You who are gathered here will regard yourselves as people different from the people of the world. I am within today’s historical process, yet I know that I must not become a self that flows away in the course of history. Human beings within the fallen realm have existed in every age, but there has not been one person who transcended the historical environment of the fallen realm.
Humankind must abandon the road of evil and pursue the road of goodness
We know that God’s will and Satan’s will cannot take one direction. If evil goes east, goodness must go west; from mutually opposed positions, they must without fail walk different roads. Because good and evil cannot take one direction and run parallel with each other, we are the ones who must abandon the road of evil and pursue the road of goodness. That is why a band that pursues goodness must not be absorbed into the evil world or keep step with it but must go on rejecting the evil world.
That good and evil be completely separated is the original desire of us human beings. Accordingly, when we consider that the completion of goodness cannot be achieved by good and evil struggling, we know that good and evil cannot in any case share the same position of destiny. Seen from this position, because my individual self within history today is an individual within the fallen realm, we know that how to establish a self that can govern history is the content that the many people of will who walked the road of the Way have fought and sought for until now. You must know that transcending such an environment of history and overcoming and crossing beyond the sphere of the historical age is an exceedingly difficult thing.
That is why the Bible too emphasizes that people who follow the road of goodness centering on God must resolve anew. It says,
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (Matthew 22:37).”
Then where is the boundary line of giving all one’s soul and all one’s mind? It is beyond being resolved upon death. Even in a position where one could be resurrected after dying, one is told to offer such devotion that the resurrected body could die again for the sake of the will. What teaches this is precisely the words in the Bible, “Love your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your nature.”
When we consider such things, humankind, born with fallen bodies, cannot be grafted onto goodness as a self simply living just as it is in a fallen world. Here one can become in a position of goodness only by passing without fail through the gate of denial and being reborn. Only there can one run the course of goodness toward a new ideal world of goodness together with God. You must know that this is the road of desire that fallen human beings today must without fail walk and that pledging this and going forward is each person’s responsibility.
The road the workers of unification must walk
Then where does unification unfold?
It unfolds through a band of unification. Where is this band of unification formed? This band is not formed within the sphere of history until now. A band of unification can be naturally formed by denying history and establishing a new value of loyalty and filial devotion and, with one individual in that position, preparing an environment that can make it a worldwide value as the subject, expanding mutually relative environments horizontally.
The purpose such a band desires must not be the salvation of individuals alone. Even if individual salvation has been completed, a realm of unification that can be newly integrated must be formed again. Even if there is a family that has become one at the family-level standard, it does not end with that. For fallen human beings, beyond the family there remains clan salvation; beyond the clan there remains national salvation; beyond the people there remains the salvation of the nation and the world; and going further, beyond the world there remains cosmic salvation.
To accomplish everything from individual salvation to cosmic salvation, one must pass through countless stages of a struggling process. One must pay the price of indemnity that the Unification Church speaks of today. Otherwise, one cannot reach the stage of cosmic salvation. This is the teaching of the Principle.
Even if one has won in an individual struggle and stood in a position of being able to meet a family foundation, without struggling centered on the family and bringing a result of victory, one cannot make a new start on the level of a people.
Even if one has furnished the form of a people, to pass through a course of people-level struggle that can bring a result of victory there, one must without fail pay the price of sacrifice corresponding to conditions of indemnity. Otherwise, one cannot seek the world of goodness.
I know that this is the road religious people until now have laid, resolved upon death, and the road that families of faith have laid, resolved upon death, and the road that countless clans of faith have struggled along, resolved upon death, to cross that crest.
When we consider that until reaching these tremendous stages—from the individual to the family, from some family to the clan, from some clan to the people, and further from some people to the nation, from a nation standing in such a position to the world, and from the world to the cosmos—an endless process of struggle remains, the question is whether I can indeed walk this road. The road we walk today is not a road for lessening suffering. When we consider that we are in the position of fallen descendants who must feel it insufficient even after weaving bonds of blood and sweat while circling the globe, not merely the three-thousand-ri peninsula, we must know today how long a road we must walk.
Here there is a responsibility to save the individual for the sake of the individual’s happiness, and to save a new family, there is a responsibility to pioneer the road the family must walk. And to save a people if it is a people, a nation if it is a nation, or the world if it is the world, there is a responsibility to pioneer the road they must walk and present the direction to them. Doing such things is the responsibility of goodness and is the road that must be walked by the workers of unification who go forward bearing responsibility for the whole historical sphere.
To become the band of unification God seeks
Then where does God seek the bond of unification?
Would God seek such a band only among the bands in the Unification Church? No. Among you there will be people who fight without having crossed even the crest of individual indemnity and people who are walking a family-level course of indemnity. Our course, which must pass horizontally through eight stages of destiny—the clan-level course of indemnity, the people-level course of indemnity, the national course of indemnity, and the worldwide course of indemnity—is wretched if we call it wretched.
In walking that road, things do not turn out as one thinks. Here one cannot avoid phenomena of conflict. Not only that, but one cannot help but sacrifice oneself and, with the remaining strength, prepare a second start. When we consider that such a historical mission remains, the term “band of unification” is, at a glance, a desirable term, and the road to be walked is a road anyone must walk, a road anyone must long for, a road anyone must accomplish. Yet you must know that the road the band of unification must walk is not a simple road.
Then in what position would God seek a band of unification?
Of course, it is certain that He seeks a bond of unification that can pass through the individual and the family. But not only that—He seeks it in a position that can pass through a unified clan transcending the bond of evil, and a unified people possessing a realm of liberation that can escape the bond of evil, and further, a unified world, and further still, a unified Cosmos.
Considering such a tremendous matter, if the band of unification accomplishes it, then however freely they move in all directions within the realm of the Cosmos, no one can obstruct them. Only when a foundation of environment is accomplished in which no conditions of restraint and sorrow can remain can the worldwide band of unification abide. This is not a simple thing.
