Unification Thought

The Unification Thought Institute

According to True Father, a world based on the culture of heart entails the unification of thought and value perspectives. He established the Unification Thought Institute on August 20, 1972.

As a response to the Cold War, the 20th century's expression of the pervasive confrontation between materialism, on which communism is based, and recognition of spiritual reality, on which free democratic society is based, he proposed Unification Thought, head-wing thought, as a way to critique and transcend these two opposing thought systems.

As a way to realize world peace, he founded the Unification Thought Institute to research, discuss in-depth, and develop this thought system.

1. In the future, centering on the Korean Peninsula, a new view of history, a new unifying philosophy, and a new world culture must be established. This is the starting point for realizing God's ultimate hope and heart, the ideal that He had before the creation. Furthermore, it is the starting point for the liberation of the fallen world from its deep sorrow. (022-022, 1969/01/01)

2. From now on, we will surely embrace the world. And when we do, within a short time we will lead the world into God's embrace, without having to make great sacrifices. I am making such plans at this time.

This is why many things are happening that you cannot understand. Accordingly, we are organizing the Unification Thought Institute. Modern civilizations follow philosophies from thinkers who take an academic approach.

So, after strengthening our organization, we must not only influence the worlds of culture and ideas, but we must also set a foundation to assume leadership. (062-300, 1972/09/26)

3. All the members of the International Federation for Victory over Communism (IFVOC) must be trained to become excellent lecturers. Furthermore, IFVOC needs to strengthen its outreach to local community leaders.

The entire Unification Church and IFVOC need to devote themselves completely to this, as should the Professors World Peace Academy (PWPA), Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP), and Christian Students Association. First, we need to train 100,000 local community leaders. We have to arm them with the right ideas.

Then the Unification Thought Institute must oversee and diligently instruct IFVOC lecturers to educate the community leaders using good lectures that have accurate content. You need to record and assess their lectures. If they are teaching incorrectly, correct them right away.

Since IFVOC has grown larger, its lecturers must use the official contents only, not teach with something that they devised personally. The Unification Thought Institute has to take overall responsibility to systematize the equipping of people with the right worldview. (145-111, 1986/04/30)

4. Unification Thought Institutes in Japan, America, and Korea have to meet and collaborate to establish the correct view of history and show clearly how philosophy is rooted in religion.

If this is not clear, there will be problems, and factions will arise. The issue for religion and philosophy is whether philosophy is first or God is first. On what basis do we begin to solve this issue?

If opinions differ, it becomes easy to diverge and separate. This is why researchers from the University of Bridgeport in America and experts in Korea and Japan have to discuss and evaluate this issue.

The question is: is God first? Is ideology first? Is the Principle first? Ideology is in the object partner position; it cannot take the position of the subject partner. Furthermore, there is the issue of the origin of ideology.

If there is no God, then ideology simply floats in the air. We must unfold a system of thought based on logic that defines one origin. If we cannot establish the origin of ideology, two factions will develop and the problem will gradually expand. We must get hold of these threads of thought and settle the question.
(435-152, 2004/02/03)

5. Who bears responsibility for this world? No single person's philosophy has ever worked. The history of philosophy has become nothing but a wasteland. Seen from this viewpoint, who guides the way and bears responsibility for this world? The materialistic interpretation of the origin and history of the world has failed.

Humanistic thought is rooted directly in the decadent ideology of hedonism. What do we need instead? If God exists, we have to consider how God thinks about this world and look at it theoretically.

For many years, while investigating historical systems of thought, I meditated on the direction that people will have to go in the future. I thought, “From God's perspective, there must be an absolute, necessary, and valuable content in the human world.

And there must be an ultimate purpose that history pursues and that human beings must attain.” (239-010, 1992/11/23)

6. If we are going to move the world, we must present an ideology that the world recognizes as most eminent. This is our primary task. Then we have to climb to the foremost position in science and technology.

Next, we must rise to the top in the development of economic policies. Then we need to become world leaders in the area of the media. If we accomplish these things, we will be able to move the world. The order is: first ideology, then science and technology, then economics, and finally the media.

If can assume leadership in these four areas, we will create relationships with these fields as the object partners. With these relationships, we will be able to move the world, and a political foundation will naturally come about. I have dedicated my entire life to such work.

I have been working alone until now, preparing the world to take the position of object partner to its principled subject partner. (135-095, 1985/09/30)

7. Soon this nation will encounter an ideological battle. Korean politicians ignore the inevitability of this upcoming battle. Because I am the person who received heaven's special grace, I have premonitions and foreboding about the future, and the intellectual ability to gauge the path forward.

On this basis, I predict that those who survive the ideological battle that is coming will guide the world. People may oppose and persecute me, but I am pursuing an objective entirely different from theirs.

