That you have come out to nature on a spring day and offer worship is the first time upon welcoming the year 1970. Believing that, by centering on this place, together with our gathering, God’s new history will begin, I ask that you pass today joyfully.
The title I will speak on briefly today is “Springtime and the Human Being.” I intend to speak briefly on this content.
The Seasons and Life
When we say “springtime,” the great majority of people come to associate flowers.
Furthermore, they come to associate butterflies and bees. Next, they associate a season in which what is new revives.
Furthermore, they come to associate spring with glory within a year. Therefore, we come to know that there is nothing among all things that does not rejoice in this spring. Spring can also be considered a season of feasting in which everything reveals what it prepared for one time.
The relationship between such spring days and us human beings cannot be severed, however one would. Spring did not come into being as spring itself. In order for spring to come into being, before spring there must without fail be winter, and before winter there must be autumn.
Furthermore, before autumn there must be summer, and before summer there must be spring. When we thus think of going back in reverse, we come to know that spring always circulates and comes seeking again.
Then when is the unforgettable spring that comes but once for us human beings? The spring spoken of here is not the seasonal spring we welcome today but a spring seen centering on life itself. When we set out in life, one may say spring is the age of youth, in the process of passing through the season of adolescence. In this way we can think that our human course consists of the age of youth, the age of maturity, and the age of old age.
Thus, in the lifetime of every person too, there is a period of youth like spring, a period of maturity like summer, a period of old age like autumn, and a gloomy road of death like winter. Even seeing such things, we can associate the human lifetime itself with a course like spring, summer, autumn, and winter.
Then, if we widen the scope a little more and see this centered on human history, in the life our humankind has come through today, what kind of time indeed is spring? We human beings do not know its scope.
Furthermore, if there was a spring, there must be a summer. But when we ask when that summer is, it means we do not know that summer.
Furthermore, when we ask when autumn is, we may be able to anticipate an autumn, but it means we do not know at what time autumn is. When spring goes, and summer goes, and autumn goes, winter will without fail come. Furthermore, only by crossing beyond the pass called winter does spring come round again.
When we come to think of such a problem together with our course of life or the history of humankind, if one would welcome the joyful environment called spring today, one cannot but pass through the course until welcoming it.
In order for this spring to come out, one must without fail pass through winter, and to pass through winter, one must pass through autumn.
Furthermore, to pass through autumn, one must without fail come through spring and summer. It means that without holding the authority of having broken through such a road of destiny, one cannot welcome spring.
Inferring from such a fact, we cannot but think again about what time indeed the spring of our life will be. Then in human living, or in human history, has there been a time that sang of the human being’s spring? And has there been a time of praising summer? We know that there was no such time.
Next, when we ask whether there was a time of reviving from spring and growing and boasting of the fruit and praising autumn, we do not even clearly know whether there was such a time. In this way, because the countless human beings of history groped through the road of destiny without knowing that, it means we have now come even to the point of welcoming a final time of terror.
If there were a Creator who created this heaven and earth, He would without fail have had the human being depart from spring, but where is that spring? Human beings today not only cannot find this but do not even think of it. And where is summer, and where is autumn?
And where is that which has borne fruit as one life equipped with vital power by which one can welcome autumn and again welcome a new spring?
When we ask ourselves such questions, it means there was never a time in the course of human history when one stood in a position of having found that or of having known it. From such a position, at what time will spring, the Creator who created this heaven and earth, must without fail give to the human being? Or whether there was such a time or not cannot but be a problem.
Though we can welcome spring that comes unchangingly every year, is there anyone who can say he has confidence in welcoming the spring of his life? When we set out such a problem, would there indeed be a person upon this earth who could say he has confidence?
If we define, from a religious position, that our humankind is a fallen being and examine it, the conclusion comes out that there is no such person.
If One Were to Welcome the Civilization of Spring
Then what does one call the Fall?
Although the master who created us human beings made us to give a spring in which He could sing of the highest happiness together with the created beings and could praise it as a time of highest grace, what we did not welcome is that spring is the Fall. Human beings who ought to have had, in addition to the joy of welcoming spring, a summer in which one could develop infinitely and be infinitely luxuriant together with that joy, lost even summer through the Fall.
Then what does He require through that luxuriant summer?
He requires one fruit. That fruit is a fruit that retains one vital power by which one can welcome spring again. Only when that fruit holds vital power by which it can cross winter that draws near hereafter can one again welcome spring.
