utmost effort they could to pursue that religion.
But those religious people have come in the present age to a dead end. Past religion does not hold content by which it can remain as the religion of today and can connect to the future. Seeing such an actual state, we know that this is a world placed instantly when the question cannot but emerge of what kind of religion it is that can settle the religion remaining in reality as a religion of the past and connect a new religion of the present.
Until now, countless religions have pursued the true. They have pursued the true human being, the true nation, the true world. But because they pursued it centering on the human being, it cannot but remain as something impossible.
Why is that? Because the religious ideology that came to pursue centering on the absolute God has come to reality and does not become the ideology of hope that humankind desires. When we think of the reality that, although one ought to pursue the true world centering on God, we are placed at a stage where we cannot pursue such an ideal society, nation, and world, we cannot but conclude that with the view of God until now, the view of faith until presently, and the view of life through faith until now, the true world that humankind has desired and countless religions have desired cannot be found. When we consider that religion, which underpins history and thought, is in a position where it cannot but draw such a conclusion for us as individuals.
Then will the true nation and true world that our individual selves pursue be possible, centering on the human being alone? It is impossible. Although it is the doctrine of religion until now to propose such content in which Heaven and the human being join, it is absolutely impossible for the human being alone to seek a world of hope through religion.
We must consider that at this point we cannot but reexamine the question of whether the road religion has groped along until now was wrong, or whether religion itself failed to stand in a position that could be in accord with the purpose it must go toward.
If the God we believed in until now and the religion we believed in until now, and the God we believed in hereafter and the religion we must believe in hereafter, are the same, we cannot pursue a new world of hope.
When we look at centering on the self of reality that is placed at such a historic terminal point, the question of how to raise a new teaching cannot but become the problem. This whole world too stands at such a crossroads and pants. Have we become individuals who can take responsibility for the world, holding a Will to save the world that stands panting at such a crossroads, and has such a religion come to be? And when we consider whether I have become one who can proclaim centering on such a Will, the distance is far too great.
We must know that at this present point, with such a question before us, we are placed in a position where we cannot but criticize once again the individual called I.
Then the question becomes what the content is that our Unification Church presents today. Furthermore, we as members of the Unification Church are placed at this point when we must shoulder the historic responsibility just spoken of; and the question is with what figure we must appear before this age.
When we look at the content religion has proclaimed until now, what has religion mainly come to pursue?
It has come to pursuing the relationship between God and me. It means it came forth to consolidate the relationship between God and me and to discover a self that can prepare a figure of new change in which my character is completely in accord with God’s character. Whether the individual as individual or religion as religion, in pursuing responsibility before society, they appeared upon this earth centering on the question of making the supreme ideal Will that we human beings desire coincide with God’s Will, and then fell away.
The Cause of the Decline of the Established Religions
Then has there been a religion that could fulfill such a responsibility in the true sense until now? There has not. That is why religion now cannot escape from a road of decline.
Then what is it that religion has failed to take responsibility for? We cannot but think of this by bringing it to the question of whether religion came forth for God or whether religion came forth for the human being.
Until now, religion set out at the time of its departure, centering on God. But in the end, it departed from God. Although a society of human beings who have become God-like in a position of accord with God, centering on God, ought to be formed, when a society centered on the human being comes to be formed apart from God, no religion can but go a road of decline.
Seen from this point, when we ask whether there are religious people who, centering on religion, are in accord with God’s Will in the true sense and conceive of such an individual, such a family, such a clan, such a people, or such a nation, and establish it as the standard of their living, there are none. It means that the people who believe in religion today do not have such a view. In the end, that they believe in religion to pursue their profit is the actual state of reality.
Then the question here is how to break out of this pursuit of religion centering on myself. This is the grave question that the countless religious people of the world today must undertake.
If God exists, God will have a grave responsibility to present a point of resolution for this question. We must know that our position today is that of standing at such a crossroads.
If the motive by which religion arose is God, religion will have pursued God’s Will, that is, the true world and true nation and true people and true family and true individual that God conceives.
In the process of going from the true individual all the way to the true world, it will not do unless the true is connected. There will be some people who died to become a true person, centering on Heaven, that is, to find the true individual. And there will also be some who died to find a true family. And there will also be some who died to accomplish the ideology of a true clan, centering on the clan. And there will also be some who died to find the people. And there will also be some who died for the nation. Further, there will also be some who died to find the true world.
Then what kind of people are those who remain in history?
When we ask whether a person who died centering on the individual can become an object of reverence before the people of that age and remain in the course of history, it is not so. A person who died for the family rather than for the individual can become the object of reverence of countless individuals. Those who died for the people, centering on religion rather than for the family, will become the object of reverence of all families. Further, one who died for the world in the name of religion will become the object of reverence before the people who pursue that religion.
Seen thus, what kind of people are the sages who have remained in the course of history until now? They are not people who died centering on religion to complete and attain the happiness of the individual and the world of hope the individual desires, but people who offered up their lives to form a relationship with the world centering on religion. We know that the more a person is such, the more he is a historic figure. It was so with Shakyamuni, and so with Confucius, and it is likewise the same with Jesus. The road they went, relying upon Heaven, and died was not a road on which they lived and died for their own individual happiness. It means they abandoned their own individual happiness and poured out their lives for the sake of the Will they could leave to Heaven, for the sake of the one world of purpose that all the people of the whole world pursue.
Then can the wish of those who poured out their lives be achieved upon this earth? And the question is whether the believers who follow them can accomplish it.
When we look at history, although the ideologies and thoughts of those who died for the future world, centering on religion as religion or on God’s Will as God’s Will, set out, we can discover in reality the fact that it has not been inherited down through the course of history to the present point. By what can we know that? We can know it by seeing that people of faith today lead a life centered on the human being rather than a life centered on God. It means that religion today has become a religion that no longer adds a plus to God but adds a plus to the human being.
Seeing such things, we can discover the fact that the original will of the person who founded that religion and the will that the people of faith who now follow that religion desire are at odds.
What a New Religion Must Be Equipped With
Then what is it that we must pursue at this present point, having welcomed the historic age of consummation?
We must break through all the content of this present point and reproduce at this present point the Will of God pursued in the old days, the will of the founder who pioneered the road of the Way in the old days. It means we cannot but wage a fight to transcend history and unfold what was of old upon the stage of life of the present age. We must know that this is our work when we look at the reality of the religious world.