My childhood and even my youth, the springtime of life, in which people like to take pride, just flew by for me. While others went searching for places to play, I took the opposite path. I grew up saying to myself, “They may go that way, but I must walk the path needed to win the ideological battle.” (138-015, 1986/01/13)

8. What is Unification Thought? Regarding the fundamental questions of the universe, two differing views of history have emerged: the materialistic view and the spiritual view.

The book Unification Thought was devised and systematized expressly to solve this fundamental philosophical divergence. It puts everything together and offers a new worldview and a new philosophy of life. (065-337, 1973/03/05)

9. There are many systems of thought in this world. However, among them, Unification Thought is the system of thought that is in the subject partner position.

Unification Thought is the subject partner because it is a thoroughgoing application of God's perspective. It is the thought system that can unite the democratic and communist worlds.

It can bring believers and nonbelievers into harmony. Its goal is to create a unified world, a world of oneness. (102-130, 1978/11/27)

10. Unification Thought is based on the concept of subject and object partners. Unification means that two entities become one. Man and woman need to unite, parents and children need to unite, the family and society need to unite, the society and the nation need to unite, and the nation and the world need to unite. It is through the unification viewpoint that such things as philosophy and ideals can emerge.

Without a purpose around which to unite, everything falls apart. Therefore, since this idea of purpose naturally emerges when we put the concepts of subject partner and object partner in place, the communist theory of dialectic breaks down.

The dialectical principle states that for development to occur, subject and object partners must struggle with each other. This is a contradiction, so that principle, which states that unity comes through struggle, completely falls apart. That principle does not acknowledge the object partner.

However, without subject and object partners, it is impossible for something to exist. This is not an opinion; it is indeed the case. Therefore, subject and object partners need to unite to reach completion. (067-051, 1973/05/19)

11. God did not create heaven and earth for His own sake. Before thinking of His benefit, God made heaven and earth for the sake of His object partner. He invests completely in His object partner. Then, everything that belongs to the object partner is returned to God.

That which is being returned to God is bigger than what God originally invested; hence, everything given to Adam and Eve returns to God with more added on. In this way, God becomes a billionaire! Therefore, it is good. By investing completely, He comes to own all the realms of creation.

There are myriad ways of giving: by speaking, one can give; with a helping hand, one can give; through deeds, one can give. There are countless ways. The worldview that promotes the attitude of living for the sake of the object partner is the core of Unification Thought.

All truths of the Bible are explained in it. No matter what, with this fundamental rule you can understand their core meaning precisely. Seen from this viewpoint, if you go forward with the content of Unification Thought, then amazing internal unification is achieved.

This is not external unification; rather, it is unification at a fundamental level. Unification Thought appears with God's heart at its center. (060-291, 1972/08/18)

12. Nowadays, we are shedding blood and sweat for this country, and we are mobilizing people, but it is not for the sake of this nation alone. It is for the future of the world.

Taking a perspective that goes beyond nationality, ethnicity, and race, we try to create a great family that transcends borders and shares love and life. In other words, with God at the center, we form one great family bonded by life, love, and lineage.

This is a Unification Thought. This is the thought of the Unification Church, a universal teaching. (038-268, 1971/01/08)

13. While we hope for the blessed land of the kingdom of heaven and advance on the path of unification, what is the enemy we must face? Borders are the problem. Unification Thought asserts that we have to transcend sentiments of nationalism. Likewise, we have to go beyond our race. The problem is not whether we are Americans or Africans.

The problem is whether we can practice more love toward other people than toward our people. If we are unable to do that, we cannot become the leaders who take responsibility to save the world. This is what Unification Thought is about. The way of love is always accompanied by sacrifice and overcoming.

The essence of such love is self-sacrifice and overcoming one's circumstances. Religions call for sacrifice and service because these are necessary when we walk the path of love. Rather than sacrifice and weep, we sacrifice and rejoice. (048-191, 1971/09/12)

Godism and head-wing thought

After a long period of prayer and meditation, True Parents discovered the Unification Principle, which is the absolute truth of God. Their discovery has been systematized in the book, Unification Thought. If this were applied to society, the problems of society would be solved.

If it were applied to the world, the problems of the world would be solved. This is a new worldview, a new view of the universe, of life, of providence, and history, possessing unprecedented core insights.

It offers comprehensive principles by which people aligned with all religious teachings and philosophies can embrace and accept each other while maintaining their traditions and unique character.

The Victory Over Communism ideology based on Unification teaching offers a clear critique and counterproposal to communism. Head-wing thought, or Godism, is the alternative that can unite left-wing and right-wing ideologies.

14. The book Unification Thought presents a viewpoint of unified purpose for the sake of fulfilling the mission to awaken today's religious world and especially to awaken anew the world of philosophy.