Likewise, the human being today too must without fail welcome spring together with God, and welcome summer, and welcome autumn, and become one living body that can hold infinite vital power. And thus, unless one becomes a fruit holding vital power by which one can suppress and cross over whatever there is that opposes one’s own life, one cannot again welcome spring.
While we are today in an environment in which we can joyfully welcome this spring day equipped with everything, there is a problem we must think about. That is the question of in what kind of place the spring day the human being ought originally to have had should have been achieved. When we see this from a religious viewpoint centering on the event of the Fall, would it not be the age before the Fall?
If that were the age before the human being’s fall, how would it have been?
That age would have been an indescribable time of glory in our lives. Because it is a time when an indescribable power of revival would fill the whole Cosmos and could stretch out on high; a new bond would be formed from there. It means, would it not be a season in which bonds of the angelic world, like butterflies and bees, harmonize together with us human beings?
Furthermore, it would be a season in which heaven and earth could harmonize and the created things God made could harmonize, centering on the human being and God. And yet the losing of such a season is precisely because of the Fall.
If we human beings had welcomed such a season, a cultural world like summer, in which one could develop infinitely even in the human world, would have been created centering on the ground of God’s joyful grace. But it means such a world has not appeared upon this earth. That world is not two worlds but one world, that is, a world that represents unification.
When one welcomes spring, spring presents to us a unified environment. We come to gaze upon the fact that all plants and trees welcome spring and present an environment unified entirely in green.
If in the cultural world of humankind today such a unified world of culture like this season had been achieved, that culture would have remained in human history, and that remaining human history would have continued eternally without holding a destiny of change and retreat and ruin.
Although the culture and civilization of humankind ought to have remained within such a bond, in the past course of human history we can know that this has arisen time after time and then perished, and having perished, arisen again, and history has developed until now.
Then at what point is the civilization of the twentieth century placed today?
This age has entered within a sphere of the age, like autumn, whether on the course of cultural history or on the course of human history. Anyone at all can anticipate this.
Then what does autumn foretell?
It foretells the end. That is why every religion, whatever it may be, speaks of the consummation of human history. That is not only Christianity. It means that the countless religions that govern the higher world of thought also foretell an age of the consummation of the human being. This tells us that we have come to a boundary line at which one must cross beyond autumn. We must know this.
Then what is the problem point for humankind living within the sphere of twentieth-century civilization, which has welcomed such an autumn?
It is not that feeling deficient in the aspect of living and feeling threat and terror in the aspect of the environment that is the problem. Hereafter, autumn will pass, and a consummating winter will, without fail, come seeking us before our fallen humankind. It means the problem is whether we human beings have become, or have not become, a fruit holding one vital power by which we can cross beyond this winter. We must know this.
The Human Being, Who Must Become a Fruit Holding Vital Power
Where lies the one purpose for which religion has fought together with human history until now?
It is to form an individual holding one vital power that can cross beyond the world of consummation at the Last Days, one body holding vital power, one cultural world sphere holding vital power. It means this is the purpose religion has toiled and come seeking until now.
That is why the very individual within the sphere of religion must become a fruit holding vital power by which one can settle life and death in a time of terror like winter that draws near hereafter and can cross beyond such a sphere of destiny.
Therefore, one must become one fruit that has been synthesized, holding elements that have absorbed everything of autumn and equipped with content that has absorbed all the essence of summer and having completely absorbed the reviving power of spring. It means that the total combined fruit is precisely one human being holding vital power.
It means there must be one body that has become such a fruit, one people that has become such a fruit, such a nation, such a world. If there be no such world, nation, people, family, individual, one must think that the ground of hope by which one can welcome spring in the world of terror and crisis that draws near hereafter is severed.
We must recall once again the fact that such a problem cannot but be a serious problem for us who are today welcoming the spring of nature when we set out the human history walked until now or our own past days.
So we must become a substance holding vital power by which we can pass through autumn and overcome and cross beyond every threat of winter. Only when that substance remains as a gathered body of every element of spring, summer, autumn, and winter can one overcome winter. To put it another way, it means that only by adding all the strength of spring and summer and autumn can one overcome winter.
