The Path to the Future World of Peace

Okinawa, a place within the Heart of Dr. Han

Yesterday, we paid a visit to the Peace Memorial Park in the south and offered flowers at the “Cornerstone of Peace” monument where the names of more than 240,000 soldiers who fought in the Battle of Okinawa, including Japanese and Americans, are inscribed. We prayed for the peace and repose of those souls and made a strong determination to make this a world devoid of conflict and violence.

Today, September 27, is the day that my mother, Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, founder of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, visited Okinawa 21 years ago and spoke to the families at that time. Even though it has been decades since then, her heart and her prayers have always been with you.

My mother has taught me two precious phrases, which are, in Korean, ‘Kamsahamnida!’ and ‘Salan Hamnida!’ meaning ‘Thank you’ and ‘I love you’. If we apply these principles we can bring about true healing, liberation, and a peaceful resolution of all conflicts.

We are all truly one family under our Heavenly Parent and our True Parents.

Therefore, with the deepest heart of love and eternal gratitude to you all, please allow me to share my mother’s keynote address with you.

Discovering God’s Will and Setting Off to the World

My husband, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, received Heaven’s calling at the age of sixteen and strove to discover God’s will. When he studied at the Waseda College of Engineering here in Japan, he sincerely devoted himself to becoming a true person. He lived according to the personal motto that he must achieve mastery over himself before desiring to have mastery over the universe.

Ultimately, the young Rev. Moon uncovered the deepest heavenly truths: God’s Purpose and Principle of Creation, the origin of sin and the human Fall, the path of restoration that humankind must walk to become the people God originally intended, and also the principles of development in the natural world as well as of human history. Armed with this understanding, he set off on a journey to accomplish God’s Will.

When I was just six years old, it was prophesized that I would become the bride of Heaven. At the age of seventeen, I married Reverend Moon. My husband and I dedicated our lives to establishing the models of true parents, true teachers, and true owners.

Centering on this vision, we spent every day of our lives educating people the world over. Even though the way to liberating God, bringing salvation to humanity, and realizing a world of peace has been a road of thorns, we walked this path with grateful hearts.

True Family is the Nucleus of a Peaceful World

Now the world is calling for a true youth movement and a movement for a true family vision that opens the way to a new future. If you respond to Heaven’s call and fulfill your responsibilities, you will become heroes remembered by history. Otherwise, you will completely vanish from history.

Human history has been the providence of restoration to establish one central figure. Finally, the Lord returned; he found Heaven’s bride, the only-begotten daughter, and together they emerged as the True Parents. Humanity has ushered in such a blessed era. All people need to be able to meet our Heavenly Parent’s representatives, the True Parents.

They should be able to attend and follow them. Only by doing so can humanity be rid of the original sin and be reborn as people filled with love and wisdom, which is the original ideal and standard envisioned by our Heavenly Parent at the time of creation.

When good men and women who practice true love meet True Parents, receive the Holy Blessing based on true love, and form exemplary families, these families will become the cornerstone of peace. A true family is the nucleus of a peaceful world. When a true family is expanded, a new era of true nations and a true world opens up.

Risking our Lives to build the Foundation of Peace

My husband and I have put our lives on the line for the realization of peace. His critique of the Juche Ideology and his statement that the two Koreas must unite through true love centered on our Heavenly Parent, in 1991, given at Mansudae Assembly Hall, the very heart of North Korea, created shockwaves. Our meeting with North Korean leader Kim Il Sung following such a critical moment opened a new door to the possibility of the reunification of the two Koreas.

In 1985, when the communist realm was at the peak of its expansion, hundreds of people from the Professors World Peace Academy gathered at the Intercontinental Hotel, in Geneva, Switzerland, which in those days was right across from the Russian Embassy, and made a historic proclamation. According to my husband’s guidance, scholars at the conference proclaimed that communism would collapse within five years.

A few years later, CARP students marched to the Berlin Wall in Germany, shouting out that the wall should disappear as they prayed to God for that outcome.

Soon afterward, a wonderful event took place. The Berlin Wall collapsed. The collapse of the Eastern European communist bloc followed, and we witnessed the miraculous disintegration of the Soviet Union, where communism had originated, which provided great support in bringing an end to the Cold War.

Even though many contributed to this result, I believe Heaven was moved by the sacrifices and prayers of our young members who, at that time, risked their lives to carry forward this movement. They are the heroes and pride of history.

Four Important Guidelines

Then, what kind of lives must people lead to become leaders in a great revolutionary era?

First, we must lead a life of gratitude. A grateful heart brings unity of mind and body. When we empty our hearts and repent, a life of gratitude can begin.

Second, we must live a life of forgiveness. When my husband was unjustly incarcerated at the prison at Danbury, he said not to pray for him but to pray for the United States.

Third, we should live a life of love. True love is a love by which we continuously live for others, investing in others and forgetting that we have done so.

Fourth, we must live a life of unity. Our original minds and conscience, and our bodies and minds, must become one centered on Heaven’s true love. When parents and children live in harmony within the family when nations live in harmony within the world, and when the spiritual world and physical world harmonize, then and only then can an eternal ideal world of peace come about.

Rev. Moon and I have laid the cornerstone for one world and one family under our Heavenly Parent.

If we begin the peace movement on such a foundation, our lives, indeed all the history, will certainly change.

Gratitude brings about heavenly fortune; forgiveness opens the hearts of people; and love moves people’s hearts. Let us all be grateful for everything, forgive our enemies, love our neighbors as one’s flesh, and work in oneness for peace. Let us take the lead in achieving “world peace” through the “true family movement”!