Unification Thought does not adopt a vague position. It moves in a vertical direction, with God in the central position. This vertical direction is rooted in the heart.

History changes, time passes, and the years go by, but the bond of heart between parents and children does not grow faint. Their love for each other only grows stronger with time, instead of becoming weaker.

For example, if a father and mother and their child lived far apart, a letter or a message sent from one to the other would bring great joy. This joy would be so immense like a dream come true.

That simple letter conveying news could encourage them to make a new beginning. This is something you can experience in the realm of the heart of the relationship between parents and children. This relationship is the same as that between the Heavenly Parent and human beings on earth, in that we call God our Father, and He calls us His children. (051-070, 1971/11/01)

15. Unification Thought is Godism or head-wing thought. It is neither right-wing nor left-wing; it is head-wing. This is because neither right-wing nor left-wing can deliver us from self-centeredness.

If you go forward centered on yourself or only on your nation, then contradictory understandings will remain for eternity. No unification or peace will result from this. Accordingly, we need a new world of thought that can oust self-centered thought.

God's ideal, in which one thinks of others more than oneself, leads to altruism. This is because God is love itself, and the essence of love is altruism, which means sacrificing oneself so that others might benefit.

Accordingly, the very essence of Godism is love, and this thought is the central thought, like the head that moves a person's body.

That is why it is called head-wing thought. The right arm and left arm connect to one body. Without the head, the right arm and left arm have nothing to do with each other, and they may fight.

However, when the head takes its place at the center, then the right and left arms follow its commands, cooperate, and work for the sake of the body.
(164-194, 1987/05/15)

16. The democratic world is the realm based on spirituality, whereas the communist world is the realm based on materialism. The democratic world is internal and stands on heaven's side.

The communist world is external and stands on Satan's side. The spiritual realm and the material realm are one, but because we did not know that they are one, division and fighting arose. Seen along the vertical perspective from the highest summit, we all are human beings and there should be no fighting. Unification teaching takes this vertical perspective.

One needs two hands to be a complete human being. One is not supposed to have just one hand. One needs to have two eyes and two nostrils. There are two eyes, two arms, two legs. Everything is made up of pairs.

Just imagine how it would be if you had only one arm or one leg. Would that be good? When walking down the street, your arms and legs move in opposite directions, yet that is the proper form.

Although they are opposite to each other, we say that it is proper. And yet, when you pick something up, your fingers work together. Being separate is a good thing, and being one is also a good thing. Calling something “opposite” is not necessarily bad. Both aspects are good. Herein lies the greatness of Unification teaching.
(039-123, 1971/01/10)

17. Democracy is an ideology of brothers. Going beyond the ideology of brothers, we need to seek the philosophy of parents, or parentism. For this, we need a worldview and teaching based on parents. That very philosophy is Unification Thought. It is Godism, which is head-wing thought.

The assertions based on its logical content compare well with historical standards. It does not contradict the facts. Therefore, based on the ideal of perfection established and revealed by God, Cain, and Abel, the Soviet Union and the United States, left and right, must return to the Parents at the center. After turning around, they must go to their original homeland.

To walk that very path, numerous ascetics have appeared, yet those spiritual masters have not known the way. They did not know who God was. Because of their vague understanding, there is confusion.

One cannot settle things based on confused religions. The Unification Church is very rational. But you cannot just know the theory and not put it into action.

Because I know better than anyone how fearful this fact is, even while already running, I spur myself to run even faster. The way of God's Will leaves one with no choice but to do this. (207-285, 1990/11/11)

18. What exactly is Godism? It is the thought that has true love at its center. The family cannot unite through false love; false love is Satan's ideology. False love cannot bring about unity.

As a result of false love, the mind and body became divided, husbands and wives separated, and sons and daughters ended up as enemies. In this way, even God became an enemy. We started with this false ideology of Satan, but now Godism has to emerge.

The world became the way it is through false love. So Godism, which has true love at its center, needs to produce true individuals, true couples, and true families. Godism leads not to separation but to unity. God's true love brings unity. This is Godism or head-wing thought.

Based on false love, all people became estranged as enemies and ended up in separation. There was no way for unity to take place. Families broke up. Based on broken families, hundreds of thousands of people divided against one another and turned the world into a battlefield.

Satan prevented the realization of God's Will and brought chaos into the world. Satan's ideology causes society to break apart through false love. Such an ideology of separation is the very ideology of hell.

Those separated individuals, families, tribes, peoples, nations, and the world will be united by centering on true love and True Parents.

Because it is the philosophy that takes a stand against the Devil, it is called Godism. (241-022, 1992/12/19)

19. What exactly is head-wing thought? A person who does not know the root lives confused, like a body whose limbs and organs are disjointed and moving in their way.