In our human history today, there must be one person equipped with content that can stand in place of the sphere of civilization of spring, content that can stand in place of the sphere of civilization of summer, content that can stand in place of the sphere of civilization of autumn. And thus, one must be equipped with one ideology centered on that one person, one view of the nation, one worldview, and one view of life. It means that without becoming a decisive fruit that is thoroughly equipped with such views, one cannot overcome winter that becomes the boundary line of terror and death that will come to the human being hereafter.
Seen from this viewpoint, the question is whether the content of spring indeed dwells deep within your minds. Also, whether there dwells the content that summer symbolizes, that is, a source of power that can develop infinitely and be infinitely luxuriant. There is a period that, like autumn, synthesizes all one’s own value and directly connects the vital power of a self of distinct individuality. Just as such a period must be passed through centering on the fruit, you must say that, by centering on your own individual self, you will be equipped with a character by which I, as I can, completely bear fruit.
The value of that character is one fruit. That is why, to welcome a new spring day, one must be able to reveal one’s own self without shame before any environment or any world and welcome the glory of a new spring day. Only by becoming such a self does one become a person who can welcome the so-called heavenly kingdom spoken of in Christianity and become a person who can welcome the Lord.
We human beings must govern the four seasons. We must hold content of heart (심정) by which we can govern spring and thereby anticipate summer. And being luxuriant beyond the luxuriance of summer, we must go seeking toward the hope of autumn. And thus, you must find a self full of an explosive hope by which one can push through and cross even to one foothold of the eternal world.
In this way, only by holding a self that holds such true worth of life, which cannot be exchanged even for the universe, that is, which can be given infinite valuation, centering on one’s own fruit, does one become a human being who can govern the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter.
Also, it means that human beings who did not normally have a spring and a summer and an autumn in the historical age can welcome in a comfortable way the original four seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter that come newly.
If One Had Welcomed Spring God Gave
When we set out such a problem, we must know once again how grave and pressing this one place of a spring day, in which the environment is normally equipped, is today. We must recall once again that what God desired was that we human beings welcome the original spring.
When we welcome spring, we come to associate flowers blooming in profusion amid nature. Then were they not human beings themselves, centering on God, beings like one flower among all the phenomena of heaven and earth? The question is how human beings, who ought to have become like such flowers, have come to be like this.
If there be a flower, that flower must not only be beautiful, but within that beauty a rich fragrance must dwell. We human beings too, like flowers, must, at the same time as being equipped with infinite beauty, contain infinite fragrance. And so one must become a self-holding one, a subjective foundation by which butterflies and bees can naturally fly in, smelling the fragrance that spreads in all four directions.
The human being must become a being like one flower in the spring garden of the whole created world. In order for the human being thus to fulfill the role of a flower, the activity of butterflies and bees is necessary.
We know that God, at the same time as creating the human world, created the angelic world. Then what kind of world is the angelic world? When the human being, for one fruit, appears equipped with beauty as a being like a flower and giving off fragrance, only then does a nest of love come to be equipped. That is why all vital power comes to depart from there, and beings holding a bond of all life come to be able to harmonize from there. In this way, it means the origin of being able to harmonize is precisely the human being.
If, centering on such a human being, the heavenly hosts and angels in heaven achieved a subject authority of harmony by which they could give and receive with the human being like butterflies and bees, it would truly have become a flower garden of harmony in which God rejoices and the human being rejoices and the angels rejoice and the whole created world is steeped in love, and a spring feast would have begun.
But where has the value of a human being who could be so gone?
If one had become such a human being, how glorious would it be, and how much would one esteem one’s own self, holding infinite value?
And yet we human beings, who have lost such an original posture, have dragged along until now a course of history of lamentation and despair and self-abandonment in the historical age.
Even so, the human being has fought while setting up the holy signpost called “goodness,” gazing upon one thread-like point of hope for the future. We must think once again how wretched is the destiny of human beings placed in a historic age of consummation, having welcomed a season of late autumn heading toward the road of the setting sun, though one does not know what it is.
Embraced in the bosom of love and drinking mother’s milk to the full, and feeling to the very marrow the heart (심정) deep within the mother’s mind, what has become of my figure, which ought to live holding eternal vital power throughout a lifetime? We human beings have become a pitiful humankind that has not held such a ground of affection that cannot be severed, however one would.