Then how shall we advance to that standard?
Can one walk that road with an attitude as a believer that an individual can take on his own? The attitude of a believer must not be an individual attitude or a Unification Church-level attitude. It must furnish a worldwide attitude. Looking upon the appearance of one who bears such a mission as an individual, God can say he is a son of God who bears the sin of the world.
If he is a being who, rather than a band struggling to strip off all his sins, can by walking that road stand in a position where, through the realm of his liberation, a people and the world can be liberated—a subject-like being who can represent goodness—then he is a worker of unification, and he can without fail become a core being who can form a band of unification that accomplishes a new world.
Such a person does not come about at one stroke. It comes about only after one has borne the sin of the world and fought and furnished a realm of victory.
Then from where does sin begin?
It begins with you yourselves. You must know the fact that your family, the society, the nation, and the world in which you live, and not only that but even the spirit world, retain a realm of evil invasion. Therefore, you must know how difficult a road one must walk to tread upon this and cross over and become a band of unification that can stand before God, raising the banner (旗幟) of victory. A person who would walk this road must become one qualified to look straight at the perishing of the many nations upon this earth. He will have to see many peoples become discouraged of themselves and vanish.
You must know that seeing bands of many clans and many families that, in the midst of sorrow, cannot gather themselves up and, without hope for tomorrow, lament and despair is the surrounding phenomenon on the road the band of unification must walk. Then what must be done about this? We must not leave it as it is but must save them. There, the band of unification must carry out a messianic mission bearing a new commission.
The limit of Jesus’ salvation
Today we call Jesus Christ the Savior of all people. Looking at the way Jesus Christ taught us, he is undoubtedly the Savior of all people. Yet by the way he taught us, he could bestow only the qualification of an individual savior. When did Jesus, through Christianity, save families such that one could praise God and give thanks that the mission of a family-level savior was completed? He could not save them. When did he liberate a band that could praise before God that a heavenly clan had been saved? He has not yet done so. And when did Jesus establish a people or a nation and possess a nation or people of which one could say that this nation or this people is undoubtedly the only people and nation that can inherit the kingdom of Heaven? He could not possess one.
Because it is an eternal victory, there could be no anxiety for those people, and there could be no ruin for those people. Such a people cannot but progress.
Therefore, that people would be a people that governs history, and such a nation would undoubtedly be a nation that takes charge of history—but have such a people and nation manifested upon this earth? It has not.
Seen this way, the limit of Jesus Christ’s salvation is that he completed the mission of being able to accomplish the way of salvation of one individual, but he did not furnish the realm of victory of the salvation of the family or the clan, the people, and further, the nation or the world.
When we consider that such is the way of salvation through Christianity today, if we look from a position of acknowledging Christian believers who have not been liberated within the realm of individual lamentation, the salvation that Christianity speaks of—that is, the salvation Jesus Christ presents—can only be one-sided. Considering this centering on the mission of Jesus Christ, whom God sent, this cannot but be pitiful and wretched.
Christians today believe in Jesus as the Savior and the Messiah, but they do not know that he is a spiritual Messiah. And even as a spiritual Messiah, he is a spiritual Messiah centering on the individual. With such a Christianity, one cannot form the realm of a nation.
Today’s worldwide Christian sphere is leaving behind a realm of peoples that does not possess a unified band that can form a sovereign nation with subject-like authority. With this, it will not do.
If there is a Jesus, there must be apostles who can be united with Jesus. There must be twelve tribes that can be united with those apostles, and there must be an Israelite sovereignty that can be united with those twelve tribes. Centering on that Israelite sovereignty, one must make a core Israelite realm that can be connected to the world, and one cannot but lead the many nations that stand in a relative relationship with that nation. The sovereignty of that nation and the ideology that leads that nation are neither a temporary ideology nor a temporary sovereignty. That sovereignty is a sovereignty that can pledge eternity from a position where goodness itself can develop and remain forever. Yet today such a sovereignty does not exist upon this earth.
Seeing such things, we must know the fact that the salvation pursued centering on religion until now, is buried within the sphere of the historical age without having attained even the purpose of the individual. Yet religious people today do not know this.
What the band of unification must do
Then what mission must religion hereafter have?
Not only one-sided individual salvation—where is the religious way of salvation that can liberate the family, which furnishes the environment centering on the individual? Where is the religion that can present a way of salvation such that, in organizing a clan centered on the family, that clan can possess a realm of liberation?
When today we stand forth proclaiming victory, there will be individual victory there, and family-level victory, and people-level victory, and further national victory and worldwide victory. To take a homely example, looking at the marathon held at the Olympic Games, an individual’s winning becomes the nation’s winning. That individual’s victory is not only the nation’s victory but also a victory that has conquered the world. There, however high the whole environment and culture behind anyone is, before that victory they must bow their heads.
That moment when all people can bow their heads is a victory that can represent the world and have more besides, even if it is a realm of victory brought forth alone. In that position, no one can raise his head and deny it. Here no one can present conditions of denial.
If it is a marathon, it remains forever as a record in the history of the marathon. When that record cannot be broken, all people can only submit to it. Concerning that matter at least, one must be governed and guided and must conform to that law. Is this not an iron rule?
Then has there been a nation in this world today that has furnished such a realm of victory? Without forming a nation that can break that record, there can never be a nation with the authority to represent goodness.
Today upon this earth, there are many nations. But this is not a unified realm of nations. It is a realm of nations with an environment in which the elements of rupture and division and breakdown approach moment by moment. What will be the future form such nations are heading toward? This can only reach a wretched conclusion. We must not merely look straight at such a reality but must think about how to remove those elements and form tomorrow’s victorious world realm.
