Former Headquarters Church, Korea.
To arrange a program like today’s, the one who acts as master of ceremonies must come beforehand and ask, “Teacher, please give a message this evening.” As soon as I sat right down here, they had me speak, so—well. That is not to say I cannot give a message.
When I look quietly at it, it seems this has become a precedent—that, without even knowing where the Teacher is, they set up a plan and proceeded—and if this evening I had been a little late, there would nearly have been trouble.
The Present World, Which Has No Values for Young People to Believe In and Follow
As you know, since this workshop is a university-students’ workshop, its significance is great, and it can be considered a good occasion that prepares one important key in developing our church hereafter.
As for who depends on what governs the standard of a nation’s rise and fall and its helm (方向舵), it is a fact acknowledged by oneself and others that it depends on the young people.
When I look quietly at today’s young people—and all the more, looking at the young people as we enter the latter half of the twentieth century—there are not many young people who, on a normal standard and in a position of being able to bear responsibility for the hope the nation desires, live holding a heart-foundation that can well settle the history of the past and become the center of the future in the present age.
All the more, upon the young people of a country like America, some strange wind called the twist has blown, and the places they go are of every kind. This evening they drink and enjoy themselves, and tomorrow they make a fuss at the billiard hall, living lives of every shape.
The point is that their changing shapes are of myriad kinds. Even in a single day’s living, dozens of scenes unfold.
That too is fine. It is fine to change according to the changing environment. But because young people must become the center of hope in the society to come, they must, with a cool-headed power of criticism toward the currents of that society, set up a self-center that does not lean to any environment and be able to handle affairs.
To face the environment from a position of bearing such responsibility is good, but for them to be swept along by the trend of society from a position that is not so is partially problematic.
If it is a nation that has such young people, one can foresee that the end of that nation’s future is not far off.
The Republic of Korea is likewise. A word of encouragement would, I suppose, be to lift good content, praise the university students, encourage them, and, on such a side, tell them to become good; but in reality.
In fact, one’s university days are the finest period, distinguished from today’s society, when one has one’s body in the halls of learning. To be a university student is to be in a period like the flower of life. It is a good period, a valuable period, that anyone would wish to seize.
If one criticizes the day-to-day living of the students in such a period—of course, the majority will not be so, but among them there are, I cannot but worry, many students whom, on the contrary, ignorant people who know nothing are in a position to worry over, thinking, “It really will not do for those to be like that….”
This is something a certain woman I met the other day said: she calls today’s university students, and those who have just graduated from university, a school of goldfish.
What is a school of goldfish?
What a goldfish is, is this. All day long, shut up in a fishbowl, it swallows and spits out, swallows and spits out the water held there, a thousand times, ten thousand times. In the end, there will be no water in the bowl that has not passed through its mouth.
What does this mean?
When you go into a place like a tearoom these days, how is the air inside? It is stuffy, is it not?
Many people are crammed in there, sitting and breathing that air in and out. And what else do they drink in? They gulp down water. Because they are a crowd that gulps and gulps down water, she calls them a school of goldfish. This may sound like a funny saying, but there is a reason behind it.
To pass through such a place, too, is fine. If there, one can discover something new about life and acquire material needed for one’s own future development and prepare one's wellspring, one motive, by which one can run toward the future, then that too is good. But when one analyzes all the ideological things they discuss, think, and move about in such a place, they are in a position of having to be restrained and called to account by this present world.
When we weigh this fact, we well know that there are many students in a position of having no choice but to be corrected.
The Unification Church, Which Makes Young People Who Can Purify the World
You may think that we, Unification Church students gathered here, are the exception. But—I do not know about now, but in the past, there will have been many students who belonged to that sort.
All the more, because our church has, until now, repeatedly passed through a truly fierce history of struggle, and environmentally has not been in a position that the masses welcome, at least the person who knocked on the door of our church and climbed over the fence of our church will not be a normal young man or maiden.
A normal person cannot come in. The point is that people who have much doubt, or who, groping for something out of the ordinary, would do what others do not—that is, people of a special type in terms of character—come into our church.
Therefore, when one analyzes the past of the people of our church, there are many people of a serious sort. People who wandered the back alleys, or people who, having lived as they pleased and then received some great shock, pondered the question of what life is—that is, many came in while agonizing, standing at the crossroads of whether to die or to live.
When one analyzes the background, there are people of good quality, but the point is that there are also many who are not so.
It is such people who gather and train. Then where does the purpose of training lie? It lies in purifying this society and casting a new ideological wave upon the world to come.
We have certainly gathered to seek a method by which we can raise a new wave in the actual condition of today’s Korea, if it is Korea—that is, in the present-day (現下) environment of the Republic of Korea.
Furthermore, as is acknowledged by oneself and others, our Unification Church has, until now, not moved for the sake of the Unification Church within the fence.
The point is that until now, our Unification Church has fought within the fence for the sake of what is outside the fence.
That you have come here within the fence of the Unification Church, entered the headquarters, if it is the headquarters, and received training is not a training to make you be satisfied within the fence of the Unification Church, as a Unification Church member.
The purpose of training is to make responsible young men and responsible women who can kick through the fence, go out, and purify what is outside the fence. In other words, the point is that one gathers and receives training to become a person of purpose who, making a new resolve, can recreate and reorganize the “I” of today and the “I” of tomorrow, not the “I” of yesterday, settle the environment, and set up a new purpose.
The Human Being, Who Must Live Within a Clear Purpose and Values of Life
So today I intend to speak briefly with the title “The Central Stalk, the Shoot, and the Spring.”
Though you are here now, until yesterday you were somewhere else. A person’s living changes day by day.
Of course, the standard one aimed at does not change, but the living environment changes. Thus, as this changing and changing environment is connected, the purpose one aims at is attained.
The larger the range one takes as one’s standard—that is, the larger the purpose—the wider that environmental range too becomes. In other words, for some great nation to develop greatly, it must have environmental elements proportionate to that magnitude.
However many elements one has, the question becomes how one will mobilize and adapt them to the right place at the right time and attain the purpose.
Then, everyone, let us think of the existence called “I.” Let us quietly think of I, if it is I; of yourself, if it is you. This existence called “I” was born—where would this thing called “I” have come from? There will be many twists and turns. Think about it. Sit quietly and think about it.
From where would the existence called “I” have come? I, who am in my twenties, that is, in the period of youth—how have I walked from the past until now, coming from kindergarten, from primary school, through middle and high school, up to university; and now, where do I intend to go from here? Seen from the present point, there is a process of coming from where and going where. This process is one that one must, one way or another, pass through in life.
Then, where does the difference between an unhappy person and a happy person open up?
A person who connects and lives his own historical bond of where he came from within a normal environment, a normal stage of living, is happy. And a nation with such a background is likewise a happy nation. The more that historical bond is severed, the more the conditions for becoming unhappy increase.
Do you understand what I mean?
The history that has been passed down until now has been formed by the lives of countless ancestors. Had the living process of these ancestors, their path, moved toward the purpose unchangingly and developed continuously, the ancestors would have been people who were not in an unhappy position.