When we look at our individual selves today, there was a world you pursued before entering the Unification Church, a view of life you gazed upon, a view of the universe you gazed upon. Centering on what were those? A person with a will would have lived centering on the nation. The road you walked would at most have been a road of seeking to become a faithful patriot as a citizen of the Republic of Korea. You would not have crossed that boundary line. It would have been vague to you that one must become a philanthropist who is for all the people of the world. What you hoped for the most was that your nation would do well. It means you could not go beyond that. A person who was not even that could at most be only a person who was for his people, his clan, his family. One who was not even that at most began everything and ended everything, centering on his own single self, and lived on.
Such an “I” knocked at the door of the Unification Church. When we compare my present self, which knows the doctrine of the Unification Church, with my past self, the question is how far my present self has become different from my past self.
If one does not discover a fundamental difference, there is no way to escape the scope of the religious people who have walked until now through the course of history.
My past self was at most one who was anxious about unhappiness centering on myself. It means one could not escape the sphere centered on one’s own parents and brothers and sisters. Those who are said to have held a will at best thought of the nation. However much they thought, they did not cross the standard of the nation. What was the supreme goal of living? It was the family.
Then where is the final point of purpose that God pursues, or that religion pursues?
It is not a position centered on myself. It is not the family one pursues. It is a position that crosses over the family, crosses over the people, crosses over the nation, and is for the world. Religion is that which must hold such a mind and seek to accomplish such an ism and assertion, such an ideology.
If it is a religion that seeks to develop only the happiness of the individual, it must disappear from the human world. It means it can appear only as an ideology that guides individuals centered on themselves in the human world.
Words such as “Heaven” or “the Will of God” are words bearing a worldwide character. That is why one cannot but insist that one transcend the individual and escape the fence centered on oneself. It means one must cross over the notion that one loves only one’s own people and that one’s own nation alone must be first.
Seen from this point, if Jewish thought was thought established by God, we can know that that thought was a thought that could go to the world with the Jewish people as its foundation. Yet when Jesus came to this earth two thousand years ago, what kind of thought did the Jews who claimed to follow God’s Will hold? They sought to settle upon a thought that consolidated their people alone rather than a thought of going to the world. They held a thought of the supremacy of their people, a thought of subordinating and annexing all the people of the world before their people. This was the attitude of faith of the Jews of that age.
The People of Israel, Who Had to Cross the Standard of the Nation
Then what was it that Jesus sought to do before the Jewish people, who held such an attitude of faith, acting in God’s stead?
It was to be for the world upon the foundation of the Jewish people, centering on the ideology of Judaism. Only by unfolding a new movement for the world with such a Will and thought does one become the Messiah whom all people await, does one become a new religious ideology that all human beings await, and does one become a thought that can govern a new world. It means that without that, it will not do.
Jesus came holding such thoughts and content; but what were the Jews and the people of Israel of that time who faced Jesus?
It means they could not cross the limit of the nation. It means that the trouble arose here. Jesus said to cross the mountain, but the Jewish people said they would not cross the mountain, and so the two worlds fell apart. We must know the fact that because of such problems, Jesus could not but choose the mortifying road of the cross.
Because the historic point of resolution that ought to have been decided centering on the Jewish people has not been settled until now, such a historic starting point has come down until now through the course of history.
If at some one time there be a people chosen centering on God’s Will, then that people, or if there be such a nation, then that nation, must make a final judgment centering on this destiny and cross this pass.
Otherwise, God’s Will cannot be achieved. Religious people too have not crossed this limit point called the nation. Not only religious people, but the countless peoples who constitute the nations have not crossed that limit point.
In the course of history, there have been countless wars upon this earth. Countless people fought while asserting the truth, but it was in every respect a fight done for their nation, a fight for the revival of their nation and the victory of their nation. It means there was no fight fought for God’s Will and the victory of the world. When we look at the present point in which left and right collide, when we ask whether they are fighting for the world in the true sense, it is not so. It is so with America and so with the Soviet Union. That is, it is so with communism and so with democracy. Though they stepped forth saying they fight for the world, in the end they did not cross the national boundary line. It means they could not cross the standard of their people, their nation, and retreated to that boundary line.
That is because human beings until now have trodden a historical destiny of not crossing the standard of themselves and their family and their clan and their people. So it means they are not escaping and crossing over this. We are human beings living at such a boundary line of destiny.
God has unfolded a fight to break through this boundary line. That is why He said to sacrifice the family and save the people of Israel. To save the people of Israel, He asked Moses to cast away his family. He asked him to sacrifice his family. It means that without sacrificing the family, with only the family being happy, one cannot save the people of Israel.
How good it would be if the family did well and the people of Israel were saved! But it is not made so. It means that in a fallen world, that is impossible. It is absolutely impossible. It means they must accept a road of suffering.
If one were to found the nation of Israel, the people of Israel must accept all suffering. When they become a people who can gladly accept this, they can found a victorious nation of Israel.
On the road on which the people of Israel left Egypt and went toward Canaan, many national trials barred the way. That is why in that living they collided head-on with all those feelings by which they had lived, centering on themselves from a human position.
If they had gone forward holding a mind of overcoming the sufferings they collided with in that environment and establishing the Father’s Will, and of establishing God’s Will even though they met a destiny of being sacrificed, the period of suffering for the people of Israel would have been short. Because they did not overcome that, that boundary line has always remained as one barrier before the people of Israel.
Because a national barrier, a barrier of the nation, remained, the nearer the time came at which they could pursue the world of hope the nation of Israel pursued and the ideal world of the Messiah the nation of Israel hoped for, the more the barrier left before the people of Israel, and the barrier left before that nation had to reappear. You must know that this was the destiny of the nation of Israel.
Then what ought the nation of Israel, which stood within such a destiny, to have done?
It means that if it sustained itself with an ideology centered on its nation and a fight centered on its nation, it would without fail perish. It means it could not sustain itself for a thousand or two thousand years. Why is that? Because people all think centering on themselves, so however much one is for the nation, when one comes to be unable to find within that nation the requisites of happiness for one’s own generation, one retreats. It means one hands over the battlefield one was guarding to a third party and seeks not to guard that position oneself. It means that in a world where one thinks centering on oneself, such a harmful result cannot but come out.
The Reason a Christianity Without a Nation Has Led to Two Thousand Years of History
Seen from this point, how has Christianity overcome two thousand years of history?
How has a Christianity without a nation, that is, a Christianity that did not hold sovereignty, a Christianity that did not hold a people, a Christianity that did not hold land, sustained itself through two thousand years of history? It is because the nation Christianity pursues is the final nation that must come again hereafter. It means that a nation is not a nation in which one will settle just as it is in actual society, but is a truly ideal nation that will come anew. Because it has come pursuing a new sovereignty centered on that nation, a new land centered on that nation, and a new people, it means it remains until that people and that land and that sovereignty are found.