Within the religious sphere, the Lord must be regarded as absolute. In a religion that takes all His circumstances and commandments as the standard of living and establishes a standard beyond that, one must have such an attitude of going straight toward that standard, crossing beyond all the restrictions of environment. Is this not the attitude of a religious person?
There, one’s own excuses are unnecessary. Without a band that regards Him as absolute and conforms, the formation of the unified nation that God desires and goodness desires is impossible. Then, if the band God is seeking is the band of unification, where would He wish to meet them? Would He wish to meet them as one person within this church in Cheongpa-dong, Seoul, in the Republic of Korea? Of course He would wish to meet that person too. But that is not everything. That is nothing more than one point of departure.
Then where is the family-level starting point at which the band of unification He so wishes to meet can exist? This is the problem. The question is whether the family environment centering on the parents one attends, or one’s siblings and wife and children, has formed a band of unification and become a family-level standard not ashamed to inherit tomorrow’s clan and tomorrow’s world. And whether that family has, standing in a worldwide position, furnished unified authority and become a family with content that can discern good and evil and establish goodness and remove evil. Until now, countless such individuals have come and gone upon this earth, but such a family has not yet come forth.
Then what must we do in pursuing the nation of goodness and the world of goodness? It is to keep these two commandments: the first commandment, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” One must become a person who can meet such a standard and go forward proclaiming the formation of a unified family. This is what the Unification Church must do first.
The direction the Unification Church seeks
We do not go with individual salvation as our goal. We must establish the framework of family salvation. The family is the basis of the formation of society and the foundation of the formation of a nation. That is why it must become a true family. What is true joins with what is true, even if told not to join. But water and oil, however much one tries to join them, separate. The more one tries to join them, the more they part.
Seen from this position, if a family becomes one furnished with content that can harmonize essentially, a family furnished with the conditions of unification, then through that model family, the formation of a clan becomes possible. That family differs in content from the families in which we have habitually lived until now. It is different from a family that keeps its view of today’s actual social system or world situation and, by conforming to it, seeks a new plan. What the model family seeks to be united with is not the society we live in today, not this environment. It transcends this.
It is a difference of heaven and earth, which human beings have never even dreamed of until now. Anyone would rather attend and live with parents who are laughing than parents who are weeping in the family. They want to live together with siblings who love laughing. Then what must be done to attend to and live with laughing parents and live with laughing siblings? It must become family-centered, not on a worldly husband and wife and their parents but on the parents of all humankind and the whole world.
Then where will that family abide?
Where will the framework of a family that can represent the world and represents all nations abide? Just as every one of us human beings today is seeking a peaceful family, if there is an absolute deity, would He not come seeking an absolute family standard of peace? What proclaimed such a family is the family framework that Christianity pursued, centering on the bond of bridegroom and bride.
Not only that—what would be the family environment, social environment, and national environment in which the sons and daughters born through the law of love of the bridegroom and bride can live? That must be resolved not in a delusive future world but in the present reality. Yet because there is no way in present reality to resolve the conditions of happiness in which one can rest, one must go forward, pledging such a negative aspect, and this is the life of religion.
That is why you must know that going forward, taking what has thus been pledged as a negative aspect as a positive foundation of resolution is the direction the Unification Church walks. Rather than avoiding reality as ordinary religions do, we must become a band of unification that, standing in a positive position, possesses the actual authority by which I can deny and possesses the subjecthood to handle this and judge it fairly. Such a band is not a band centering on the individual. It is a band within a realm that can represent the world.
The place where the band of unification can abide
If there is an absolute deity, He would desire an absolute realm that can complete not only the individual but also the family, the clan, the people, the nation, the world, and even the Cosmos. That is why, rather than my individual self gaining salvation, the family must gain salvation. Even if individual salvation has been completed, for the completed one to meet a foundation of rest, unless an environment of family-level salvation is prepared, there is no place to rest. And even if the salvation of the family has been completed, if that family cannot prepare a foundation on which it can rest within the realm of the clan, there can be no eternal resting place for the family. Going further, it is so with the clan, and so with the people, and so with the nation, and so with the world.
Therefore, for one nation to prepare a national foundation of rest, a foundation on which the world can rest must be prepared. However independent a subjecthood of rest a nation possesses, if the outward world does not prepare a foundation on which it can rest, a course of struggle will unfold again, and there can be no rest there. To prepare a worldwide foundation of rest, a worldwide foundation of welcome must be prepared. That is why you must know that religion teaches us to do mission work centering on the world.
Seen from this viewpoint, where are you as a member of the Unification Church abiding?
Are you a band preoccupied only with your own individual salvation? Such a band may be needed when individuals are commended, but when an age comes in which prizes must be given to families, it must withdraw. Therefore, you must know that our pledging individual victory here is a preparatory exercise for winning the family-level victory that is to come in the future.
One cannot boast to the world merely because one has won a family-level victory. If one has possessed a family-level realm of victory, one must go forward to possess a clan-level realm of victory. To boast of a family-level victory, there must be relatives. Then what must there be to boast of a lineage? There must be a people. For lineages such as the Kim, the Park, the Moon, the Cho, or the Im to boast of their lineage, there must be a people. Without preparing a foundation on which the many lineages forming that people can form one nation, one cannot boast of one’s lineage.
Seen centering on the Korean people too, the Korean people by themselves alone cannot boast before the world. Would one boast of oneself to oneself? There must without fail be a relationship of subject and object. Otherwise, the conditions of joy do not come forth. There, no theory of a relative can come forth either. Because there is no theory of a relative, one cannot bring regularity into living, and a resting place of love that brings benefit to living does not arise either.
Seen from this point, the place where the band of unification can abide is not the Unification Church itself today. It is neither the bustling streets of the Republic of Korea nor its dark alleys. We must encompass and draw those along and ascend to the center of the world, the summit of the highest cultural sphere that can integrate all people. Only when we furnish our appearance in such a position, where worldwide content can be combined and where we can receive God’s public recognition and have more besides, will the standard of the Unification Church band that God has been hoping for be determined there.