If, unable to do so, they lived amid a bond that was severed and severed, they could not develop, and, circling there, striking there, breaking there, they would have brought forth twists and turns of grief of myriad kinds. Behind history, such twists and turns will be hidden.
Many people have gathered here today, and the historical backgrounds of many of you are all different. And the future paths you must walk from now on will differ. Here, when we consider the “I” of today, when we think that from this “I” descendants of a thousand ages and ten thousand generations are connected, we come to think that the existence called “I” is an existence only in the universe. Then let us think: what will the future of this “I” be, how will it be concluded, and how will the future of the descendants to be connected from me be?
If the path “I” walk goes in a consistent direction toward a clear purpose, the descendants too will certainly be happy. But if I go this way today and that way tomorrow, keep overturning and changing, going back and forth, back and forth, going up and down, then in the end those descendants will become miserable.
If it becomes so, you will certainly become an ancestor who fails to leave descendants who can dedicate or contribute to the new world of ideology to come. This can be inferred and weighed.
You understand what I mean, don’t you?
A people with a long history—such a people has something that no one can do with as he pleases. This world has pursued one purpose through a long history. Everything that exists does not exist without a purpose.
On this, we would have to enter into our Principle of Creation and speak concretely, but let us look into it deeply later. The point is that everything cannot exist without a purpose.
Why is that?
To exist, a relational requisite is absolutely needed. That a relational requisite is needed is because, though the things themselves have their purpose, the two, joining, come to pursue yet another purpose. To like someone is not to like alone.
He and I like, and I like. And the workings of our heart do not end in the two alone liking; they work to make the whole good.
Seeing such things, the human being pursues a greater purpose. Because we were born, from the time of birth, within such a bond, we human beings demand to form a relationship with a greater purpose. The point is that to exist, there must absolutely be a purpose.
At the same time, to exist, there must absolutely be one purpose; one does not seek to exist in a place that is constantly changing and overturning. One seeks to live in a comfortable place. That which everything that exists desires is to live in a place that is comfortable and yet developing.
Therefore, if, in the historical process, one sets up a standard grounded in a right tradition and goes toward the purpose, hope arises; and once one holds hope, one develops.
When one develops, one comes to create a new culture there. From this viewpoint, when we consider the history of the past and the history of the future to come, had it become a people or a nation or a world that could, centered on an unchanging self, determine its position of existence and run single-mindedly toward the purpose, this world would have been different from today.
Religion, Which Has Pursued the Unchanging Purpose of God
In the historical field, or the ideological field, and all the more in the religious field, what was it that the leaders of religion—that is, personages like Jesus, or personages like Sakyamuni or Confucius — asserted?
What they asserted did not end with today alone; they pursued a “source—this assertion came from So-and-so”—that never changes, however long an existence that always exists in the same position. They pursued not one who stayed within some bounded sphere, but an absolute being who, transcending the bounded sphere, could have dominion even over the infinite spatial world. The object they pursued, the unchanging absolute existence, is precisely God. Overall, it comes down to the question of God.
To pursue, centered on such a God, the purpose that God aims at is religion.
Because it is an unchanging God, the standard and purpose of that God, bound to the future world, cannot change, and the direction that God pursues cannot change either. Under such an intent, religion pursues the ideology of God.
Religion, which, holding such an ideology, came forth with reality as its stage, has, crossing over and over all the tempests of the age of history, founded today’s world-level cultural sphere. You will know such things well.
There were countless religions, countless ideologies, countless peoples, but all flowed away. Their positions are all different, but the purpose they aim at is certainly the unified standard that all people desire.
When the morning sun rises, the moment the sun appears, all the plants that had been sunk in darkness through the night turn entirely toward it.
The point is that the shoots (순) of the plants all face the sunlight. The insects, too, that had hidden in the grass passing the tedious night—when the sun suddenly rises and gives forth its light, they all gaze that way, spread their wings, and from then prepare to greet a joyful day, a new day. It is likewise for the human being. It is likewise.
For humankind too, such sunlight will come hereafter. And so people, without knowing it, face that way and seek that something. Seen thus, though countless nations and countless peoples are living, what would that thing be of which God, or any person, or any sage or noble one, could say, “This alone is supreme”?
In other words, the point is that there is a historical wish. Therefore, though today’s countless nations each pass through their own historical processes and, in that process, go this way and go that way, at some time they are bound, even by curving around like this, to converge into one.
If there is a single shoot (筍) that accords with history, one seeks to pour into it all one’s life force, all one’s living force, and all one’s essence. The point is that one cannot escape such a bond. Seeing the fact that history has flowed thus, that this actual world today pursues one world, can be said to be an unavoidable phenomenon.
The present-day countless nations aim for one world. Then which nation among those nations will become the center?
That is, who will become the shooter?
In other words, who will become the central stalk (종대)? Everyone, you know what the central stalk is, don’t you? The central stalk, I mean.
Speaking in terms of a tree, to become the shoot of a tree, it must have a normal bond with the root that was first born. Is that not so? It is so. To become the central stalk and the shoot of that tree, from the very moment the sprout breaks forth—that is, from the moment the tree manifests its life force between heaven and earth—it must have a right bond. The point is that, without that, it cannot become the central stalk and cannot become the shoot.
From this viewpoint, if there is a great origin of this heaven and earth, from the very moment it arises, it will have been bound to an ideological foundation and have held a standard whose form is small but whose essence contains content that can adapt to the whole.
Bound to the setting-out of this great origin, together with the unbroken historical current and the changes of the age’s environment, however great an environment it passed through, so long as that life force is not cut off, history develops and comes to fruition in one unified form.
Until the fruited standard of the form of unity is completed, that shoot must remain connected. Otherwise, it cannot become the shoot. Is that not so?
From this viewpoint, when we survey together the important ideologies of this world, what kind of -ism would be the -ism that can rule this world? In today’s terms, it is materialism or spiritualism.
These days, by way of spiritualism and whatnot, it is an age that says God has died, that the deity has died. We have entered an age unrelated to the deity.
So that it necessarily contains the ideology of the deity and passes through a historical bond, there must be a bond. To form a bond, it passes through a historical process, and what was formed in that process is this historical world. If so, then there must appear a system of thought that, from the very first, can be connected unbrokenly and remain to the end within this world—a system of thought that will go consistently until one purpose is accomplished.
There must appear an ideological form that no one can touch, a complete one, containing a new worldview or view of the universe. What came forth holding such content is religion. It is religion.
Therefore, because it is near to that essence, religion, however it is overturned, transcends the age and the century. One age has a limit of years. One century takes a hundred years as its standard.
The greater a religion is, the more it stands on a ground near the original root, the more it is connected down unbrokenly through a thousand years, ten thousand years, long ages.
From this viewpoint, what is called Christianity today is a religion connected down until now, bound from the very time of God’s creation of heaven and earth. Seeing such things, the Bible may seem quite laughable, but we can infer that it holds an astonishing bond.