Not only that, though among our brothers we ought to have been born forming a bond with the parents’ flesh and blood and become one clan, we brought about the opposite result. That is why in the course of several thousand years of history, countless people have died and perished through war, crossing from mutual slaughter of kin to peoples and nations. They shed blood and made others shed blood. When we set out such a fact, we human beings were a wretched humankind that passed through a bond in which we could not offer loyalty before God behind such history.
We are not at present, even right now, in a position where we can embrace tomorrow’s hope and boast of the infinite inner value with which a human being must be equipped. The position of reality is placed at a point where one cannot trust oneself and one cannot hold tomorrow’s hope, and fear blocks us even on the road we must go hereafter.
When we come to think that we are ourselves placed in such a plight, if in such a position the human being should lament himself and abandon himself and enter a position of denying himself, where would there be a more wretched thing than this?
If one thinks from such a position, it would rather be a nuisance to think about the questions of there being no God and why this nature arose and also for what this universe exists. Also, it means the human being becomes a being of sorrow.
Therefore, it means every environment that appears, every scene of the world that is seen, becomes an object of refutation or an object of denunciation.
We cannot think that the universe arose as a condition of such infinite lamentation. When we come to gaze upon the form of these seasons moving toward one purpose or one fruit, it means one cannot face this nature and environment holding such a conclusion.
Accordingly, we cannot but think once again that the figure of human beings today is not a normal figure but an abnormal figure.
The Road of Religion, Which Came Forth Seeking Spring
Now what is necessary for us is that we must go back seeking again the infinite thread of affection by which we can be embraced in the parents’ bosom. It is the road of religion that is for introducing this before humankind.
First one must go seeking into the thread of the parents’ affection, and next one must go seeking into the thread of the affection of the bridegroom and bride, and next one must go seeking into the thread of the affection of brothers.
Only by being equipped with such content can one become a child loved by the parents. If one had grown normally and appeared as a bridegroom and bride, that is, if one had departed from a normal position holding one’s own value, humankind today would not have run up against such a world of result.
Then what is it that is a problem for ourselves who are today amid such despair?
It is how one goes seeking into the original standard of heart (심정). God wished to see us human beings welcome a bond like spring and depart. But He did not come to see such a thing. This must become God’s lamentation and must become the human being’s lamentation.
Next, it was God’s wish that the human being would go into a sphere in which, like summer, one could stretch out infinitely and praise infinite verdure.
Although the human being ought to have prospered infinitely and developed infinitely and become one valuable fruit holding infinite vital power and achieved human history and achieved a world of culture, he did not achieve such history and such a world. When we look at such an actual state, what we must recall once again here is that we cannot but pursue a view by which we can bear fruit in the original world.
We human beings must not see the conclusion only in despair and lamentation and death. God must connect the future before the human being with one thread of hope. There must be such a road. What has come forth until now to introduce this road is religion.
Also, those who have come and gone until now to present this road are the responsible individuals of religion or of the Way (도 道). We must know the merit they established.
The True Meaning of Winter
The world that draws near before us today will be a world that makes one hold terror. Undoubtedly, such a world will appear. The deeper autumn grows, the more what comes seeks before it. Winter comes seeking. When we see the pressing content of humankind’s consummation penetrating our sphere of living together with threat, you must know that winter is coming before us.
In welcoming winter, it is not that we seek to avoid this environment of terror, but that we must confront it and settle it decisively. And thus one must become one unchanging living body, an unchanging fruit, holding vital power by which one can overcome autumn and overcome winter.
Unless it becomes so, one will not be able to welcome the spring that heaven and earth have prepared, which comes seeking with new hope. It means we cannot welcome a spring day that has never once been experienced before by a human being. You must think about such a problem.
When one looks at a single seed, it looks exceedingly frail. But it must pass a period that no one at all can endure and a period of trial that yields not in the least to its environment in the process of passing through the three winter months in which a snowy cold wind blows. That period is winter. It means that the time of coming into contact with the final boundary line that threatens life is winter.
To give a familiar example, for a pine nut seed, winter is an object of terror that threatens its life, but it is not a time that destroys the life of that seed. It is a time when the pine nut itself breaks open its shell to give birth to new life. Seeing this, we must know that the seasons conflicting is not to deny another season but to prepare ground for the arrival of a new season.
If perhaps there were no vital power within the pine nut itself, the pine nut itself would not break open. However much a winter of terror and threat collides with it, if there be no vital power within that pine nut, it cannot break the shell. Because vital power holds out, there is a power by which one can welcome tomorrow’s spring, that is, a power pushing outward in all four directions. In this way it means the motive by which one can newly depart, together with the colliding power and the new power that it itself holds, comes forth equipped with a new direction.