Therefore, one must not boast of having completed individual salvation and must not boast of having accomplished family salvation. Nor must one boast of having completed clan salvation and people-level salvation. The question is how to resolve worldwide salvation. What the leader of the Unification Church must do is not to lead the Unification Church and make a Korea-level realm of unification. This is not what God desires. One must accomplish a worldwide realm of unification and, further, a cosmic realm of unification.
What does “Cosmos” (천주) refer to?
It refers to the whole of the spirit world and the physical world. Then why do we unify? We do it for complete liberation. The character tong (統) is the tong meaning “to lead.” In leading, it is not leading while possessing content that has passed through a leaping stage by some decision. Here there can be no leap. It refers to unification from a position where, passing through a normal course of development, one can add speed of advance through all eternity. This must be a unification that liberates not only the world but even the spirit world. In this respect too, Unification Thought cannot but be a great thought.
Unification is complete liberation
In liberating, the liberation of the globe is not the only issue. Until now, nearly hundreds of billions of our ancestors have gone to the spirit world.
If it were certain that human beings are eternal, where would they be?
Undoubtedly, they would be gathered within some realm under leadership. They are not gathered within a happy realm. Because they remain in the spirit world holding just as they were all the conditions of evil they held while living on earth and all the impure content of the earth, they are in a position where this must be settled. Therefore, they are spirit people of the spirit world who do not possess a resting place. Not only that—the spirit people must come back again to the human beings on earth.
Looking at the customs of Korean society today, you will know well the activity of evil spirits and various spiritual phenomena. How is it that such superstitious phenomena appear in human life? It is because there is a reason that the spirit people who have gone to the spirit world must come back again to the human beings on earth.
Our realm of liberation is not only the liberation of the globe. Even the hundreds of billions of spirit people in the spirit world must be liberated. Liberation is not done by a disorderly method. Unless one furnishes an eternal realm of subjecthood that can decide everything centering on law and orderly content, it cannot be settled. That decision is precisely heavenly law, and one must conform to it.
Unless one becomes a band of unification furnished with content that can fulfill the way of conformity and form it into one absolute norm, one cannot liberate the spiritual world. That is why we must know what the spirit world is like.
Centering on how the spirit world has acted upon the development of the history of humankind, upon the content of the ages and behind the formation of society, and upon what relationship the content of the invisible spiritual world has formed with the human world, one must bring about the same resolution. Only then can it be called a worldwide resolution and a cosmic resolution. This is what God desired, what our ancestors in history desired, and what today’s humankind and the descendants of the future must desire. It is a re-enactment of God’s ideal, a re-enactment of history, a re-enactment of the present society, and the origin of the start of future society. Such a form of a model of cosmic-historical victory must be furnished. It is not that one individual must become so, but that one nation must become so.
If that nation goes east, the nations of the world must go east, and if that nation goes west, the nations of the world cannot but go west. An environmental realm must manifest upon this globe, of which it can be said that, crossing beyond the realm of formation of a nation possessing such content, it has without error fully furnished subject-like content vertically and horizontally. Is that a delusion? It is not a delusion.
God, who has been facing fallen humankind until now, has also not been liberated. Accordingly, the Unification Church says that God alone cannot unify. God is called the Parent of humankind; yet if He were a God who rejoiced while His children have until now been wandering and groaning at the crossroads of death, He could not be the Parent of humankind. How shall we liberate God, who agonizes so and cannot take off the historical mask? That liberation is not an outward liberation. It is not merely making all people submit before Him; having made them submit, one must love them. When we consider that such is the responsibility of God’s Providence of Restoration and the responsibility of the history of the salvation of humankind, we feel to the marrow that the most pitiful one in this world is God.
Then who is that pitiful one? He is precisely the Master and the Parent of humankind, bound by an absolute bloodline that cannot be severed, however one tries. One must be awakened to this fact. From there, a bond of heart must explode and form a higher-dimensional realm of heart, transcending any environment or circumstance of this world today, which cannot be found in any nation. Only then does God like it too.
Otherwise, goodness loses to evil within the realm of evil. In other words, love within a realm where evil advocates and evil rages will not do. Unless a foundation of heart furnished with content that can transcend that appears upon this globe, a world realm centering on goodness is not formed.
God’s place of rest
Then where is the place of rest in which the absolute God can furnish content of love, standing above the absolute realm?
God does not personally seek the family through the individual. He does not seek to restore the clan through the family. He goes seeking a person who, with the world as his foundation, possesses the decisive realm of victory centering on the nation and the people and the clan and the family.
Such a person must appear before God. That person must appear to transcend the relationship of East and West and between a woman and a man, which must come forth first. Must the woman come forth first, or the man? The man must appear first. Then from among what kind of people must the man come forth? Must he come forth from among those who live well or from among those who live poorly? This is the question.
In a world ruled by evil, those who live well are people close to evil, and those who live poorly are people far from evil. Therefore, he cannot come forth from among those who live well.
Undoubtedly, he comes forth from among those who live poorly. Moreover, wealth and God cannot be joined. Considering such content, such a person cannot come forth from an advanced nation possessing all the conditions that evil likes and that evil can absorb. He comes forth without fail from an underdeveloped nation. Then among underdeveloped nations, from what kind of nation does he come forth? It is a nation that is, as with a person, like one whose body and mind are divided and not unified. Likewise, it must be a nation in which one family and society can be divided and society and the nation divided.
From such a position, it must always be conservative, in a defensive rather than an offensive position. Goodness has been conservative until now. Which people are the proud people with such a historical background? A people that has invaded other peoples three times or more in history absolutely cannot be included here. God comes seeking a people that have not invaded. Thinking of such things, Korea is close.