The Human Being, Who Must Live for the Sake of the Greater
Therefore, the world must bear one fruit here. And it must bring to conclusion the purpose for which it has grown up as one tree—that is, the purpose of life.
Only so can it complete the purpose of its existence, and at the same time, the purpose of the Creator who caused it to exist can be attained.
Speaking in terms of the human being, while the purpose humankind desires is concluded, the purpose of the Creator who created humankind is also concluded. The flow of history flows, without fail, thus.
Then where do you stand?
One must analyze this first. One must analyze what one’s living process has been. The point is that one did not so much as dream of religion, or God, or anything of the sort. So it is the same as having lived upside down.
History stretches forth—but where did I go?
It is the same as a person who lives below the horizon, a person who lives underground, a person who lives in a burrow. Because there is only one hole to go out by, one thinks that if one just goes out that hole, one will live. One does not know that there is a pit before the hole one goes out by, so who knows what will happen. In such a position, you are living. That is the environment in which the fallen people of the present world live.
In such an environment, what position are you in?
Because the history of Heaven has flowed thus, toward the shoot, we, wherever we are, must place what we aim at on something great—the nation, humankind, the world, and so on. Do you understand? A person who makes “I” the center will not do. A person who says “a family centered on me” will not do.
Only when one stands on the viewpoint of an “I” for the family, an “I” for the kindred and the people, and an “I” for the nation and the world can one acknowledge one’s present position as worthwhile in life.
But a person who asserts a family centered on me, a society centered on me, a nation centered on me, a world centered on me, ruins even the direction of his self. The point is that there are many such people.
Everyone, quietly knock on your conscience. And listen to what that conscience says. When walking along the road, you meet a pitiable person; listen to what your conscience says.
What relation does that person have to me?
When you suddenly meet a person you never dreamed of, or a person that our ancestors of thousands of years ago never thought of, and you see that pitiable person going hungry, your conscience says, “Give the money in your wallet.” Even if there are only three hundred won in your wallet, it tells you to give it.
So you give a hundred won to that pitiable person, and there are only two hundred won left in the wallet, but as you go along—oh my! — There is a person more pitiable than that. Then your conscience again tells you to help.
So you give another hundred won, and as you go along, there is a person more pitiable than that. Still, your conscience again tells you to help.
So you give him the rest of the money, and now, going along with not a penny, there is again a pitiable person. Then your conscience says, “Take off even your clothes and put them on him.” The point is that the conscience is so.
Even if you say you did a good deed once on some day, the conscience sneers. It does not say, “Since you did a good deed and succeeded, and did a good deed and attained your purpose, just shout hurrah and sing a triumphal song and rejoice—nothing else is needed.” The mind keeps urging. It says, “Do, do, do.” In a good deed, there cannot be an end that finishes with having done it. The mind works thus.
Then, in doing good, does it tell you to do it only for a beloved friend? No. The mind commands you to love the family and the environment, to be for the nation, to be for the world.
Why does it do so?
The point is that if you give and receive, a bond is formed. By the public law of heaven and earth, if you give well and receive well, what you gave then does not perish for a billion ages. That is why people teach charity. They teach the path of such a bond.
Christianity teaches love, and Buddhism teaches compassion. What is all that? It is not telling you to seize everything from others and put it into your pocket. It is telling you to take everything out of your pocket and share it.
What religion teaches is to sacrifice and serve. For whose sake? Not for the sake of “I.” It is for the sake of the greater. From this viewpoint, who would be a master of the Way (도) in the true sense?
The Teacher has, from long ago, analyzed such things. A personage like Sakyamuni was born a prince, cast off that prince’s seat, and, to solve the question of what life is, cultivated the Way in the snowy mountains. And so, awakening to the Way, he founded Buddhism.
Then how was the personage called Jesus?
Driven and pursued, rejected wherever he went, he had nowhere to set foot. Driven and driven so, having no choice, he was hung on the cross and died. And yet the Jesus who died so did not seek to take revenge on his enemies but prayed for them, for the world’s humanity, and departed.
In that respect, he is different in quality from the other sages. He died holding the conviction, “Though I die, I will die for the sake of the world, forming a bond with the world’s humanity and a relationship with the world’s history, and take responsibility forever.” He said, “The blood I shed I will give for the people of this age.” He gave it, transcending the history of thousands and tens of thousands of generations, transcending distance. And he gave it from a position acknowledged by God.
The point is that he gave it from a position of receiving God’s acknowledgment. In that sense, he said, “It is finished.” He gave completely and was completely acknowledged. Because he gave completely and received completely, the next time he asks again, he can come seeking it.
Even in the place of expiring, hung alone on the cross, because he gave for the sake of the world, grasped the world’s historical bond, took hold of God’s heart, and set up a standard by which God could shed tears, and departed, he could create a new history even in death and could rise from the tomb. In that he is different from other masters of the Way, like Confucius or Sakyamuni.
In that place of crossing over death, in that place of deciding life and death, in a position like that of staking one’s life in a wager, because he did not lose his chastity but went that path from the peak of hope that the right-standing mind demands, embracing the world and grasping God, though Jesus died, his thought and his will could not but appear as the possession of all people. And because it does not end as the possession of all people itself, but cannot but return to Jesus’ possession, there was established the motive by which, in the age of history, countless human beings could not but make Jesus their supreme hope and long for him like a bridegroom. Here, religion was established.
A Religion Must Emerge That Becomes the Central Stalk and the Shoot God Needs
Many fine young people have come here—everyone, how have you lived until now?
Let us ask our young ladies a bit. In what corner and how did you live? If you undo your bundle, it will be however you please. The fellows here will be the same. It will be however they please.
If you photographed that world of the mind and looked at it yourself, an “aigo” would come out. You would feel so yourself.
Everyone, do you not feel so? The minds of the fellows who say the Republic of Korea is bad and will perish will be worse. Since fellows whose minds are worse are criticizing the outer world, they are a shiftless lot. Is it so, or not?
What position are you in?
You must become the central stalk and become the shoot. To achieve that, you must long for the high. To become a high central stalk—for the central stalk to stand as the central stalk, it must have a broad surface. Look at a great tree; how is its base? A tree like a poplar is the exception. A tree grown like that cannot be used as normal, good timber. Hard timber, timber that can last long, has a broad base even if it is short. That is how it is. I went up to the summit of Mount Halla on Jeju Island and saw a tree like a juniper, and it was only about one or two fathoms high. On the summit of Mount Halla, cold wind rushes, so how cold it must be! For that reason, the tree knew that the more it grew, the more disadvantageous it was to itself.
A tree is not more foolish than a person, so it knows such things. Therefore, if possible, it does not grow tall but seeks to spread sideways. It cultivates the Way so as not to grow tall. It keeps seeking only to spread sideways. That too is fine. But the shoot must always be higher than the others.
Therefore, people also say they will try to become great people. Everyone, what is the reason for studying? To say “let us study a lot” is to say “let us broaden the range.” Is it not so? Why do people say, Let's go to university? And why, of that, do they say, Let us go to Seoul National University?
What good is there in going to Seoul National University?