Today Christianity has become a worldwide religion in name and in reality. Yet before Christianity, which has become a worldwide religion, a worldwide barrier remains. Has it loved the world and fought for the world in the true sense? It means one basic barrier lies across the road that all the Christianity of the world today must go. Not Christianity alone, but such a barrier remains before countless religions.
How shall this barrier be broken open?
This is a grave problem that religious people, or religion, placed at the present point in time that must be resolved. What must be done to press through and cross over this barrier? One must not become a religion that asserts one’s own people. It means it is utterly impossible to seek to accomplish a worldwide Will with a religion centered on one’s own single people. One must cross over one’s own people or nation, and must break down entirely the traditional social system and culture of one’s own people and all other customs and seek a society centered on the people of the world, one world that can be in accord with God’s Will. There one must make all hearts (심정) into one body and make the whole of living into one body. Unless one carries out the business of making one’s view of life into one body, and one’s view of the world into one body, one will not remain as a religion.
From this viewpoint, the Unification Church today must shoulder the grave responsibility of presenting such a question. We must unfold not a religious fight centered on the people but a religious fight centered on the world.
We must become a Unification Church that seeks not an ideology of happiness centered on the people but an ideology of happiness centered on the world. We must know that, when we look at religion in the course of history, the present is such a point.
With a notion centered on oneself, a notion centered on one’s own family a notion centered on one’s own nation, that is, on the Republic of Korea alone; if the Republic of Korea does not exist, globalization does not come about.
If one would make globalization possible, a person who can do so must come forth within the Republic of Korea. For the Unification Church to become so, the question must be resolved of how firmly a foundation of living that can globalize, centering on God, is consolidated within yourselves.
If We Would Digest Present Difficulties in a Heavenly Way
When we look at your daily living day by day, how much does all your living itself of sleeping and waking, and the good and bad circumstances, and the coming and going, center on a worldwide Will? Is eating rice too eating not for myself, and not for the Republic of Korea alone, but for the world?
How can we globalize the feelings of our living?
How can we drive all those conditions we pursue to a state where they can be felt urgently and directly by the cells? Such things are the question. This is impossible on the road you have paved until now or the position in which you devoted sincerity. It may be possible in thought, but in fact it is not so.
Then how shall we apply this to fact?
One must not avoid the world, like the steps religious people have taken until now. One must not criticize the world. Nor must one become a religion irresponsible toward the world. That is why we must take direct responsibility for the world. We must not escape the world but enter into the midst of the world. We must not avoid evil but collide with that evil.
In other words, how to digest present difficulties in a heavenly way is a grave question. One must not pass through a habitual course, as past religion has lived until now. One must go in the opposite direction. One must go against the current. For that, the content of a religion that is carried along in the embrace of the historical current of thought will not do. We must apply a brake to break this open. We must deliver a hard blow here. There must be such a movement.
Because we are human beings who like to eat, we must endure not eating. Because we are human beings who like comfort, we must escape from comfort. We must take a new direction and prepare a new self and reconsolidate the position of our existence. The habitual religious life that religious people have led until now will not do. We must present here one new wave, one new ripple.
That is why people who say they will take responsibility for this and go without fail receive criticism from present society. The greater that criticism, the more they will be consolidated inwardly. It means that on that road of seeking to cross over the world, a barrier lies across like an iron fortress. This is the same for the individual, and for the family, and for society, and for the nation, and for the world. It means that before a person who lives centered on God, everything centered on the self is a barrier. Here the question is how one presses through that barrier holding a conviction centered on God.
All the trials that collide with us and lie across our path are not to ruin us but to determine our value. How is our value determined? It is not that your value becomes socialized and globalized because you sit still and acknowledge that value. It means a new value is determined according to whether one remains or disappears after colliding on the road of trial.
For a person to succeed greatly, trials proportionate to that success accompany it. It means that to become a national figure, one must take responsibility for the destiny of the nation and break through trials. It means one must be able to take responsibility for a national crisis with one’s life at stake. A person who avoids offering up his life cannot bear an important responsibility of the nation. That is a fact well known from historical facts.
Even looking at the time when the revolutionary government emerged, centering on the Republic of Korea, we could know that the revolution began from the hopeful steps of people who laid down their lives to take responsibility for the destiny of the nation and sought a new nation.
Then the question is whether we truly hold a conviction by which we can pass through the worldwide wave that draws near before us.
When I look back once again upon my past self, the being called I was an I who lived centering on myself. It means I at most knew only my mother and father and my brothers and sisters. I could not escape that fence. It means I did not know how to think of anything that could remain beyond the one stage of the notion of the nation. It means I did not even know how to think about such questions as the world. You must clearly know that my present self has come pursuing everything with the beginning centered on myself, the purpose centered on myself, and the end centered on myself.
Where Is the True “I”?
Speaking in religious terms, we are fallen descendants. It means the term fallen follows us about. It is not that we established ourselves having escaped the sphere of the Fall. It means we established ourselves within the sphere of the Fall. So however much one saves the world and however much one accomplishes the Will in the world, one is within the sphere of the Fall. An “I” within the sphere of the Fall will not do. One must break through this. It means one must seek an “I” who has escaped the sphere of the Fall. One must cross over this boundary line, this fence. If only one crosses this fence, the true world and the true “I” emerge. Yet we are not destroying this fence.
Where is the true “I”? It is not within this fence but outside the fence. Therefore, one must cross this fence, this boundary line. Not only the individual but the family too must cross that fence, and the clan must cross it, and the nation must cross it, and the world must cross it.
Why? Because the ancestors committed a worldwide fall. Though an individual fell, that formed a family, and formed a clan, and formed a people, and formed a nation, and formed a world. Therefore, although it was an individual who fell, the result formed a worldwide sphere. For that reason, the I of today and the humankind of the past have not escaped the notion of coming forth centered on myself within the sphere of the Fall.
Then how shall this be broken down? To break this down, one must collide head-on and shatter it. How a religion that has such a wretched destiny before it can leap toward the world is not but an important question at this present point.
Then how does one escape this sphere?
For whom have countless human beings lived until now? They all lived for themselves. They lived for themselves, but eventually, they were all ruined. Some lived for the nation, but they too were likewise ruined. That is because the nation too is within the sphere of the Fall. That is why only a person who says he will live crossing over this world can remain upon this earth, and only such a person can remain upon this earth.