Looking at Korea, it is a two-sided form. It is Hanguk. It is a nation of han (恨) and Hanguk because it is a nation that is the one and only. It must be a nation that can settle on content in which unification and division, defeat and victory can cross and that goes forward possessing superiority inside and out. Only then can it bridge the evil world and the good world. It must be able to be so.
The nation of Israel too was divided because the time had come. When the time comes for the world, is it unified? Before being unified, it is divided. When a time comes in which such a fortune of division is transferred from the individual to the whole of the family, society, nation, and world, it is a foretoken that the original worldwide age of unification is coming. Why is that? Because we received the blood of human beings divided in body and mind, and therefore, when that takes on a worldwide form, the Last Days come in which what was sown as divided human beings is harvested worldwide, and so a fortune of division appears.
Then who must harvest it? It must not be the master of the evil world who gathers it in, but the true master of goodness who gathers it in. It is the ideology of religion until now that has come forth hoping for this. If the master of evil gathers it in, there is no road of revival forever, but if the master of goodness gathers it in, there is a road of revival.
Then by what method will one revive?
One revives through grafting. Because it will not do otherwise, Christianity comes to speak of resurrection and rebirth. So we, the band of unification, must pass through a destiny of rebirth. Then from where will one be reborn? The foundation of that rebirth is the individual. Yet because the rebirth of the individual has not been completed until now, religion has come forth, taking the salvation of the individual as its goal.
But the ideal realm God wishes to take charge of does not proclaim the completion of individual salvation. It proclaims the completion of worldwide salvation. It must become a religion that can be so.
If such a religion appears, the world can be saved. Seen from this point, we must, from a position of walking the road of truth, seek a view of faith and seek a view of life and seek a view of the universe.
The band of unification, who must bear the sin of the world
Every member of the Unification Church must become a being like Jesus. When Jesus came up after receiving baptism in the Jordan River, the Holy Spirit descended upon his head like a dove, and God said, “This is My beloved Son” (Mark 1:11), and John the Baptist testified, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), did he not?
Thus, even standing alone, one must go to a worldwide end. To walk such a road, one must pass through a process of being a worldwide offering of indemnity. Jesus bore an individual cross on behalf of all people. He bore not only an individual cross but even a family-level cross. As can be seen from the words “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” within the realm of sin there is the realm of sin of the family, and the realm of sin of the clan, and the realm of sin of the people, and the realm of sin of the nation, and the realm of sin of the world. He is the Lamb of God who bears the cross of all these realms of sin, not the Lamb of God who bears only individual sin. Of course he bore an individual cross too. But he did not go bearing the burden of sin of such a limited environment. In the words “bearing the sin of the world,” the world is included.
Then what kind of nation is a nation that can take responsibility for the cross of the world? Jesus could not accomplish this. So what kind of nation is a nation that can bear that mission? God has been seeking this. Unless a nation wins by passing through a process in which it can stand in place of the cross of the world, a new nation cannot be formed. Seen from this viewpoint, members of the Unification Church must be better than Jesus. Because we say such words, our church has been called heretical until now.
Do you have the qualifications to go before the throne of Heaven without hesitation and boldly make your argument?
Following Heaven’s just law, standing in Heaven’s courtroom before God, who is the judge, and with Satan set up as the prosecutor, one must become a victorious prisoner who can boldly defend himself. A defense counsel in court does not judge and defend according to his own will. If the accused is simply better than the defense counsel, the counsel cannot defend. Unless the defense counsel finds legal conditions beyond what the accused can see, he cannot liberate the accused. What do these words mean? They mean that only when the prisoner is better than the defense counsel can he be liberated in court.
Therefore, you must become people who, having dug out entirely the problems that appear in the Bible but were not resolved, or the secret content that Jesus Christ wished to speak upon on this earth but could not, can confidently say, “You had to bear the cross because of such and such conditions. Had you liberated such and such conditions, would you not have borne neither the individual cross nor the worldwide cross?”
The conclusion is that people who need Jesus’ teaching and way cannot take part within the realm of the Unification Principle. Jesus has toiled for two thousand years to come seeking a bride. What is a bride? What sort of bride? This refers to a woman. You will know this clearly through the Principle. This is a tremendous secret.
That is why you must know that God’s Providence of salvation is coming to seek a worldwide prince of victory furnished with content by which he can without hesitation attack again and boldly make his argument. Seen from this viewpoint, you must be able to bear a cross beyond the cross Jesus bore. Without going with such resolve, one cannot cross the boundary line of the worldwide Providence of salvation.
Then how shall we accomplish this cosmic realm of unification?
Whether asleep or awake, one must think of this problem. One must hold the thought that one’s being born too was born for this, and one’s living too is living for this, and one’s dying too is dying for this. Seeking a family too is to have it cooperate with this purpose, and my individual going is going to connect this purpose. One forms a band because it is needed as a means of broadening the horizontal stage and shortening the period. In this way, a religion must come forth that practices an ideology at which countless people can look up and that can be revealed within a family or within a people.
Let us confront with real ability and win
When autumn comes, the fruit is arranged to be revealed.
If it is not revealed, it is revealed even by the leaves falling. In summer, because it must not fall, it is protected in green color among green leaves. It is the same with the Unification Church. At a glance, it does not look like a religion, but its content and essence are different. Here I speak this way from the platform as the teacher of the Unification Church, but I do not wish to wear the trifling mask of a Christian pastor once I go outside. When you consider such things, the foundation on which a band of unification can be generated and the place where it can rest is nowhere but the Unification Church.
However much you have met me personally, to follow me, you cannot pursue happiness by consulting personally and planning an individual place of peace. Before that, one must bear a family-level cross and must bear a clan-level cross and a people-level cross and a national cross. The Unification Church is not a Unification Church only for the Republic of Korea.