Because all the excellent talents of this nation have become professors at that university, and almost all the excellent people are gathered there. Because the places where those people come and go are environmentally broadened. Is it not so? The point is that a broad stage on which one can rise in the world has been cultivated. Because there, when one rings out—when one rings out from a normal position—it becomes a foundation that can make the whole ring and make the whole respond, because one can, in a short time, make such a foundation one’s own stage of activity; that is why people seek to go to Seoul National University.
What does this mean?
It means that the environment automatically presents to one the conditions for rising in the world. That is why they seek to go to Seoul National University. That is how I see it. Studying is the same. Even having gone to Seoul National University, one must wrap one’s head around it and study. Then that stage of activity becomes still broader. And the more so, the nearer one comes to the top. That is to say, one will become president. It is to say one will go near the top.
From this viewpoint, religion is likewise. A religion of my-own-denomination-first-ism is a petty religion. Things like “Aigo, Buddhism alone is supreme,” “Christianity alone is supreme”—they are all petty. They are supreme only within that field.
If God exists, what kind of God would that God be?
He is a God who wishes to roll round and round and wander over all the world. The point is that He wishes to roll about and wander over the world. By what can one know it?
One can know it by looking at the sun. Who made the sun? God made it. The sun rolls and wanders over the world, does it not? Does it, or not? The point is that God, too, is such a God.
God does not play only the role of the father of religion. Such a God is not needed. A God who can be the father of religion and also the father of this world, and a general who fights on the battlefield, and, going where the Way is cultivated, a master of the Way, and, in a footrace, the marathon king—that is a splendid God. The Unification Church needs such a Father. It is not set up so that one says, “Aigo, I will just go back and forth to one church” within some fence.
But God is always in the position of the central stalk. And, while making the central stalk the center, He governs the world horizontally. What that means is that God, passing through the age of history, sets up the central stalk and, at the same time, moves this horizontal world.
Then, as one now learning ethics, and all the more as a young person, when you face the Principle, have you ever thought, “Wow! How can it be so…? Ha! Would that be so? If so, then which nation would become the number-one nation in the world hereafter?
You want to know this, don’t you?
You must know. And so the young ladies may harbor the desire to become the daughter-in-law of the president of that nation. And the fellows may say, “I am the son-in-law of the president of that nation.”
If one thinks such a thought and says one will become so, who will say anything? God, too, will not stop it. The point is, become so. It is necessary to think such a thought.
One must wish to meet an individual, a family, a kindred, a people, a nation, and a world that can become the shoot and the central stalk. Even in a meeting, to say, “What is there to hurry from the very first—just meet the sunlight somehow, and it is enough,” is that much without value. Only one who has felt the whole of the darkness, passing from morning through the night, can appraise real sunlight.
The taste of the darkness felt in the morning, the taste of the darkness felt at night, and the taste of the darkness felt at dawn are different. The point is that the taste differs by as much as the flow of time. Everyone, is it not so?
I have had such thoughts for a long time. I thought, “Yes, it will be so. Such a world will come. Then there must be a person who can become the central stalk of that world.”
From that viewpoint, a Messiah thought—a Messiah thought that all humankind should pursue in common—must emerge. But that Messiah cannot suddenly appear all at once and put forth a Messiah-thought in a single generation. It must come only through passing through much history.
Only after a shoot of the Messiah—that is, an individual form of the Messiah—appears and, passing through the age of history, being buffeted and refined yet not collapsing, sets right all the contradictory things of the environment, overcomes difficulty, and equips one to hold life force, can he put forth a religion or an ideology that can influence the world. There cannot be a leap there.
One cannot become spring at once from summer. Nor can one become winter at once from summer. One becomes spring by passing through autumn and passing through winter. There cannot be a leap there, can there? It is likewise.
And so it flows on together with history. It does not divide midway, abandon, and flee. It holds on tenaciously and goes forward, overturning. There must be such a religious form. Without escaping the social bond, one must play the central role within it. There must be such a form of religion. When we criticize from this viewpoint, Christianity has such a central thought.
When one looks at Confucianism or Buddhism, they are all novices. When one looks at Christianity, it comes forth from the Creator. And that is proven not by words alone but by historical fact. That is why religion is needed.
Be that as it may, today, countless people all say that they themselves are the central stalk. Christianity, too, says, “Ah, we are the central stalk.” All the more so these days, because many people are spiritually attuned; many adepts of the Way assert that this world will become one world.
Looking through the spiritual world, heaven’s fortune moves the fortune of earthly unification, and it will surely be unified through the Way—but through whose Way will it be unified?
The adepts of the Way all think it will be unified, centered on their Way. The point is that they all consider themselves to be the central stalk.
You must know this. The point is that they wish to become the central stalk. It would be good for you too to become the central stalk, would it not? Would it be good or bad? (It would be good.) It would be good, wouldn’t it?
So, will you become the central stalk, or not? (We will.) Now, isn’t this fellow a high school student? (laughter) Eh? Are you a high school student? (No. I am a vocational school student.) Vocational school?
Let us try to become the central stalk. Shall we stop the talk? Is it no fun? Listen a bit. One must become the central stalk.
The Unification Church, Which Set Out to Carry Out the Mission of the Central Stalk
Then what does our Unification Church now say we should unify?
Do we say, let us unify the skirt-wind?
Do we say, Let us unify some perm? What do we say, let us unify? The point is that, going up to the top, we say, Let us unify Christianity. Then can the Unification Church do such a thing? Even if we stay still, it is set to be done. The point is that even if one stays still, it will be done. One needs only to hold the content that makes it happen.
Then—everyone said they wished to become the central stalk, but the central stalk must climb to the highest place. Since it is said to be the highest, that is good, isn’t it? Isn’t it good? The very top of that nation is the president, is it not?
The president likes even a lame man. One must make it so that everyone likes one so. And how many places are there where the central stalk stands? One. One. It is one, one.
If God is the central stalk, if God is the center of the universe, then the place where God is must be one in which the center and the middle exactly coincide. That is how it is. But the places where the horizontal stands are many. The horizontal takes its place anywhere. Is that not so?
So the places where the horizontal stands are trifling and slovenly are many. Since they are so trifling and slovenly, in the positions of the horizontal, there will stand trifling and slovenly lots.
But the place where the vertical (縱) stands is only one. It is absolutely inviolable. Everyone, you must know this. A people that holds the thought of becoming the vertical becomes, in the age of history, a people whom no one can violate. So one becomes a maiden whom no one can violate. One becomes a man whom no one can violate. All must become so.
From such a viewpoint, the history of countless nations has changed and changed, and so it changes. When a strong nation sweeps down, the tradition and culture of a weak nation are all broken to pieces. But once the central stalk stands, it does not change again. In that sense, one can say religion is better.
When one central stalk comes forth, generally branches come out beside it, and how many come out? About three or four come out. Look quietly: for one central stalk to stand, three or four side branches that can be its support must arise.
In the same way, in the world too, there are at present four great religions—Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Islam. Among them is the central stalk. And so the world to come will meet the end of history and culture through that religion, which becomes the central stalk.