Religion is that which came seeking an “I” beyond this fallen world, and came seeking a family beyond this fallen world, and came seeking a nation beyond this fallen world, and came seeking a world beyond this fallen world. In the course of history until now, the world has been ruined, and humankind has been ruined, and religion itself has been ruined, but the ideology religion holds alone has remained until now and has been globalized. Because it is the ideology of religion to pursue a worldview centered on a wish outside the sphere of the Fall rather than a wish within the sphere of the Fall, the ideology of religion has remained until now. Yet though the ideology of religion has remained, there is no individual in accord with the Will of religion, and no family, and no clan, and no people.
Then who here will become an individual who can be in accord with that ideology, and a family, and a clan, and a people, and a nation? Such a people and nation will become the world-leading nation in the historical age hereafter and will become the leading people.
Just as when one splits wood holding an axe, when we place the difficult situation of the world today before us and split it, if we split centering on the individual, does the individual break away, or does the world break away? It means the world breaks away. If we split centering on the family, does the family break away, or does the world break away? It means the world breaks away.
If we split centering on religion, does the world break, or does religion break? Which of the two will remain? It means religion remains. That religion is necessary before the world.
Value without fail comes out through a standard of comparison. Value does not come out where one is alone. Value comes out when many people need one. A person whom the nation has need of becomes a patriot of that nation, and a person whom society has need of becomes a responsible person of that society. A person whom the family has need of becomes the head of that family.
Likewise, when we look at your mind and body, which will have more value? The mind has more value than the body. Why is that? It is because the mind bears responsibility for the fight to remove and overcome all the elements of evil in the body.
Now we must cross this boundary line. Then the world gradually seeps into your sphere of living. The world will unfold upon the stage of a single day’s living in which the feelings can become one body with the senses of my cells. What humankind has come to pursue was, in the living of a single day, to overcome the world as an individual. Because it was the wish to overcome the world in daily living, it means that if God exists, He must without fail make such a world.
The Road God Would Go, and the Road Humankind Would Go
The time when that can be so has come. It means we have entered a sphere of the age in which worldwide events can affect our feelings and our breathing. However broad the world may be, it is within our sphere of living. The world has a close relation with our living. It means that the politics of America and Korea, and even the politics of the world, exert influence. That is why a nation that says it has no relation whatever with the world perishes. It means that if a nation such as America today centers only on its nation and escapes from the world situation, it perishes. It becomes a nation already defeated before a new ideal world.
Hereafter, if there appears a great thought that can tread upon and cross over such a confused world and seek a new world, and a religious body that can raise a movement of globalizing such a thought, it means that through that body the hope of a new world sprouts. The established religions until now will not do. A religion that centers on the Presbyterian Church as Presbyterian, the Methodist Church as Methodist Buddhism as Buddhism in Korea, and says that it must be our religion, perishes. Religious people until now have not unfolded a movement of globalizing their religion.
Then what must we members of the Unification Church do? If one asks where the road you go is, you say, “Well, where would I be going? I come to church and then go home.” Where do you go after going home? You go where you want to go. But the question is whether the road you would go and the road God would go coincide.
If the road God would go and the road humankind would go and the road toward which the mind of history aims do not coincide, one perishes. Why does religion perish today? It is because it has not become one with God. It means it has departed from the road of religion that ought to act in place of the central mission of history.
What does it mean that religion fulfilled the central mission of history?
It means that when they died, they did not die for their happiness but died for God. To die for God is to die for the world; it means that a person who died to be saved is worthless. It means that even when undergoing martyrdom, one must not think, “Only if I die like this will I go to a good heaven.” Though one dies just the same, a person who thinks, “Only if I do this will I be saved. Only if I do this will I not go to hell but go to heaven,” and dies, does not go to a good place. Though one dies just the same, one must say, “I die for God’s Will. I die for nothing less than the world.”
In this sense, Jesus, who said,
“Abba Father, not as I will, but as the Father wills,” is great.
Human beings say they will die for themselves. It means they seek to avoid the road of dying for themselves. But Jesus was different. He said, “Not my will, but let the Father’s will be done.” Here Jesus presented one grave turning point at which a new view of the universe centered on the world could be sought. This is what is great.
But for you, your will and God’s Will are different. In other words, human beings born within that bloodline and that relationship, which have not escaped the historical relationship until now, at most did not cross the limit of being for their family, their nation. That is my will. God’s Will is not that. To be for the world is God’s Will.
To Become Sons and Daughters of God
Centering on such a question, what becomes the problem at the last?
It is whether I am a person of the Republic of Korea or a person of the world. For me to become a son or daughter of God, I must become a worldwide person. To become a being of value fit to be chosen as a son or daughter of God, one must become a worldwide person. It means one must become not a son or daughter of the Republic of Korea but a son or daughter of the world.
From this viewpoint, when you come to know the doctrine of the Unification Church, the Unification Church is unfolding a movement of making one family centering on the world. Here one must transcend the people. On the road we are now going, we are jostling with peoples and jostling with countless clans and countless lineages and countless families, but we must cross over this road of jostling.
Then what standard must we cross from now on? Before the road we must now go, much of the road of persecution has crumbled away. The road of persecution the individual could go, the road of persecution the family could go, the road of persecution the lineage could go, and the road of persecution the religion representing the people could go have all disappeared from us. Now the position of the Unification Church in the Republic of Korea has become firm.
So you must not think, “What is there that makes us different from other people?” We must hold a subject conviction. The religions that remain until now cannot cross this present point. While they grope in the dark as religions that cannot cross the notion of their people or their denomination, we must cross this road with a stately bearing.
It means that even if I suffer, let us suffer from a position of having crossed this pass. Even if I sacrifice in this age, let us sacrifice from a position of having crossed that pass. That is what is different. It means the people of the world died within that religion. That is why they cannot go to the heavenly kingdom, which becomes the center of the world. Because one cannot make it into the heavenly kingdom centering on the present religion, it means that people who believed in that religion and departed cannot go to the heavenly kingdom.
That is why one’s view of living must become so. If money comes in, for what must one use it? One must use it for that nation, for that world. It means one must earn money too for that nation, for that world. The purpose must be there. It means one must live entirely for the Will of the world, for the Will of God. God is not seeking to unify this world, centering on some people. He is seeking to unify the world, centering on good people.
When we look at them and at us, centering on the posture of confronting hardship, their value and our value are different. They seek to escape this road, but we go while being struck. Here master and servant divide. The master bears a destiny in which he cannot but face head-on the trials that collide with him, centering on his household. It means that all those who seek to avoid this are servants.