Even if the Unification Church possessed authority such that the Republic of Korea could look up to it, we must not stop and rest here. Mobilizing the whole Republic of Korea, we must pioneer the world and prepare a true foundation for the world. For that, the question is how to establish a Republic of Korea that can take responsibility for the worldwide cross and fulfill that responsibility. This is the road we must walk hereafter and the cross we must settle.
So we must become not a band of unification that was within the sphere of the ages of history, but a band of unification with a subjecthood of a new dimension unprecedented in history, strong enough that its authority reaches not only to the individual but even to the Cosmos. When it becomes a family formed of one man and one woman who can praise such a value of victory, that family can be called a worldwide family and a cosmic family. God would not exchange this family even for the world.
When we consider that God desired a historical condition of praise through these two people but could not accomplish it and that the future condition of praise too must be accomplished through them, these are people needed from beginning to end. Standing forth, proclaiming a family standard that can be so accomplished, the preparation of a family framework through the standard of bridegroom and bride that Christianity speaks of is the marriage feast of the Lamb. And yet they say the Lord comes on the clouds in the air? They carry on such empty-headed nonsense. Their eyes are set straight in their heads, and yet they carry on such witless nonsense.
In this age of developed science today, such rough-guesswork talk does not hold. Such an age has passed. To such people, the Unification Church looks heretical. Heretical, indeed? It is offensive. But just wait and see. Let us confront them with real ability. It is not because we do not know strategy that we are like this. That we do not do publicity and diplomacy is also because we possess an inner strength that can forever overpower their strength. When spring comes, a tree sprouts and its roots extend. Just as a tree with deep roots is not uprooted even when the wind blows and grows strong, so we too have developed. We have developed while being pursued, developed while being trampled, and developed while being abused. This is the Unification Church way.
Moreover, hereafter we will fight with America. Centering on the victory-over-communism activity we have presented, I will make it clear when I go to America. Who will take the lead? President Nixon is not the issue. When I looked into the FBI and the CIA, they were nothing much. With the strength they hold, they can go only up to a certain boundary line. Because we know that at that time we will be needed, we come forth without caring whether they make a fuss or not. Just as when spring comes one sings a song of spring and when autumn comes one sings a song of autumn, when the time comes, one must sing the song fitting the time.
That time begins when the band of villains calls the band of the good villains. And if one goes forward without a word even then, one is arranged to receive God’s sympathy. Therefore, I tell you not to die on the floorboards. What does it matter if one dies abroad for the sake of the Cosmos? We must go with such resolve. We must go bearing the cross of all people and the cross of all ages. And when, having passed through all this, the band of unification that has won worldwide is praised, history will be ours, the age will look up to us, and all people will remember us forever. If that happens, will not the unified nation and the unified world become yours?
Become independent workers of unification
We can develop forever upon an absolute foundation centering on God. We must go toward that world in which one praises today and praises tomorrow and only happiness can dwell. In walking this road, let us not become small-minded men who try to avoid the cross and go around. Let us go silently even if we become prisoners.
Let us go, seeing them submit and perish without fighting, before the earth enters our eyes. For that, one cannot but become a band that does not collapse but remains even in a position where one could perish. God longs for a band of unification that passes through such a process and remains in the worldwide summit position.
When that day comes, all the people of the world will automatically praise. Only when a day comes when, by the law of natural conformity, one meets one day of liberation centering on God within a realm of victory and can praise national sovereignty before the whole world can a unified nation be accomplished in which God can govern goodness within a realm of good dominion. You must know that it must be so. We must go forward with the resolve that if this is not accomplished in one generation, it goes on for three generations or more.
We have learned the content that in the course of history one indemnifies and restores vertical history horizontally, and if this is true, we must strive so that through me, one person, I can represent a resurrected body of the realm of three ages. The road is time-sensitive. Even if we are tired from not sleeping today, we must go on undertaking any task from a position of seeking a day when we can rest tomorrow if we cannot rest today, if this is work for the sake of the will. Thinking that tomorrow’s sphere is attached to today’s single step, we must become independent workers of unification who, even while shedding tears, do not collapse but bear this and take responsibility and push forward. You must know that if they are such workers of unification, they can without fail form a worldwide realm of unification.
In walking such a road, how can one go on saying, “I will go eating well and living well like others; since others ride in cars, I too must ride in a car; since others eat well, I too will eat well”? That will not do. We must pass through a process opposite to the world. One must wish to eat well and live well from a position ahead of what remains on the course of history; will it do to wish to eat well and live well from a position behind? We must go from a position ahead of them.
The members of the Unification Church must live well. Hereafter, a time will come when those who believed in the Unification Church and then fell away will beat their breasts and lament. Must you live well or live poorly? “We must live well.” For that, one must endure tenaciously and overcome and live well from a position ahead. For that, money is necessary. Yet money held within Satan’s realm is nothing but Satan’s.
That we prepare for that time is not to prepare from the standard of a unified nation. Before preparing a unified nation, one must prepare unified individuals. That is why in Christianity one lives a life of offering tithes. We must leave behind a historical day of offering the utmost devotion. Adding to that and adding again, one must build up that realm. Do you understand? “Yes.”
Now the Unification Church too must build its headquarters again. This church is the world headquarters. It is not because the Unification Church has no capital to build a church that it is like this. It is because one must love the nation before loving the church. That nation is not loving the Republic of Korea within the fallen realm; I tell you to love the new Republic of Korea that can come hereafter. I have been standing at the head until now, preventing the satanic forces, who bite and tear, trying to kill by any means, from doing so. How well the Principle fits…. At any time, without passing through Cain and Abel, there is no road to go forward and no road to win. Once one understands, it is interesting; that is how we have come this far.