Therefore, a person who wishes to become a world-level hero who unifies this world hereafter cannot possibly do it with political power or military force alone. One must hold active content that can unify religion and be able to adapt it to the outer world.
According to how well one adapts to it, the world is unified. This is content that even today’s Khrushchev or Johnson does not know. It is content that neither democracy nor communism knows. So the point is that our Unification Church says let us go forth holding such content. Do you understand?
That is not to imply that, because our Unification Church is the central stalk, we should sit still at the top. The path the central stalk walks is a path representing the whole. The branches that come out at the sides also have a central stalk. Do they, or not? The branch itself has a shoot, too.
Therefore, the central stalk must become the specimen of all the outstretching branches—that is, the living specimen of all the branches stretching out in all four directions, east, west, south, and north, as they grow. One must set up a standard by which one can say, “If one just goes like that, it is certain.”
One who holds the active power by which one can say, “However ruined a nation, if it does as they do, it lives; into however hopeless an environment, if they go, it will turn out well”—such a one can be called the central stalk.
And the place where the central stalk stands must receive head-on the wind coming from all four directions: east, west, south, and north. There is no fence there. Is it so, or not? It must receive the wind from all four directions.
Therefore, the central stalk knows first that spring is coming, knows first that summer is coming, and knows first that autumn is coming. It is likewise that winter is coming. It comes to know everything first. Therefore, it must, alone and first, undergo all the difficult twists and turns. The side branches in the four directions need only undergo the trial that comes from one direction.
When the east wind blows, the branches on the east side are buffeted, but the branches on the west, south, and north sides are, on the contrary, splendid and thrilled. Is that not so?
The point is that they dance. The side branch is in a position of receiving only a one-directional wind, but how is the central stalk? The central stalk must always be buffeted by the wind from all four directions.
Then, in the historical process, which people are the people who, holding an ideology or believing and revering God, have passed through trials like the central stalk? It is the Israelite people, the Jewish people.
Therefore, if the Jewish people, who are today in the position of the center of the world’s economic domain, once firmly grasp a thoroughgoing thought hereafter, they can put the world in their hands instantly.
So when I went to Jerusalem, I had such a thought. I thought that when planting a flag here, putting into this a world-level thought and ideology that can lead the world, and blowing the marching bugle that announces the setting out to swallow up today’s communism, one moves with this people as the base, three-fifths of the world’s economic sphere will all move.
In places like Wall Street in New York, America (Wall Street—the central street of the world’s financial market), too, more than four-fifths is maintained by the hands of Jews. Wherever they went, they carried God in their bosom. The point is that wherever they went, they carried God in their bosom.
Therefore, though it was in the position of a tree, like a withered old tree, the point is that it did not die. Instead, what wrong did they commit? They committed the wrong of killing Jesus. The wrong of the nation of Judah is, so to speak, that they killed Jesus. Because they killed Jesus, because they broke the central stalk, that central stalk is now being connected down through Christianity. But it has not yet been connected.
Therefore, until Jesus comes again, the nation of Judah will not be revived. So an age must come, and will come, in which Jesus comes again, connects the central stalk and engrafts it, and can move the world.
Then what will the Unification Church do?
The point is that we say, let us play the role of that central stalk. That is why we discuss the First Israel, the Second Israel, and the Third Israel. And so the point is that we say, let us set up Korea in the position of the central stalk that can receive God’s love most, like the nation of Judah of old. Because it is a Unification Church that has come forth holding such a thought, it must be buffeted by world-level tempests.
Just as the Israelite people, passing through every twist and turn in the long, long course of history, connected their thought and tradition unbrokenly, the point is that we today, within the environment of this age, centered on the land of Korea, say, let us undergo world-level trials. That, even if all the tempests that surge over the world rush at once upon the path the Unification Church multitude of Korea walks, we will overcome them and indemnify the world-level trial—that is the Teacher’s aim.
If, because a world-level tempest rushes in, one is swept along there and broken off and cut off, one does not qualify as the central stalk.
If anyone says, “I will carry out such world-level responsibility and mission,” God will drive in the world’s tempests and call in all the world’s storms too, so that the wind from all four directions blows at once. There are such times. For seven years after the June 25 upheaval, the Korean government underwent tempests. That is a course equivalent to the seven great tribulations.
In the midst of this, the Unification Church members must receive the wind from all four directions. Not only the horizontal wind coming from the sides, but also the straight-down wind and the straight-up wind blowing violently from above and below.
The earth, too, will torment us, and Heaven, too, will torment us. We must take our place in the midst of such things. Only so do all the things of heaven and earth fail to appeal. One wins a complete victory.
Only so can one become, in the position of the shoot in the new age to come, a leading multitude holding a leading ideology of a leading nation that, holding the authority of life, can lead all life under its command and rule it; otherwise, it will not do. This is a fact that, seeing the movement of Heaven’s principle, cannot be denied.
The Teacher speaking here is now past forty and nearing fifty, but even presently, wrestling with you, he would never lose. Even so, the Teacher likes young people, yet these young fellows all fear the Teacher most. Is it not so? Why do they fear him?
Does the Teacher grab them by the collar and say something?
The Teacher just sits and speaks, yet they fear him. When the Teacher speaks, there is nothing that is not caught. If he raises the ear and speaks, the ear is caught; if he raises the nose and speaks, the nose is caught; if he raises the eye and speaks, the eye is caught; if he raises the hand and speaks, the hand is caught, so they fear him. Do you fear the Teacher, or not? You are not afraid, are you? Seeing that you cannot answer, you have no confidence.
To Carry Out the Mission of the Central Stalk, One Must Overcome Every Difficulty
Then what kind of place is the place of the cross Jesus bore?
Everyone, this is not someone else’s affair. Think about whether Jesus is in the position of my elder brother or whether I will stand in the position of his elder brother.
If you become more excellent than Jesus, would God say, “Hey, you are sinning, blaspheming Heaven. Do not do so. Jesus is my only begotten Son, and if you become more excellent than he, the only begotten Son will be broken off, so it must not be”?
God is not such a one. God is one who, even if one surpasses that only begotten Son and swallows up the world, would be pleased if it accords with His will. But the point is that there was no one who could do so.
Speaking in worldly terms, too, it is so. The eldest son is fine, but if his younger brother is more outstanding than the elder, would there be a parent who, seeing that, would say, “You rascal, do you not even recognize your elder brother? Since you are cleverer than your brother, it will not do; shave your head”? The point is, would there be?
The Teacher sometimes thinks about how it would have been had Confucius or Sakyamuni been tortured. It is quite intriguing. I am curious how it would have been had they undergone the torture of having their legs twisted.
How would it have been had they been branded with a hot iron?
I am quite curious. The other day, the Teacher went to Norway, and there are quite a few engineers there who explored the North Pole. Because Norway is near the North Pole, they do this thing of North Pole exploration and boast loudly. It is worth boasting of.
How cold is the wind that blows at the North Pole?
How cold is the wind at the North Pole? What a splendid thing it is to go alone to such a place, where among countless human beings none has left a trace, and feel a new mood! I am curious what the taste felt like there. There must be some such thing one can do.