The master accepts head-on everything that collides with him. When the Republic of Korea is challenged, the body that accepts head-on the difficulty of the Republic of Korea ought to be the ruling party. And thus it must form one organized body that moves consistently. And its members must all pursue a nation that can cross beyond the Republic of Korea and go to the world. Within the Republic of Korea, if the Democratic Republican Party pursues only the ideology of the Democratic Republican Party, it comes to perish. It means history until now has become so.
What the Unification Church Asserts
Then what must you do today as members who have joined our Unification Church? Our eating and living, our sleeping and waking, all our feelings must cross beyond the Republic of Korea and be for the world. Being for the world in the end becomes being for the Republic of Korea. It means let us globalize the Republic of Korea so that the Republic of Korea becomes the center of the world. It means that rather than subordinating the world to the Republic of Korea, let us establish the Republic of Korea within the world and make it shine. A people who can be so will become the subject people in the age of globalization. The Unification Church now has nothing. We set out with bare hands. Yet we want nothing.
Now, before the road the Republic of Korea must go, there are various difficult problems. At present the government is promoting economic revival, but this alone cannot sustain the Republic of Korea. It means that with this alone, the Republic of Korea cannot be liberated.
President Park too speaks of a second economy and asserts spiritual unity; but where shall we find the spiritual unity that can lead and move material problems, external problems, economic problems, and the ideological subjecthood of the citizenry? It means it is vague. With the present religion, it will not do. It means that even if one brings it forward, there is nothing to be done. It means that if one cannot seek this out within oneself, one must know how to seek it out even elsewhere. Even seeing such things, you must know how grave a position the Unification Church stands in today.
However much the nation revives, unless it seeks true people who can move the revived economic power, it collapses. It means it perishes. If one follows one’s own individual happiness, one perishes. If one loses the direction one must go, one wanders there and perishes. What is it that becomes a problem before the road the Republic of Korea must go? It will be the economic problem. But what is a more important problem than that? It is a thought subject that can move the world.
Now, north of the 38th Parallel, what is called communism is seeking a movement of globalization centering on one system. Before that thought, a democratic thought centered on a single people will not do. Unless one is oneself capable of leaving content and actual achievements greater than those by which the communists assert a movement of globalization, one cannot confront them.
If communism set out with an ideological notion centered on the human being, it would without fail perish. Communism, which asserts materialism and the materialist view of history, cannot cross its boundary line. It means it cannot cross beyond its nation.
Today the communists, having come to the moment at which they could make globalization possible centering on communist ideology, collided with that wall and retreated. It means they perish.
If the movement of communization is a movement of communization centered on the Soviet Union, it perishes. If it is not a movement of communization centered on the world but a movement of communization centered on the Soviet Union, it perishes. It is the same with democracy. A democracy centered on America perishes. It must become a democracy centered on the world. A nation that retreats on the road of going for the world perishes.
Then here there must be a subject thought that humankind of the world desires, a subject thought that can govern civilization however much civilization may be externally developed, such a worldwide thought. That is neither communism nor democracy. What ism is that ism? It is Godism.
What our Unification Church asserts is not Unification Church-ism. I would like to take down the Unification Church signboard. It means not a Koreanized Unification Church but a Unification-Church-ized Korea, and not a globalized Unification Church but a Unification-Church-ized world. Can that be made possible? Here the question becomes how to train the personnel who can globalize unification thought, the subject constituent personnel.
You must go the road of the movement of globalization. On the road you go, harsh trials will collide with you. All the trials and unresolved problems that appeared in the historical ages will appear before the road we go today, before us who carry on the movement of globalization. Only then is it true.
Therefore, there are trials for the individual as an individual. One must decide whether to die or live. One must agonize through the night over whether to go or not to go. And some people lose there. Some people say, “The Unification Church has good doctrine and good people, but aigo, because of that hardship I cannot go to the Unification Church.”
A Person Who Can Go Back Up Against the Muddy Current
If one would go centering on the individual, one must always struggle. Through an inner struggle, one must overcome trial and suffering and step forth saying, “I throw myself onto the front line.” When one thus overcomes individual trials and steps forth, the family opposes. It becomes so. Otherwise, it is wrong. One will collide with the opposition of the family. The members who have walked the same road of destiny until now will emerge as a band of trial.
Then what will become of you within that trial?
Your parents will bar the way. Your beloved wife and children will bar the way. Your brothers and sisters will bar the way. When barring the way does not work, they will step forth with a knife. Many people were stabbed while following the road of the Unification Church. Fathers to sons and mothers to daughters offered all sorts of opposition. Wives opposed husbands and husbands opposed wives, and among brothers and sisters there was all sorts of opposition. There were such wretched things. That is why Jesus too said,
“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household (Matt. 10:34-36).”
These words were spoken in this sense.
Before Jesus, who was presenting a movement of globalization, the stage of trial he had to go through emerged all at once. The individual who appeared was an arena of trial, and the family too, and the clan, and the people, and the world were arenas of trial. Jesus, placed in a position of possibly becoming the loser in this arena of trial, met his final destiny. Facing the cross, over the question whether he would perish or prosper, he came to stand at a crossroads of whether to think centering on himself as an individual or to think centering on God’s Will.
What settled this was the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. He thought, “For what have I fought? That life of over thirty years, following the public Will, was a life lived centering on what? Did I live for the happiness of my own single person? No. I lived not for the happiness of my own single person but for the happiness of God. I lived pursuing the happiness of the people and the nation and the world that could remain within God’s realm. Therefore, when I cannot cross that limit, centering on myself within the sphere of the Fall, my will and the Father’s will of seeking to establish such a nation become separate things.” Thinking in this way, currently this Will collided; he settled his mind and sought to make a judgment centering on the family, centering on the people, centering on the nation, centering on the world; and that was the death on the cross.
Because in such a process of decisive victory he died embracing the Father’s Will, the realm of death could not govern him. That is why, even if they drove him into death, he could cross the line of death and be born again. This is what Christianity calls resurrection. A person resurrected in this way becomes an individual in a new sense. He is not an individual restrained within every limited sphere. He becomes an individual who has transcended limited spheres. It means he is resurrected from a position of having crossed the limited sphere of the family, the limited sphere of the clan, and the limited spheres of the people, the nation, and the world.
A person who follows centering on that resurrection can, with a power beyond all the happiness felt in the human world and beyond the resolve felt in the human world, go back up against a muddy current like a flowing great sea. That is how Christianity became globalized in name and in reality.
Because Jesus walked such a road, the Christians who must inherit this must set themselves in order again and collide. This is the road Christians today must go and the responsibility that the countless religions of the present point must fulfill. Yet religions that seek to escape this disappear from the earth. Even if one tells them not to perish, they perish. A person who pursues their own happiness under the pretext of religion perishes. If one lives centering on one’s own single person, one perishes. One perishes.