We must think that rather than only criticizing the history of past days as contradictory, it exists to prepare a ground from which a more valuable vital power can depart. Seen from this position, the conclusion comes out that winter is not a bad season for us human beings.
Spring too is good, and summer too is good, and autumn too is good, but winter is better. It means it is all the better because the price of life that I myself can hold, the value of life myself can have, makes it possible to welcome tomorrow’s glory. In this way, winter is the moment of making a final decision by which the value of the whole can be evaluated.
When we think that this is winter, we must acknowledge that history develops while turning and observe the historical age once again. One must not deny oneself and deny the whole, saying that the world civilization of the twentieth century today is within a sphere of destiny of welcoming a winter that groans in a pressing environment.
What is one thing that is a problem in the social environment within this sphere?
It is the question of how I normally absorb spring and summer and autumn and invest and concentrate vital power in them and thereby become equipped with the fruit of one original living body.
If this has been equipped, when one collides with every social evil or opposing condition of the social environment and smashes its outer shell so that a gate opens by which one newly departs, from then a new spring-like history of humankind departs. We must think of this.
From this viewpoint, what is the pride our members today must hold and the posture our members must be equipped with?
One must be able to settle the destiny of humankind, which is in a final agonized position. Is it your strength? Is it my strength? It means the question is whether one holds or does not hold the influence of a power that contains one’s own vital power. This is something in which neither father can interfere, nor mother can interfere, nor any brother whatever can interfere. It is a problem that only one’s own self, holding vital power, can resolve.
Then did one receive well the fundamental vital power and be born while in the mother’s womb? Did one receive well what the brothers did not receive?
Did one fully absorb the essence one can receive according to the season? The question is how fully one absorbed the vital power bonded through passing through the three seasons of spring, summer, and autumn.
A historic point that can settle life and death is drawing near for our humankind. Inferring from such a fated course, the question is whether I have become an I who has the confidence to pass through such seasons.
Who Is the Messiah Who Will Bring Humankind Spring?
Because the history humankind has passed through has been such and such, one must criticize that past historical age of spring humankind has brought, and criticize the age of summer human beings have come through, and criticize the age of autumn. In criticizing, one must criticize from a position holding authority that contains vital power. Also, one must confront the threat of winter that can come hereafter with the influence I am equipped with.
One must become a person holding the subjecthood of life that can stretch out in all directions while gazing upon the appearance of the new life of tomorrow. If there were a wish God wished to achieve through the human being, would He not without fail achieve it through such a person? It means, would He not introduce to that person a new spring of humankind, and a new summer of humankind, and a better autumn of humankind?
If there be no one substance upon this earth equipped with content that can be so, this world will rot away like a dead fruit. In autumn there is not much difference between the shape of a dead fruit and the shape of a fruit holding vital power. Seen from outside, one does not know. Another does not know. A third party does not know, but the thing itself knows. That is why it means one must know whether I am dead or alive.
When we set out the world today, when a spring day comes seeking north of the equator, an autumn day comes seeking to places more than twenty-three degrees south of the equator. It means that upon this globe the forms of spring, summer, autumn, and winter unfold. In human history today, to welcome an infinite worldwide spring day, one must connect spring and summer and autumn individually. It means one cannot welcome a new spring day otherwise.
To welcome the historic spring that will come seeking again hereafter after the Last Days, one must hold vital power by which one can have a bond with spring, vital power by which one can have a bond with summer, vital power by which one can have a bond with autumn, and vital power by which one can overcome winter. A self holding such vital power must be equipped with all the bonds of spring, summer, autumn, and winter.
You must know that even though there is one person equipped with all of that, because one cannot welcome spring worldwide at once, there was an age in which God carried out a history of grace of spring through some individual, centering on the background of a long historical process, for the three billion people of humankind in the world.
Even though it is an individual, there must be a person who connects vital power there and, within that inner heart, does not lose the bond of summer and comes forth, forming a bond together with God. Also, among the people bonded with summer, there must be even one person who comes forth, forming a bond with autumn, holding vital power that can represent this heaven and earth. And thus there must be a person who can appear upon the earth equipped with new vital power, with God, even with that one person.