And so the Unification Church must become the shoot of the world. The Teacher holds such an ambition. Is this rude? How about it?
God will not curse me for it, will He?
If God comes to this earth, one must make it so that He goes anywhere in the world and seeks the Unification Church. Even if Jesus comes, one must make it so that he is drawn to the Unification Church. To accomplish that, content is needed. One needs only to hold content that cannot be helped.
Then what kind of place is the Unification Church?
One must become the shoot. One must become the shoot. What shoot? The shoot of money-making? The shoot that comes first in some contest? No. Here you must carry out “forward-overcoming.” You will hear such words for the first time, but at any rate, let us try using them once. “Forward-over.” Without doing this, one cannot become the shoot. Because one is the shoot, one must not say, “Aigo, I really like the spring garden.
Since I sprout first, it is really nice. I need only spring.” The shoot must always, always, in winter or in summer, holding life force, stand in a position of having overcome tribulation and trial from the leading position. From such a position, one must carry out “forward-overcoming.”
But is the Unification Church now carrying out forward-overcoming? When we say, “Let us go the seven-year course,” they set out, saying, “Let us go,” and then…. Having said, “It is nice to have come this far,” they turn back, saying, “Aigo, it is disadvantageous here.” Hereafter, the young people of Korea will crowd into our church somewhat. University students, too, will crowd in.
At some point, they will crowd in. If one is not standing on such a standard, one perishes. The point is that one perishes.
Are there such people among today’s young people?
If society is corrupt, there are many fellows who despair and lose heart, saying, “Aigo, this world will perish,” but there are not many young people who, not losing heart, break through.
Here you must become kings of overcoming, who can, holding a new life force, take one step forward toward this society. Even when hunger comes, and one is hungry, one still advances. Even when a cold wind blows, receiving the bitter cold wind, one advances.
For a living thing, to grow is normal. One must advance. That which cannot grow, that which cannot advance, is in a process of declining or dying. So it is only a question of time; one way or another, it is removed.
When one looks quietly at most young people these days, they all say, “I will become such-and-such.” Such a person must be in that position even when sleeping, must be in that position when waking, and must be in that position when moving about after waking. To overcome the difficulty before one and advance, one must struggle.
Absorbing all the environmental content, one must overcome it. One must not be pushed out by the environment, but, holding subjecthood, tread over the environment and rise.
To become the shoot, one must overcome the whole trial. Otherwise, one cannot become the shoot. Do you understand? One must carry out forward overcoming. And when one looks quietly at this shoot, it is always lonely. It is always lonely. Being alone is lonely.
Since it stands alone, gazing only at the top, it cannot help but be lonely. The branches beside it have many friends. There are friends above, too, and friends below, too. So they look good in themselves and look splendid.
So one comes to say, “Ah, this is how a person should live.” Today’s humanity of the world is in such a position. The point is that today’s humanity has lost the central stalk, and the branches are leaning on one another. You must know that today’s humanity is in such a position.
The central stalk has no friends. It has no friends. To make a friend, one must share the life force bound to oneself. Only so does one become a friend. The central stalk is so. It is not that one becomes a friend by a bond formed by chance, but only by a bond formed from oneself does one become a friend. Otherwise, a friend does not arise.
One Must Overcome Trials with Strong Life-Force
Then what must the Unification Church do to become the central stalk?
One must go from the very path of trial. On the world-level path of trial, one must overcome that trial and shatter it. The Teacher has, until now, struggled from such a position. Even if the three-thousand-li peninsula strikes me, I feel good.
At one time, there was a great commotion over the so-called Ewha Womans University incident and whatnot, was there not? You cannot know how good I thought it then. I said, “That’s how it should be; that’s right.” My height is not very tall. I am not quite six ch’ŏk. I am a little over five ch’ŏk and a little under six ch’ŏk.
When the whole people of the three-thousand-li peninsula, setting themselves against me—against me, one person—opposed me in a great uproar, on one side I felt good. So I said, “Oppose me—let even the primary school students, all of them, oppose me.”
However much they oppose, that which is grounded in justice is set to win. For justice to win a complete victory, complete opposition is needed.
How is it now?
They say even God has died, do they not? It is the Last Days. It is the Last Days.
Can they oppose any more than this?
The point is that God has died. The point is that they have beaten God to death. Once it comes to this, the game they can play is all played out. It amounts to having come to the very end. Now, if one says, “God is alive,” the world is unified.
If here one says God has come alive, there is no one who can seize that God again.
Don’t you think so? Do you understand what I mean? The point is that I say I will do that homework. If I now had just a few hundred million dollars, I would pick a fight with the New York Times (an American newspaper).
If I said to them, “You scoundrels, God has died? You say that because you do not know me,” it would become a world-level issue. I missed such a good chance to witness it like that. There we must strike splendidly.
We must say, “They did not know the Unification Church; they did not know the Unification Church’s God.” Now I intend to set all those things in order. The Teacher has quite a lot of interest in such things.
Then, from this viewpoint, what must the Unification Church do to become the central stalk?
One must overcome trials. Even at the cost of being buffeted by the wind from all four directions, that integrity must not change. Even in winter, absorbing life force—if one cannot grow of oneself within that frozen ground, one must be making every preparation to grow when spring comes. It is not that one cannot advance because it is winter. One can advance, but it is a stage of resting a moment, so on the day one greets spring, one can flourish all at once.
How much trial has the Unification Church undergone until now?
It has truly undergone much trial. It was buffeted by the southeast wind, by the wind from all four directions.
So now one must cross over to the stage of forward-overcoming and develop. The Teacher has, until now, worried lest our Unification Church leave behind the words, “The Unification Church is dead. The Unification Church cannot develop.”
Even now, I fear those words most. Whoever opposes or not, whether the people of the Republic of Korea would die if they will die or stop if they will stop—we move.
We developed while receiving persecution over the course of seven years. Is that not so? Was it so, or not? (It was.)
One Must Know That the Path to Becoming the Central Stalk Is a Noble Path
To become the central stalk, one must have life force. To make a friend is not a matter of receiving and giving. One must make a friend by a bond formed through oneself and, through oneself, prepare even a social and national foundation.
Unless one stands in such a position, one cannot become the central stalk. We are now going up, striking against that stage. These three things are the absolute requisites for becoming the central stalk.
So, you who say you will become the central stalk and become the shoot, have you thought of such things? Where are you now? Seoul National University?
Will you live forever at university?
Where would the path of a student, the path of a person, be? Being in a high place does not make one a high person. You must know this. Even in a low place, it differs according to one’s essence and value.
The young people of our Unification Church must be able to hum a tune even while pulling a night-soil cart, having thrown over university and everything and gone off to the countryside.
On the spring day when this seemingly dead garden newly revives, breaking forth as a single sprout, one must live thinking of the future image of this nation that will be connected through me, thinking that, with me as the base, the nation will grow, holding hope and holding aspiration, or, becoming a peak of hope, holding the spirit by which one can observe all the mountains and fields.