The Unification Church, Which Appeared Conscious of a Worldwide Mission
Upon the believers of our Unification Church, arrows of persecution have beaten down from the day they set out on the pioneering course. We must consider how much God awaited these arrows of persecution beating down.
The purpose for which God has endured until this day and fought until this day is to let His beloved children cross this pass all at once. It means that God’s love, God’s hope, God’s awaiting, and God’s longing to let them cross this pass all at once are concentrated at this one point in time.
You must realize the infinite value of your selves, born at a time when you can stand in such a position. You must feel the self-awareness of having been born in a new nest from which you can go back up against the sorrowful history of the past. A subject person is needed who can say, “Since I was born here, from now on I will go with dignity. Though anything in the world strikes me and pushes me, I will go. The trials that draw near will not be material that makes me retreat but material that makes me advance. I will absorb them as an influence by which the Will can be accomplished in the future.”
There cannot but be trials before the road you go. That is God’s love. God comes seeking sons and daughters who can cross such crises of trial. God is the one who let even Jesus die in such a position. That was not to make him die but to make him victorious. It was unavoidable for the sake of victory. Because a destiny of having to decide victory remains on this course of the providence of salvation, He set His beloved child in a position of death. That is God’s love and God’s method of strategy for drawing a decisive line of victory. Therefore, without crossing this, one cannot transcend relationships. It means one cannot resolve the relationship between you and me.
Therefore, before such a history, a religious person who can resolve this must appear and fulfill a worldwide mission. A band that feels such a mission and steps forth must without fail appear in the world. If such a band does not appear, God does not exist. The band that appeared conscious of such a mission is the Unification Church band.
Trials for the individual as an individual will collide with you. When they collide, you must become people who can say, “Come! Enemy, take up your whip and strike. Strike with all the strength you have. You came forth representing the satanic world, but I have appeared representing the heavenly kingdom. In the fight between you and me, I absolutely cannot retreat. You may lie in wait for several years and strike me in a fight for a single day’s happiness, but because I am a son standing in place of God, who has lain in wait for thousands of years, I will continue this fight for ten years, twenty years, thirty years, indeed staking my whole life.” Through such a process of fighting, the history of unification has been woven down to us.
Just as it is with the history of humankind, so it is likewise with the history of the Unification Church. Though it is a shortened, brief historical course, the Unification Church has drawn its picture not as a history of escaping the world but as centering on circumstances by which it can look the world in the face and go straight. Before the gateway of the world we look squarely at, the question is how to meet this and how to digest it; how to view it is not the question. Anyone can assert an ism or a thought. The question is how one holds conviction about it.
Let Us Go Straight, Representing the World
In this sense, the 1960s are a period of putting us members of the Unification Church on trial. It is a time of putting myself on trial.
If told to go, one must go. To seek a road that escapes the destiny of the Fall is the road humankind must go. To break open this course of solitude, one must not go around. If one goes around, who will assert this, take blows, and take responsibility for that fight? A person who goes around will perish.
You must go straight, representing the world. You must advance with your lives at stake. We have carried on such a fight until now. We have crossed over everything the individual collides with. We are bodies that stepped forth, casting away opposing parents and casting away brothers and sisters. We are bodies that stepped forth in a position where the whole village opposed and laughed at us. Not only that, we are bodies that were reviled as mad fellows while going about countless villages.
But one must not perish there. One must pass through such business. One must pass through being reviled in the nation as well. We are a band that was reviled by individuals, and reviled in the family, and reviled in the village, and reviled in school, and reviled in society, and denounced by the sovereign powers of the nation; but we cannot perish here. Even if all perish, we cannot perish. It means we must not perish.
The Teacher, who comes forth shouldering such a responsibility, is leading the life of a leader such as has not existed in history. I have much to assert for the sake of this nation. Though there are many circumstances about which I could take hold of the heart (심정) of the thirty million and pour out my whole situation, I am a person who has come forth awaiting the time.
Although I am a person who ought to live in the sunniest of sunny places, I am living in the shadiest of shady places. That is because I fear that it might by chance hinder the road the people must go. We cannot perish here. Therefore, one way or another, we must subjugate those who oppose.
If the individual opposes, how shall we subjugate the individual?
If the family opposes, how shall we bring the family to understand? If the clan opposes, what shall we do? If the church opposes, what shall we do? If the nation opposes, what shall we do? This is the anguish of the Teacher, who has guided you until now.
That I am torn, and that I am wounded, and that I bear a ghastly false accusation, is not the problem. The problem is how to make a band of unification that can step forth before these people with subject consciousness, a band of unification that can step forth before the world with subject consciousness.
If one thinks only of face and dignity, one perishes. If the individual is good, try living while taking hold of the individual. If the family is good, try living while taking hold of the family. If the clan is good, try living while taking hold of the clan. It means nothing at all is resolved.
The value of a human being is not individual. Nor is he a being who must become a sacrificial offering for one family. It must be worldwide.
If one is a son of God, one must lead an inner and outer life that can exert influence before the whole world and before all history, centering on a breath that can stand in place of the world and feelings of living that can stand in place of the world. Without that, digging a pit and swarming inside it and bustling about inside it will not do.
However great that pit may be, one perishes inside it. One must go. The person who stands here speaking stepped forth, casting away even parents. He stepped forth, casting away even wife and children. This is a road one cannot go without doing so. It is a road on which blood spatters. It is a road on which the sinews of the heart (심정) stand on end. It is a road on which unspeakable circumstances intersect. One must overcome this. It is my destiny to press through this crossroads and go.
I stand on this straight line of destiny. Knowing that there is no other road for me to go, the question is how to leave behind the figure of a man who can go toward the world, toward humankind, bearing tomorrow’s hope. That is why my own trivial self is not the problem. The environment applied is not the problem. The trials that draw near are not the problem. Undergoing wretched scenes that a human being cannot pass through and cannot experience is not the problem. The question is how to break through this.
We have already unfolded such a fight and pressed through the wall of the individual. Parents who opposed came and knelt before you and acknowledged, saying, “I was wrong. Having come to know the Unification Church, it is not so after all.” Here, for those parents, a foundation is paved through their child by which they can stand before God without passing through an individual fight.
Let Us Break Through Harsh Opposition and Go to That World Full of Hope
Today in the Republic of Korea, the movement of the Unification Church has entered a stage of gradually becoming an issue inside and out. When the Republic of Korea, which opposed, turns about and takes our hand and supports the road the Unification Church goes, and says it will follow the road the Unification Church goes, it means a road arises by which the thirty million of these people can go without passing through the trial and suffering up to the standard of the nation.