Moonism, rising in Europe
What I have felt is that today too at Sutaek-ri they will have been waiting from dawn with drooping noses because I am coming. More than 460 young fellows from ten nations will be waiting in excitement. Within the coming six days I must match these ones, and I must do it. People of the world prepare for several years to marry off their sons and daughters, but I must match several hundred couples within six days. It must be done like a thunderbolt. That does not mean it is done carelessly in a rush. It is done like a thunderbolt, but without error. That is not a problem.
So now I have come after laying the groundwork. You must believe my words. But do not believe blindly; believe straight, with your eyes wide open and blinking. Even if you are deceived, keep your wits about you. That does not mean I deceive you. Looking at this, how has it come about that I am doing such work? Most of these are Japanese, and now I must match them. In the Japanese colonial period, they are descendants of those ringleaders, the subordinates of the emperor of Japan, who tortured and beat us; it would not be enough to seize them all and hang them upside down—and I am to bless them?
Yet blessing and loving such descendants of theirs is more useful. In repaying an enemy, the highest method is to raise the enemy’s children and have them repay the enemy. If one does that, they will even dig up their father’s grave. How else could one repay an enemy beyond that?
If I only give the order, I can even have the emperor of Japan expelled. I am now carrying on this business. That said, the Japanese are not of a different skin color. When I speak with Americans, Germans, English, and French people, they are tall as poles, and their eyes are blue, and it is disagreeable. But they too, like us, have smiles spreading at the corners of their mouths and tears welling in their eyes, and comedy unfolded and tragedy unfolded. For Westerners it is tragedy, and for Easterners it is comedy. Now let the Easterners once subdue the Westerners, who have been swaggering until now.
In the seesaw game, it is interesting only when what goes up once must come down once. If what goes up once goes straight up and then falls, there is no broth and not even a bone left. Heaven and earth are arranged to develop that way. It must unfold going up and coming down. Is it not so? It goes up and comes down of itself. Meeting an age in which the civilizations of East and West can interchange, we must achieve a culture that can digest Western civilization centering on the civilization of Asia and thereby let Western civilization and Asian civilization interchange.
Of the civilizations of East and West, if one is a man, the other is a woman. Furthermore, one is a realm of spiritual culture, and one is a realm of material culture. Because only when the two cultures are joined does a worldwide new age of a unified cultural realm come; to keep the beat with that and carry on life, the peoples of inside and outside must be joined. Western civilization, which represents material civilization, and Asian civilization, which represents spiritual civilization, must be gathered. The order to join is given by me.
Until now this has been thought delusive, but it is by no means a delusion. Let us actually make such a world realm. Teacher Moon of the Unification Church is now doing that.
Over in Europe, an ideology called Moonism has appeared. What is this Moonism? It is Moon-ism (文主義). Such a new term has come into being. With this, we intend to carry on the business of making a new world. With such a heart, I have fought for more than fifty years until now.
The thought that the band of unification must hold
Thinking once about such a world, if one born a woman cannot once take part in the ranks of this Blessing of 777 Couples, it will be a han for all ages. I am now planning to broadcast worldwide through a New York broadcasting station, but I do not know how it will turn out. We live this way, being abused by the people of the world. We live by that relish. But is there any case of a person who abuses development? Is there a person who does well among those who abuse? Have you seen such a person?
There is a Korean saying that when a cousin buys a rice field, one’s stomach aches, is there not? Then when the Unification Church prospers, not only their stomachs but even their heads will ache. A stomachache alone is unbearable, and with a headache besides, they collapse.
I remember vividly the content of praying before the White House in America and praying before the Vatican in Rome. When I went to Rome and was about to go up to the roof of St. Peter’s Basilica, as luck would have it, the Vatican was fully mobilized, and Paul VI was holding a parade (the Easter parade of April 8, 1969), and I felt bad. Tracing the genealogy, is he not lower than I? Thinking that there is nothing for an elementary school to feel bad about when a kindergarten holds a sports day, I just laughed it off. (Laughter) That is how one lives.
Teacher Moon of the Unification Church may have looked until now like a small-minded man, but presently there is nothing in the Republic of Korea that I envy. There is nothing to envy. If there is someone in the Republic of Korea riding about in a Mercedes, I have a foundation such that if I said I too want to ride a Mercedes, bring one, I could have it brought.
If I wanted to put up a building, I could put up any number. If anyone comes to the headquarters and criticizes, saying the headquarters is so shabby, his neck will fall. We have worked for the nation and the people and the world even while going ragged. We have played the heavy role of paying the price of blood while being torn apart, robbed, and pursued.
This house is a house that will be left behind once we multiply. It is like a bird that hatches from an egg in the nest and at first passes its droppings in that nest and then, having grown, when the time comes, says, “Farewell, nest, I am going; when shall we meet again?” and flies off toward the sky. Such a day is coming. Do you want that or not? “We want it.” Deaconess Kim Hui Ok, do you want it? “I want it.” That is why we have followed until now, even while being abused as people who dance naked. Teacher Moon has made many famous people. Having made many famous people, I will make many renowned organizations. Hereafter I will even make the president of a famous nation. They are all arranged to be caught.
Seen from this point, the band of unification must not become a band of unification within this Cheongpa-dong. It must not become a band of unification that is only for itself. One must walk a road of standing for the world and only then be able to rejoice in oneself. One must be able to praise God’s rest more than one’s own rest and must become a man who, even in a ragged position, can pray for blessings so that He may enjoy rest for thousands and tens of thousands of years. Such is Unification Thought. Do you understand? And so one must go forward taking responsibility for the worldwide cross and saying that one will take responsibility for all the difficult things.
Does America say it will take responsibility for the Asian peoples now challenged, or that it will evade it? When those who have stepped forward saying they will take responsibility fail, it becomes worse than not having stepped forward. I have been saying until now that the Republic of Korea must not trust America. The present government too goes on about one billion dollars and money, money, money—what is that? That much is within my organization as well. I tell the government and the opposition not to hang their necks on it and bow because they are to receive a little pocket money. Even in a position of empty hands and stark nakedness, if we only become a people God needs, unification is not a problem.