When we think from this viewpoint, how many points would the young men and young ladies of our university district score?
Their heads will all be near a hundred points. Is that not so? But when one looks at the content, it seems near zero points or below. Their eyes are all seized by a goblin wind. They all open their eyes like this and are saying, “Let us see whether there is some good spectacle in the world.”
The point is that they have got it wrong. The reason the Teacher says such things to you today is in the sense of telling you to criticize yourselves once more from this viewpoint. History, without fail, moves in such a place.
The central stalk is always fixed. So there is no ornamentation there. It is dry and flavorless. But on the side branches, flowers bloom and fruit forms.
Do you understand what I mean?
The point is that the central shoot alone undergoes all the difficulty, while the side branches enjoy all the good. Today’s world is like that. A person who today is in the position of a leader of some world-level ideology or religion keeps his path alone, buffeted by the winds and frosts of the world.
People like the side branches; they have many friends and live well too. When one sees them living, saying, “Just look at me,” it seems they hold the standard by which they can draw all the world’s attention and become the concern of the whole world, but it is not so.
When one comes into our Unification Church and looks, it seems gaunt. The more one looks, the gaunter it seems. When one looks up at the top, it is gaunt. But when one looks down at its root, there is a splendid state of affairs there, unseen.
You must know this. In the root it has kept, there is a splendid state of affairs. When one gazes at the branches from the top, one may be lonely, but when one comes down and gazes at the root, all that is there is one’s own.
However much the side branches enjoy themselves and however good they seem, those countless branches are, in the end, there for the sake of the one central stalk.
So when one gazes at oneself by oneself, one seems lonely, but when one gazes below and above, there can be nothing happier than that. Knowing this, you must know how to lay claim to being the central stalk yourself. Everyone, is it so?
Some people, opposed to attending the Unification Church, lost their mother and father, lost all their siblings, lost even their teachers and friends, and became utterly alone. But the treasure and value they hold in their hearts is a noble thing that cannot be exchanged even for heaven and earth. It is so noble that even God cannot but seek that place.
A little while ago, you all said you wished to become the central stalk, wished to become the shoot—the shoot refers to the top, and the central stalk refers to the central stem—and you have realized that this is not comfortable, haven’t you? Then let us ask once more.
What will you become?
Will you become a side branch or the central stalk? What will you become? Answer. (I will become the central stalk.) One cannot form a relationship with what one has not even thought of.
One cannot put into action what one has not thought of, and what one has not acted upon and formed a bond with cannot possibly form a relationship with me. Only by thinking and acting does it become mine.
Then, to be a proper teacher to you who train for a week to study the Principle, and to make you all into the central stalk, what must be done? Should one send you to the streets of Jongno?
Where should one send you?
There is no need to say it twice. Even if I do not command it, if you wish to become the central stalk, you must know your path to go and go it.
One Must Become Living Water That Can Give Life to the Corrupt World
Next, let us talk about the spring (샘). Everyone, what is a spring? What sort of thing is a spring? Is a spring good?
Is it the same one that means when one is jealous?
Young ladies get jealous easily, don’t they? Saying, “Oh, I don’t know,” their bright red lips turn pale as they get jealous. What I mean to speak of now is not that kind of saem. What spring do I mean? (The spring that wells up.)
The spring that wells up?
The spring that wells up! The Unification Church must become this spring that wells up. It must become living water. What is living water? Is it clean or dirty?
So, are you here clean? Did you all come having washed your mind-bundles clean? Just look at your bundles. You didn’t bring a dog-dung bundle, did you? If one lifts and looks into the bundles, all sorts of smells will come off them.
A spring—one must become a spring. The path by which spring water comes out differs from the path by which ordinary water comes out. Does spring water flow down or flow up? It wells up, does it not? A waterfall falls, but spring water wells up.
If there is a vessel of living water (a spring) beneath a waterfall, that one wells up. It is the reverse. To become spring water, one must well up. Spring water, too, is water, but the path it takes differs. Spring water wells upward. That is why the Teacher has much interest in this spring.
If there is a spring welling up with living water in some mountain valley, all the beasts in that mountain seek that spring’s living water when the sun rises. The more famous a mountain, the more it has good living water.
Only when there is good living water does it become a famous mountain. Then the tourists who visit that mountain, however high the spring is, even at the very top, seek that one vein of the spring and go up to the top of the mountain.
Having gone to that mountain, only by tasting that spring water can one be acknowledged as qualified to have toured it. A spring is what everyone must pass by and what everyone must take interest in and cherish. And the path a spring takes differs.
Everyone, you who have come here today, must become a spring and well up in this corrupt Republic of Korea, this heaven and earth like an open sewer. If one were to put the filthiness of the sewer in degrees, how many degrees would it be?
One must become living water that enters a sewer whose degree of filth exceeds even ten thousand degrees and wells up and stretches forth. Then, if only there is a fitting vessel to receive that spring water, that living water will become living water that one can, meeting the sunlight, with a great smile, drink with a free mind.
The path you take must differ from that of ordinary people. The direction must differ. Ordinary water—once living water spreads in all directions…. You must become living water and spread. Once living water wells up and spreads, and so flows, its direction is set to differ.
Then where does living water flow?
Where does the heart of living water wish to flow?
If there is a sandy beach, it wishes to flow there; if there is a bed of pebbles, worn smooth like well-polished bluestone, on which not the least speck would settle even flowing a thousand years, it wishes to flow there. The heart of living water is so. Its heart of wishing to keep its purity gently, of worrying lest it lose that purity, is deep.
Therefore, the path it must seek must differ. Should it not be so? But if it cannot be so, then even living water is no different from ordinary water. Such a thing is living water, but though its source was good, it changes along the way.
Ordinary worldly people are in a position like water, in their hearts like living water, but in fact have a disposition of disliking it. And so they live all mixed in with dirty water.
You, too, lived like that, didn’t you?
Here too, there will be young ladies or fellows who dance the twist and dance. The path we are to take is not such a place. For water, flowing away is not its essence. Such a thing is not living water. Water in such a place is water in which countless bacteria can breed. It is not water that just anyone can drink.
Here we must analyze and discriminate and become living water that can be bound to the life of a person. You must, ten out of ten, a hundred out of a hundred, all be joined and become the very substance of a force that can become life, can become a driving power, and can be transformed into energy. To achieve that, one must not lose purity.
It is not that living water manifests its form as living water just so. Look. There is a stratum of soil and a stratum of rock, and then below there is an underground stream, is there not? Living water must break through that bedrock and come out.
Only by passing through a difficult process of delivery can living water manifest its form as living water. Because it is something that broke through the cleft between bedrock and bedrock, breaking through far, far, and welling up, it has value. Becoming living water is not so easy.
In which valley, on which mountain pass, are you now?
You are all in the process of seeking the path to becoming living water. So how good would it be if there were someone who knew that path and just opened it! To have you cultivate the groundwork path by which you can become living water, God opens before you the path by which you can become living water and desires that you become living water and spread, so that wherever in the world one goes, people can drink living water. To achieve, through you, such a garden of freedom is God’s will. But becoming living water is not so simple a matter.