Though the person called Teacher Moon, who guides the Unification Church today, is a lonely person and a pitiful person, the reason he has something to say before these people is that he did not say that the whole people must go the same road as I, but said that by my one self undergoing trial, he would pave the crisis of trial that these people must go for several decades. When it becomes so, these people will bow their heads. When the people form a relationship by which they can receive from Heaven the privileged grace of the Republic of Korea welcoming liberation without passing through the trial of each individual, the trial of the family, the trial of the clan, and the trial of the people, will these people not become a people who can have a relationship of being embraced before God, though they stood until now in the position of betrayers or in a position of opposing? The Teacher is going forward, gazing upon that time.
The road the Unification Church goes today is reported throughout the whole world. It means the report that the Unification Church is bad has spread everywhere. We go saying, “Very well. Oppose if you will oppose. But we will go.” Now the Japanese government is making an issue of the Unification Church. The American government too is making an issue of the Unification Church. But the Unification Church will not disappear within the sphere of a people just because a people makes an issue of it. It means that in treading upon a people and rising and carrying on a movement of globalization centering on the content I have presented, we carry out a practice more powerful than any people, any organization, or any nation. It means that we swear we will not become losers who avoid the trial and suffering that draw near.
Because he held such conviction, in the hand of this man whom you revere today as a teacher, there is a history of having worn shackles. Hereafter too I am resolved for such a thing. When one final crossroads of death bars my way, I will not become a petty man. If they draw their swords, I too will draw mine. I will unfold a great fight. It is only because that time has not yet come that I am like this.
Let us go to that world. We must go to a bright world of tomorrow’s hope. Where shall we find a figure of infinite value that can tread upon the mortifying history of bitter resentment of past days, the history of suffering, the history of sorrow, the history of grief, the history of ghastliness, and, welcoming a hopeful today, run powerfully toward tomorrow? Not the Republic of Korea; where shall we find a figure of infinite value? Not the Republic of Korea; we must seek it centering on the world. This is the road of destiny we must go. To unfold a new world of hope and unfold a movement of globalization before a hopeless world of despair that is going to ruin, centering on this tremendous history, the question is how the small band of the Unification Church sets the standard of globalization. This has been the goal of the struggle for which the Teacher has fought with his whole life at stake until now. I take the flying arrows squarely. It means to take them even without sleeping at night. In the scars where the arrows were embedded, the response of history will appear. There, a history of hope will prepare the source of tradition.
The Road Jesus Walked
Seen from this viewpoint, where must we go today?
We must go to the world. What I instruct is not to become president of the Republic of Korea or the like. It is to save the world. It is to liberate all the people of the world and make them sons and daughters of God. Is this not the work parents must do? Is this not the work God must do? God has not worked until now for His own success. He has worked to make His sons and daughters succeed.
So you too, though yesterday you were a wretched figure, today must become a stately figure who flies a new banner of hope toward the world and joins the ranks of the heavenly contest. It means do not become a trivial, petty man.
And thus we must collide head-on with the course of trial and shatter it. When we shatter this and go forward, infinite value comes to call me. The love of that value, the happiness of that value, a figure that can admire tomorrow from the position of that value and can praise the today of that value; is that not the victorious sons and daughters God comes seeking? For this we are running. Jesus too died on such a road. But though Jesus died, he did not die; he has brought history to life.
Inferring from such things, in pursuing the true world until now, a history that set out centering on God cannot avoid a destiny of perishing when it goes forth centering on itself. But if here there be a band that treads upon itself again and makes the world its arena of trial and absorbs all the trials left in history as the course of trial of its life and steps forth seeking to indemnify them within its sphere of living, that band will absolutely not perish.
People who feel the value of life here and feel the value of living in being for the world will absolutely not perish. Though they may feel a historical distance, though there be a difference in years, those people will never perish. Even if the course of trial and persecution that people have woven appears in the historical course hereafter in any place in the world, we can here make material by which that trial and suffering can be crossed with only a second test that is not difficult to overcome.
We must cast off yesterday’s insufficient self-centeredness and hold a right attachment by which we can live centering on God. And thus we must unfold a stage on which the trials and sufferings God underwent in the six thousand years of the historical course can be indemnified all at once on the horizontal plane, that is, on which vertical history can be indemnified horizontally all at once. When it becomes so, however difficult a trial sweeps over me, I will not be caught up in it and die. A person who can plant the Father’s Will from a position that has crossed beyond my thought and my conviction and my happiness does not perish. This is the tradition and the thought Jesus left.
Who would have known that the road Jesus went, saying, “Abba Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as the Father wills,” could create the world today and could save the world? Who would have known that the death of Jesus, that young man who became a friend of the fishermen on the shore of Galilee and disappeared as a national traitor of the nation of Israel at that time, whom no one recognized, would be globalized today?
It means that death differs in motive. It means history is different. Because the content of that motive turned over together with God, as long as God lives and moves history, He fights together with him. That is why, centering on that history in which blood was shed, the world cannot but be absorbed into it. That is why the movement of globalization centering on Christianity is achieved by an automatic principle. Seen from this viewpoint, you must know that the present point is one moment when we can be struck just as Jesus was struck.
The Excellence of Eastern Thought and the Problem of American Pragmatism
Here I will tell you one thing. When I went to America the other time, I met a well-known man named Matthew Smith who works in the American press world. This person is currently registered in Canada and is a writer widely known as a person who exerts considerable influence in the press world of Canada and America. I asked that writer to look over the translation of the Exposition of the Divine Principle that had been prepared, and came back. Then this person made a detailed analysis of America and wrote out at length about the way of thinking of present-day Americans. That person saw that there is a difference as of heaven and earth between Eastern thought and the present thought of America.
What is called happiness is something abstract. But before Americans, who seek pragmatism, the word happiness must be explained concretely. When children attending elementary school ask what happiness is, one must not explain it to them abstractly. One must explain happiness with something actually visible. It means they understand only when one explains in the manner of, “A happy person lives in such a fine house and has an automobile like a Lincoln.” It means that with happiness itself, however much one explains, they do not know. For these people, there is no way to put in the concept of God. There is no way to put in the concept of the spiritual world. Such things cannot be explained with something substantial.