But because the very one who must appear is a fallen human being, that very one cannot become one holding vital power. That is why God must become the root of life. That is why there is a Messiah thought before humankind.
Then what kind of One is the Messiah?
Is He not One who comes holding the content of the cultural world of spring that the human being ought to have had? Is He not a worldwide figure who comes holding the content of the civilization of summer, which can develop infinitely and prosper infinitely, and such a worldview? Also, is He not a figure who can make known the content of the fruit of autumn and who can stand in place of that value not individually but worldwide?
We must think that there was not only such content but also an inner hand of God’s providence to overcome winter and overcome what is insufficient worldwide and make it possible to welcome a worldwide spring day.
And yet for us human beings within the fallen sphere who today grope in the dark, not knowing that, if perhaps there be a person like the Messiah, where would there be an honored guest one ought to welcome with a mind more joyful than this? That is why today, amid this world situation in which the humankind of the world is placed in crisis, they are groping for a new worldwide leader. Isn't that itself humankind pursuing Messiah thought, even if indirectly?
The Impartiality of the Seasons the Human Being Is Born With
In spring there are various flowers, and various kinds of trees, and countless kinds of plants. Seeing this will be the same as God’s seeing us human beings. When we come to gaze upon such things when spring comes around, what is there that does not welcome spring, and what is there that does not hold life?
From insects, which are minute creatures, to one small blade of grass, a great tree, all the birds that fly, and even to the human being, all created things that were made are living, holding a bond of life. We cannot deny the fact that all these created things are departing, holding one bond within the bond of this spring.
Seen from such a viewpoint, such a spring day will come seeking within our world today. Welcoming that spring day, what kind of tree will I be in that spring garden? You are in a position of holding individuality. That is why some people will be in the position of one blade of grass and some people of one tree. In this way you will be individuals, clan peoples holding living bodies in fields, each of a different kind.
There will be individuals and peoples like the pine and bamboo that symbolize fidelity, and there will be individuals and families and clans, and peoples and nations that, like a flower, can gather every bond into their bosom.
A bond like the crossing of the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter has been connected from the starting point in the historical age. The destiny of your lifetime too comes forth, thus alternating and following one after another.
The question of why some people live well and some people live poorly must be thought of from this viewpoint.
That some person lives well is because that person’s forebears have already passed through winter. It means he lives well because he has entered a sphere in which he can welcome spring.
Likewise, why is some person luxuriant?
Because he has come forth building a foundation of a spring by which he can welcome summer, he is luxuriant like summer. When one becomes luxuriant, one without fail comes to bear fruit. Because everything, when it is full, without fail declines, it means one comes to welcome autumn.
But an individual or people that despairs or fall into despair because it has welcomed autumn perish. You must know that. It means that if one despairs there because one has welcomed autumn, one perishes. People who depart from autumn are bound to wither the more they live on. Even so, people who lament, saying, “Aigo, we have been punished.
What kind of trick of destiny is this? Pitiful people. If one has welcomed autumn, one must hold vital power by which one can overcome winter that draws near tomorrow.
However rugged a trial one collides with, one must pioneer and overcome that winter, holding a conviction by which one can say, “We go.” It means that if there be a people that overcomes that winter, it can welcome spring that comes seeking again.
Seen from this viewpoint, you yourselves are on a road of destiny from which you cannot escape the continuous bond of spring, summer, autumn, and winter in the historical age. Because your living bodies too were born within such a bond, you must know that you are substances of destiny. But among people, there are also people born from a spring day and people born, unluckily, from a winter day. To put it another way, it means there are also people born as the son of a rich man, as the son of a king, born in a summer in which every glory is raised on high. Also, it means there are people born in an autumn. You must know that. When one knows this, it means this universal history is impartial.
That one was born in winter is not bad. Even though one was born in winter, when one is not encroached upon in the least by it and advances all the more powerfully and welcomes a spring day, one will see the departure of life more quickly than anyone. One will grow more powerfully than anyone.
If One Were to Overcome Winter
Then with what will the members of our Unification Church today compare the capacity they hold within themselves?
You will have felt the pass of han of the Fall, and will have felt the sorrowful cultural world, the arrogant world of the sphere of lamentation, and will have felt a withering culture colliding with a despairing environment. Even so, you must become one who can say, “None of that governs me.