That is why I pray, “America may go, but God must not go.” Even in a position of empty hands and stark nakedness, if only God is there, a new nation can be formed. The Unification Church may seem to be nothing, but it is doing work that is a plus to the Republic of Korea.
To save the nation, the good band must sacrifice
Now at Sutaek-ri a training center of about 350 pyeong is being built. We intend to build this within one month. Building a house is truly easy. The Unification Church is goblin-style. When Kuboki came back from the provinces and it was already built, he asked, “When was this built?” “When indeed—it was built last night.” Night and day we beat and drive. If one can drag things along, one must drag them to the very end. If you cannot do it, I will bring Japanese and set them to it.
Yesterday too I pressed the production manager of Tongil Industries. That person is never praised, and each time I go, he is disciplined. So he is always dispirited. That person is pitiful. Yet, looking closely, it is not so. He grumbles that only he is treated that way. And there are young fellows who shrink back, saying, “It is not one or two days; he keeps pressing us every single day—how can we live?” I say to seize such fellows and bring them. I am confident I can keep them from shrinking back.
I know that the local churches are now challenged. I know well that the leader of a certain church is going hungry. I say go hungry. To save the nation, the good band must live a life of hell. Only then can bands like the band of villains be brought to repent. Such things must happen. This is my creed. That is why I am living such a life even now.
The Unification Church has no money. If we have no money, someone may say that we could bring it from Japan or bring it from the nations of the world. Those words are right. But if that happens, Korea comes into a position of being in debt. From now on, even if there is no money, stop talking about having no money.
It is said that a gentleman does not warm himself at a chaff fire even if he freezes to death. If I have no money and help others even by going into debt, who would think I am in debt? There is no money, but I do as I please. Then do you agree with this, or not? “We agree.” The women? “We agree.” If you agree, to what extent will you do it?
Will you like only the Republic of Korea or, like, the world? “The world.” To walk a road for the world, one must have capital. Can one make one’s own fortune without capital? At such a time you must go at the head. If I said I would sell you, would you be sold or not? Are you confident you could be sold or not? “We are.” Then if I say I will sell you, you must be sold. This is precisely the public road.
Until now we have not been able to build even a church, but now we too must build a church. I am a person who, when I say something must be done, does it.
You know my character, do you not? “Yes.” If it seems it cannot be done, either I do not even begin—one of the two. Yet there has been nothing I have undertaken with confidence that did not work out. The heavenly fortune by which I keep the beat with the fortune of the times has without fail come before us.
Then, taking hold of that heavenly fortune, what must be done? The method is simply to listen to my words. Do you understand? A Last Days will come when eyeballs are taken out and sold. If told to take out your left eye, one each, would you take it out? Since one is removed upon death, what does one's left eye matter? Not the right eye—out of courtesy, the left eye.
It is not that the Unification Church has no money. Nor do I have no money. There is an amount of money. Now we must build one church that can be put forward worldwide. We must make a world headquarters where the band of unification can live. The Empire State Building in New York is said to be 102 stories, but I will build one larger than that before I die.
When I die, it is enough to leave the will that “the bands of unification who flock hereafter cannot rest without building this 120-story world mission headquarters.” Do you understand? So religious thought is great. With Unification Thought it can amply be done. We must leave behind a new cultural property that no other thought hereafter can follow.
This time too, when I went to see Sasakawa, his attitude toward Association President Yu was full of enthusiasm, and he said he had met a person humanly like himself. His house is a twelve-story building, a truly magnificent and large house. In his business, he handles nearly four hundred billion a year. And what that old gentleman said was, “I am captivated by Teacher Moon. I came to Korea not to meet a distinguished guest of the Republic of Korea but because I wanted to see Teacher Moon.” He said he was captivated by me. What is different between me and him? Between men, when you strip, we are the same. (Laughter)
And he said that because he has dealt with countless people until now, if he looks at a person’s face, he can tell at once whether that person will betray him or not. And that Teacher Moon of the Unification Church alone is a person who will absolutely never betray him.
However, he reads the face; he is not a person who would put him at a minus or kill him. So he thinks of it even at night, and since it is grievous enough to have no close friends, he could be a friend; and since he does not try to deceive, he could also be a comrade in business, for he runs his business from a lonely position, and considering all such aspects, Teacher Moon is a fine person. (Owing to poor recording conditions, the part could not be compiled.)
Furnish inner ability
You must know that this nation is the world headquarters of the Unification Church and must become selves who can furnish the dignity to establish thought hereafter on behalf of the bands of the Unification Church of the world. This cannot be done with money alone. It cannot be done with outward ability alone. There must be inner ability.
One must furnish inner ability in loving God. Then by what will that ability be raised? Is that ability obtained by chance? It is obtained only by our standing at the head before the outward world and overcoming a road of suffering. You must know that only by doing so can one win the eternal victory of life.
It is because I have suffered until now that the Unification Church is strong and great. Without suffering there is no conviction. That is why, to follow the Unification Church, one must endure hardship. While I am still living a life of bearing the cross and shedding blood and sweat to lay the worldwide foundation of the Unification Church, a person who retreats here is an opportunist. Will you retreat or not? Thinking of such conditions, we must go today and must go tomorrow.
Entering the decade of the 1970s, the three great plans I planned must all exceed their targets. Do you understand? And so, seeing that, just as the term “worldwide unified front” says, it is being laid as a foundation in Asia, centering on the inner aspect; we can feel that God is together with us.
Everything seems like it will not work, and there are many difficulties, but when we witness social phenomena united with God’s will, we must give thanks all the more before the will and pledge to give full loyalty. You must know that this is the road we must walk hereafter.