Why have I said such things to you?
It is to leave an impression. I am telling you to think of it whenever you see a tree and to think of it whenever you drink water. It will probably come to mind. And so you, a few of the Republic of Korea here, must grow and become a place that, spreading your wings, can range over all the world.
This Teacher here, too, had a youth like yours. There was a past when, like you, holding the spirit of a young person and dreaming of tomorrow’s hope, I prepared. But the Teacher’s past was different from yours. And so, coming to today, it has become a world-level issue.
Hereafter, it will become more and more of an issue. When one analyzes what it holds, it differs in quality and in content. One who knows this value, this true value, knows it.
Hereafter, our movement and our ideology must become a central stalk and a spring that can be welcomed everywhere in the world. It is in the sense of wishing that you manifest such a result on the path you take that I have given the message today. You understand, don’t you? (Yes.) Then, well, we must pray now. Let us pray.
Prayer
This is the Korean peninsula, one tiny nation in the eastern half of the East. And within it is the place called the headquarters of the Unification Church, which has grown up lonely. Though we are wearing shabby clothes, and though this place where we stand is an exceedingly shabby place like a manger, how good it would be if, in this place, conveying the mind of heaven and earth, we could stand in place of Bethlehem, which boasted of the birth of Jesus? That is our wish.
As we face the age-level hope in which, rather than a Jesus born as an individual infant, a grown, national elder brother of Jesus can be born, we earnestly beseech and desire, Father, that Thou grant that Korea become, before this world, a foundation that can give birth to such a son.
For that, we know it cannot be done with words alone. Since we have realized that we cannot but make a foundation on which one can praise that each holds a figure who can feel, in mind and in living, all the accounts of the bond connected down as demonstrable fact, O Father, enable us to make such a foundation.
We know that, gazing upon such a foundation, Thou hast until now fought and labored. I, too, following that path, longing for that day, have until now endured to pioneer such an environment. Today, having met Thy sons and daughters and made their minds resolve, if among them there be a child of Thine who can add a new promise for tomorrow, plant a bond that can seep deep into their minds, and move the foundation of life onto them—we earnestly beseech and desire, Father, that Thou grant that they become lovely new sprouts and new shoots, and a new spring, that Thou canst command and that Thou canst face.
When we think that Thou hast gathered only such a small band out of the countless students said to number a million, on one side, it is regrettable, but we know that Thou dost not make the great number a matter of concern. We also know that if, even after being split and divided ten million times, there appear even one or two people who, in their original figure and essential nature, resemble the Father and can draw out the Father’s figure, that is the great gain of this occasion.
Gazing upon that, they intend to spend a week. Though there will be difficulties in that process, we earnestly beseech and desire, Father, that Thou grant that these, knowing that all those things are not a problem, settle their minds once more, and, knowing the week they will now live as a precious period without a second in a lifetime, be refined and gain experience.
Connecting to these, the bond Thou didst personally command when I walked this path, be with them; and we earnestly beseech and desire, my Father, that Thou grant that they equip the figure of children who, able to promise tomorrow and able to act in the future in place of the world, appear clearly before the Father in the form of valiant ones equipped with a stalwart spirit and fulfill their responsibility.
In this heaven and earth, is there a true son who can appear before Thee and fulfill filial devotion?
There is no such son. Is there a true daughter? There is no true daughter. Therefore, we know that Thy hand has borne a historical sorrow of standing in place of a false hand.
We know Thy figure, who could not but stand in the position of the result for the sake of falsehood. We also know the historical circumstance that it was not that Thou didst stand in such a position, but that, because the people Thou hast faced were in such a position, even Thy hand and Thy footstep brought a false result and left conditions of sorrow and lamentation. O Father, who hast come seeking these! Grant that we become true sons and daughters who can be truly embraced in that bosom of Thine that wishes to embrace us.
We earnestly desire that we become sons and daughters who can face the figure of the holy Father, who, gathering His footsteps and setting us before Him, can give the last admonition and can give the last counsel and the last testament and the last command.
How Thou dost long for true sons and daughters who can appeal, “Even in a place where life hangs in the balance, send us before Thou goest.” We earnestly desire that Thou grant that Thy children not forget the fact that Thou dost come seeking, earnestly longing for such sons and daughters.
I, too, in the process of wandering, searching for such a path, have had sorrow, but I well know the fact that such sorrow passes shortly, as the autumn leaves. Grant that we can—experiencing that when there is sorrow, one is bound more deeply with Thy mind, and when one is lonely, one is set, together with the solitude, in the position of Thy friend, and that the holy Thou art seated together with us in this place—resolve and vow deep in our minds, together with tomorrow’s hope, attending Thee and, before Thee, taking responsibility for this nation and the world, taking responsibility for tomorrow.
We earnestly beseech and desire, Father, that Thou grant that we become Thy children who can believe and set forth that the path of justice I walk sets out anew, and that there is Thy will by which it cannot but come, together with Thy promise to make all people follow that path.
Grant that we become filial sons and daughters who can grasp the Father’s heart (심정), knotted and tangled because of han (한), and, embracing that breast of the Father, comfort Him with tears, saying, “My Father”; and grant that we become sons and daughters before whose minds the Father can say, “My son, my daughter, now all my han is resolved and all my difficulty is gone. You alone are my joy; you alone are my pride.”
We think how Thou dost long for the day when, setting up such sons and daughters, Thou canst boast of them before all people of all ages. But these are too unworthy to stand in that place, too ill-equipped to go forth to that place, too filthy to seek that place, and too ill-equipped to attend to the Father.
Yet, O Father, we earnestly beseech and desire that Thou grant that these come to know that Thou hast such love that, before the cry of weeping that has an earnest heart and a plaintive mind, Thou dost close Thine eyes and wish to embrace us.
Grant that we become Thy children who know that, whoever may refuse and say what he will, Thou alone art a Father who cannot be refused, and who know that, whoever may block the way, Thou art a Father who embraces us beyond that.
Father, gather the young people sprouting in this Korean peninsula, and we earnestly beseech and desire that Thou gather these, for whom Thou dost await the foundation of future hope.
Grant that they come to know how grave is the responsibility of those gathered here. Is not even one tree growing up and covering a garden a matter of enduring and remaining, holding a normal life force, until it comes to fruition? If these ones here are Thy sons and daughters who have become one tree by sowing seed, then they must now come to fruition and become Thy workers who can take root everywhere in this land; and so we earnestly beseech and desire that Thou grant that they themselves come to know such a fact.
O Father, who hast historically called us; Father, who hast come seeking us in this age; Father, who, to walk joyfully together with us in the future, lovest and embracest us and hast come seeking such a son—grant that, before Thee, we become Thy true children who can accomplish the Father’s wish and resolve the Father’s grievance, and who can have sole claim to Thy love.
This hour, having sent these to this place, are there family members praying in the provinces? Be with them, and, earnestly asking that Thou lead their hearts so that day by day they can pledge loyalty before the Father’s will, we have offered all these words, upholding the holy name of the True Parents. Amen.