Whatever season it may be, it cannot govern me. And thus, one must connect the seasons with vital power and become a fruit of life even in autumn and discover a self who can overcome winter without difficulty. It means a person holding such a view of life does not perish even though history perishes and that age perishes and the world perishes. Therefore, it means becoming such a person is the problem.
We have until now volunteered for a road to becoming such a person. Even on a course in which the people added persecution to us, or in a harrowing environment in which the clan opposed us, or in an environment in which another people took up gun and sword and drove us to the summit of extreme difficulty, we have come forth until now. That is why, even though loneliness collides with us and a sphere of lamentation sweeps over us, we must not become people who seek to flee that sphere.
The more it becomes the Last Days, the more one keenly feels that the final day has drawn near; let us welcome it head-on. It means let us smash it. It means let us settle it decisively: either you break or I break. Here one must hold vital power by which one can shed a layer and be reborn and become one ground that brings tomorrow’s hope. The conviction that one can praise such a figure of a fruitful self holding such vital power is what becomes the problem.
Setting up such a self, one must be able to be confident, saying, “I am a stately self who can welcome a spring day.” And thus, welcoming spring and making it one’s own ground, only by holding one’s own authority, by which one can develop infinitely, can one bring all people to fruit as one.
If one sows one seed, there is a yield of thirtyfold, sixtyfold, a hundredfold.
Likewise, when one sows one thing upon this earth and departs, that result must bear fruit even if it be a ten-millionth. We must make it so that humankind, seeing that, can pledge tomorrow’s victory.
We must know the fact that the more the number of a band who can step forth boldly at the head, taking responsibility for winter of suffering, increases, the more the world welcomes a new spring day of resurrection.
If there is a great person who gazes powerfully and marches powerfully from such a position, it means history turns back from here. Also, you must know that from there begins the moment when a road of destiny that would flow eternally into winter and roll down into the sphere of death can be changed and turned into a new spring.
We often say that we are the fruit of history. We pray, declaring ourselves, “O Heaven! We are the fruit of six thousand years of history.” Then have we become selves holding vital power by which we can overcome that winter in which the synthesized trials of the six-thousand-year course of history collide with us all at once? It means this is the problem. You must know that that is the decisive factor that can determine your victory or defeat.
We must throw wide open the door of our breast before a new world cultural history, like spring that comes seeking at the Last Days. In that garden in which one has thus opened wide one’s whole bosom, the humankind of the world can bloom infinitely, and one must be able to praise the character of a privileged self that can govern infinitely. When it becomes so, one can advance to a position of having succeeded as the highest human being that the original human being desired.
If God loved the human being, He would have made him a being of such value. It means the human being was not made to groan, placed at the final urgent moment of destiny amid lamentation and despair as today.
You must know that we today have entered this road for the sake of a tomorrow in which such existence value can appear, to discover a self that can be so, to develop an unknown self that can be so.
On the road I go; one must be able to welcome tomorrow, saying, “Come,” even though the individual, family, clan, people, nation, and world can collide head-on before me all at once. Our church has come forth until now to welcome one time that can be so. Amidst that, we were able to bear much fruit, but many branches fell away.
Overcoming Trial and Bearing Fruit
We must be able to say that now is better than spring, than summer, than autumn of human history until now. Only then can life burst forth. You must know that only when a new departure of delight unfolds from the deep summit and boundary line of that winter season does a spring day come normally.
Even setting out the history of Israel, before grace came there was, without fail, trial. That is why one calls spring a time of grace. Before rejoicing that spring has come, one must think of the past through which spring could draw near until now.
So one must welcome spring while longing for the historic bond of life of this spring day. Also, spring is for groping for one valuable seed of life that can join a Cosmos-level bond to summer and autumn seasons; one must welcome tomorrow. This is the departure of spring.
When we gaze upon the countless kinds of flowers that welcome the departure of spring, we must hold a mind and pledge that we will overcome the difficulty of autumn that comes after summer and pursue fruit. Unless you remain as selves who can thus settle it decisively, you cannot welcome the spring of hope that humankind hereafter pursues in common.
Then have you yourselves indeed had a spring day, and had a summer, and had an autumn day, and had a winter day, from that position of knowing God’s Will centering on this age of grace?
When grace like spring comes, one wishes to give everything. One wishes to harmonize entirely with anyone at all. Then when it becomes summer, one becomes luxuriant, centering on one’s own individual self. To give an example, if spring is the time when barley leaves grow luxuriantly, summer is the time when the stalk grows. The purpose of the leaves growing luxuriantly is to set up one stalk, and barley in which that stalk does not arise in summer does not bear fruit.