But when we look at Eastern thought, even a single word contains an ideology. If one unravels even the word person, the mind symbolizes heaven and the body symbolizes earth. Because everything is in this manner, it means Western people have no way to understand this. A certain famous scholar studied the Book of Changes (주역) and translated it, and in its preface he is said to have written, “I have made the translation, but I have translated this book, which I do not understand well.” It means there is no way to grasp a basis for explanation, however one would grasp it. Seen from such content, it means God has no way to draw near to Western people, however He would draw near.
The leaf of a tree cannot know the root. Can a leaf know the root? However much it seeks to know, it means it knows only the leaf. If the root said, “Hey leaf, whom do you resemble? You resemble the root, do you not? Would it believe? It means it would say, “I resemble a leaf; why would I resemble the root? Our appearances are different.”
But Eastern thought is not so. It means it regards the root as more important than the leaf. So it means the two extremes have now borne fruit. Eastern thought has come until now centering on thought, whereas Western thought, having come from centering on matter, lost even the great mountain mass and, going on about atoms and neutrons, has at the very end ended up staring blankly.
How shall we awaken this and turn it around? What must be done to awaken this? One must apply the whip. That is why there is reason in God’s whipping, centering on the communists. As they go on about matter and matter and look at everything centering on matter, they come to feel dread at materialism, and a movement will unfold of denying it, saying, “Ouch, now I hate matter.” When we think in this way, it means that the communists gaining the upper hand for a time worldwide is to whip such things. In fact, it is so.
Do you think that when Americans first came to Korea, they regarded Koreans as people? But as they gradually came down, it means that you and we are six of one and half a dozen of the other. It means we are more or less alike. It means that within the organization called the United Nations, however great America may be and however tiny a nation of Africa may be, they are the same.
However loudly one shouts, it means that in the United Nations General Assembly it amounts to only one vote. Because such an organization came forth, it became possible to emphasize the subjecthood of the human being. It means it has created a sphere of the age in which the subjecthood of a people and the subjecthood of a nation can take equal rights.
So it means that Americans must come to shudder at the word matter. It means that Americans dislike socialism, but they do not dislike the materialism connected to that socialism. They say socialism is bad, but socialism is an ism that is centered on matter. It means they do not dislike what is called the materialist thought that is the fundamental philosophy of socialism. It means they dislike the result but do not dislike its cause.
How shall we make them dislike this?
That is the Teacher’s strategy for America. It is not that the social system of communism is bad, but that communist theory is bad. In this sense, we carry on the Victory-Over-Communism movement. We have been carrying on this strategy to hit the mark. Seeing such things, we can know that Satan has truly made the utmost effort. It means that, having cleverly dragged things along until now, he has made even the advanced nation that leads the world, American society, in which so-called two-thirds of the citizenry hold Christian faith, end up staring blankly before pragmatism, an ism centered on matter.
Let Us Return to the Age of God-Centrism
Then where must one go?
It means one must go back again. It means the road to life is none other than that road. It means that flailing about saying one will live will not do. One must go back. One must go back. That is why one must kick aside the Renaissance and the thought of humanism that appeared at the end of the fourteenth century and return to the age of God-centrism (신본주의). Here the Unification Church must fulfill the mission of a bridge connecting the Eastern and Western cultural spheres. The Unification Church has ample content that can be so. Preparing for such a time, which will without fail come, we must go on equipping ourselves with subjecthood.
We must make a matrix that can be unfolded before the people and the nation and the world. Herein lies the reason we must strengthen our system of activity.
Seen from this viewpoint, their way of thinking is at a far distance from our way of thinking. So you must know that our having been born today as citizens of Korea, our having been born within the system of one nation of the East, is not unhappiness but the utmost happiness.
Think once about people such as Socrates of old. They were not people who ate well and lived well at that time. They were people who lived receiving mockery from the passersby of the street. Yet they became the ancestors who founded the world cultural sphere of today. It is not that they ate well and dressed well. When we come to think that, though their figures were haggard and ghastly, their systems of thought governed history and received the reverence of later generations, let us not be discouraged by looking only at what is actual.
However great the trial and suffering that draw near may be, it means they remain as one source and a pulse of power that can shine together with the glory of the history of later generations.
When we think of this, it means this is a tremendous fact. A person who says he dislikes this is an utterly unhappy person, and a person who says he likes this is an utterly happy person. You must know this.
Then, from this viewpoint, where shall we establish our value? And having established value, how shall we live? When we consider such questions, a person who can display value in breaking open the difficult problems that must be overcome worldwide will without fail, in later generations, become a person who lives together with history and lives together with the world. To make you into such individuals of character, the Teacher must drive you out mercilessly, even barefoot in the deep cold of winter. To make you break open all such difficult environments, I must drive you out ruthlessly.
It means that if one would inherit intact all the foundation the Teacher has paved until now, one must pass through such a process of indemnity. It means that here the figure of the true value of a member of the Unification Church is determined.
Now we have entered the period in which 1969 and 1970 cross. Knowing that when they cross, one must without fail present a condition of indemnity and cross over, we must set out again, centering on a nationwide stage.
As you will know from having learned the history of Restoration, because the first Adam failed, the second Adam came and sought to gather this up. But because the second Adam too failed, a third Adam must appear, and this one is the Lord at the Second Advent. Likewise, you too must restore what failed in the 1960s.
The Responsibility You Must Fulfill Hereafter
You must know that herein lies the reason this time we are gathering the families and sending them again to the regions where they witnessed in the old days. Do you understand? The stage of trial that draws near a second time will differ from that of old. In the old days, arrows of persecution drove in upon you, but now the opposite result will appear. Those who opposed you in the old days became your enemies and also caused han to be knotted in Heaven. But they will welcome you and, saying, “In the past I was wrong,” will unbind the relationship they had knotted before God and step forth. When it becomes so, a time of new fortune for the Unification Church will come. This is the Teacher’s observation. Do you understand? “Yes.”
So we must unbind this nationwide by the principle of indemnity. So you have a responsibility to go seeking those who had become enemies and visit them with a humble attitude, saying, “Are you well? How have you been? In the old days you persecuted me; will you persecute me now today?” and unbind what was knotted, and devote more sincerity for them, and introduce to them the thought of the Unification Church, and return. You must know that this is the responsibility to be fulfilled in crossing from the 1960s into the 1970s.
Here the question of our value yesterday and today emerges. Rather than avoiding this trial, one must accept the trial intact and newly recognize a second value. In other words, just as Jesus crossed over the trial and suffering of the past and newly recognized the value of resurrection, let us likewise newly recognize a new second value and welcome the 1970s.
This is the Teacher’s command given to you. Knowing it so, I hope you will become responsible people who can hold infinite value. You understand, do you not? “Yes.” It means do not avoid trial and suffering. It means take them intact and go straight.