And within that stalk, a new change must unfold. It means one must become a position that can be praised before all phenomena, standing in place of one’s own beauty like a flower. At the same time as feeling a self that can be so, one must become a self of one fruit.
Upon such a ground of mind, passing through summer and centering on autumn, one must absorb the unceasing essence of life within the bond of a professional age. That is why one must not suffer loss from everything that passes over me and collides with me but must add the essence of life as a plus.
In our church today, even a person who has been in the church only a few days, if he receives grace, is sent out alone and lonely to the provinces to pioneer. It means we say, “Since you have received grace, go out to pioneer; if the leaves have grown luxuriant, go out so that you can grow as one stalk.” It means, from now on, centering on one’s own individuality will bear fruit, holding distinctive content within a privileged bond of the infinite value of the fruit of heaven and earth.
Many trials will collide with one. Elements and essence opposed to one’s own vital power will flow out inside and outside and will rebel against one’s own life.
Absorbing that rebelling environment, even though outwardly one looks like a dead figure, inwardly one must hold vital power. If one comes to hold an infinite subjective ability that can digest that, one’s own self grows in that environment.
Through the bond of spring, the bond of summer, and the bond of autumn, the deeper autumn grows, the more the tree’s leaves come to their end. The color of that tree comes to change. Likewise, if one goes such a road, other people come to see one and feel, “That person is equipped with a mature fruit in that respect that no one at all can match.”
In this way, in autumn there is no need to say, “Look at my fruited figure.” It means there is no need to lament that one is not recognized. When one’s own self enters a time when one can wholly complete the content of that value, all phenomena come to protect one and to exist for one’s sake. That is why when it becomes autumn in which that being of value is revealed, one can be preserved by God as a self of hope that can newly depart in days ahead.
Advance to the End and Become the Master of All the Seasons
Such an age of grace is with anyone at all. One may call the time when you first entered the church "spring." Next is the time of going alone.
You must know that there is a time of adding the essence of life alone and bearing fruit. That is why in our church complicated content unfolds, such as children of faith and so on.
You must hold vital power by which you can overcome trial and pain in the environment that draws near hereafter. Centering on one gathered self, one must become a substance holding the total vital power of spring, the total of summer, the total of autumn, and be unified so that one can cross beyond autumn. Whether A, or B, or C, anyone at all without exception must be concentrated into one vital power. Doing so, one must overcome autumn and cross over.
That is why the word “Unification Church” today, in a conclusive sense, is a noun necessary at a critical juncture of crossing from autumn into winter, centering on the process of change of the historical age. So one must become one living body together with the seed, which is the root of life, and overcome the winter of terror that draws near in the future and welcome tomorrow’s spring. And thus, it means one must become a flower that the master of a new spring garden can cherish.
One individual is necessary who can rise to the highest glory like such a flower, and one family is necessary, and one clan is necessary, and one people is necessary. Knowing that the people are the privileged people called the third Israel, let us unite for that day when it can be so! Let us become one! It means, let us become one.
At the instant when the dawn of world-historical consummation comes seeking, one time of pitch-black darkness will pass over. You must shoulder a mission of kicking that aside and advancing eastward and eastward toward the sunlight of a bright new morning.
You must know that the Unification Church is one that goes forth requiring the civilization of harmonized centrality (중화문명 中和文明), which is the spring of a unified culture like such a new morning.
In that sense, let us not avoid the most difficult problem in the Republic of Korea, the most difficult problem in the world. It means let us confront it directly.
And thus, setting aside entirely the people who simply passed by the age of spring in the historical age, the people who perished in the age of summer, and the people who fell in the age of autumn, let us go forth equipped with an authority of victory in which the whole is integrated.
Toward one ideal world our humankind desires, toward God’s unified world, for that nation in which one can inherit one heart (심정) and appear as a prince of victory, one must establish a chosen sovereignty in a chosen individual, a chosen family, a chosen clan, and a chosen people.
And thus, you must become ones who, for eternity without end within God’s love, become the master of spring, and become the master of summer, and become the harvester of autumn, and can feast and rest in winter.
Knowing that this is a road departed for this, we must unite to the last and not be slack in overcoming that pass.