The way those uncoordinated and disjointed parts of the body can unite is by centering on the head. It perfects them, enabling them to function to fulfill their original purposes.

Godism is the philosophy that brings about unity centering on true love. All components, which are like paralyzed cells, will be united through head-wing thought.

Satan's ideology brings about division and causes paralysis. Godism is the philosophy centered on God's true love, which brings about complete unity of everything that has been separated.

The ideology of Satan is based on false love and is self-centered. It paralyzes people like casualties on a battlefield. Godism, however, centers on true love and releases the paralysis. It brings humanity into a whole and normal state, molding us into sons and daughters attending God as our Father. (241-023, 1992/12/19)

20. Satan's ideology produces divisions, but Godism brings about unity. We should not have unity of only the mind or only the body; we need unity of the mind and body.

Because the mind became paralyzed, and the body became paralyzed, after uniting our mind and body completely and becoming a normal person, we have to come to know God and understand the Devil.

The purpose of Godism, or head-wing thought, is to recover a person in the position of subject partner who thoroughly understands God and can separate us from Satan.

Godism is the same as Unification Thought. Based on true love, Unification Thought teaches us to invest and invest and forget that we have invested. Originally, human beings were to reach completion through

love. When mind-body unity is accomplished through the infinite love invested by God, then the ideal man and ideal woman are born.

And when that man and woman marry, the family they form will initiate the unification of the world.

Godism teaches us that centered on the God of true love, the mind, and the body become united, the family becomes united, and we become God's sons and daughters and God's object partners of love. This teaching is head-wing thought. (241-023, 1992/12/19)

21. Unification Thought is a philosophy of heart. A philosophy of heart means that it relates to people.

You can solve the problems of people only by relating to people; relating only to ideology or Principle will not solve people's problems. This shows us the wonderful reality that God is a personal God.

This being so, God cannot continue to exist without a counterpart in love. The reason such a God created human beings is that He needed object partners for His love. (435-154, 2004/02/03)

The realization of the ideal world

Unification Thought was written as a systematic philosophy based on Godism. It can bind the philosophies, “isms” and ideologies that brought the world into a state of confusion back to the center, which is God.

It is being recognized as a philosophy that can overcome the problems between the ideologies of democracy and communism, and as a philosophy that can lead to world peace by removing the boundaries that have arisen through conflicts between religions, races, and nations.

Unification Thought was published on June 1, 1973, as a systematic philosophical development of the Unification Principle.

22. If we want to unify all 30 million people in Korea, we need to equip them with my philosophy, Unification Thought. Until now, the Unification Church has received opposition here in Korea, but we looked beyond that and tried to find our way through it.

When this understanding is made known, the day will surely come when Unification Thought will be respected by this country and by its people. Our philosophy of unity will bring the people of the world to adore and yearn for this land. That time will surely come. (021-162, 1968/11/17)

23. The world is currently divided into East and West. The world has not been able to unite because people did not love each other centering on the one ideal of true love.

The moment the foundation of goodness appears on earth, when people truly honor and value their adversary's side more than their own, and know how to respect their opponents, God's cherished era of the ideal of creation will arrive in the world. After we meet this standard, we have to recover the spirit world. Unification Thought teaches that path today.

The Unification Church transcends conceptual religion. Together with conscience, heart, and body, and through actions in accord with heavenly principles, we must prepare a worldwide foundation for ideological transformation that reaches far into the distant future.

Passing through our family and tribe, and transcending our racial and national boundaries, we realize the kingdom of goodness, an environment of freedom where we can sing songs for the world, following and loving God as our Father. Everyone in the world should be able to praise the day when that kingdom of goodness arrives.

They should be able to praise for eternity the joyful day when they become the citizens of that kingdom. The place of settlement sought by the Unification Church is the realization of the ideal world of happiness desired by humanity.
(024-049, 1969/06/22)

24. Until now, the history of cultures, which has been woven for thousands of years, has been a history of misery. It has been a history of Satan betraying God. God's historical record starts with True Parents.

The path I have been walking has now become tradition, based on Unification Thought. What remains for the future is that you inherit True Parents' historical tradition and that I bequeath to you the world I am going to establish.

We need to accomplish complete unification of the world, with True Parents at the center. The philosophy of True Parents provides the matrix for this process. Without the tradition of True Parents, the history of true sons and daughters cannot appear.

True Parents are the beginning point of culture. The tradition of True Parents can become the standard for cosmic history in a short period.

That is why I am serious. That is why until now, I have earnestly prepared the foundation for the Unification Thought tradition. To prepare this foundation, we need to form a family and a nation.

The mainstream thought in this new nation is that each person needs to focus not on themselves but on the whole. Here, each person will sacrifice for the sake of the whole. This is the core philosophy in Unification Thought. (047-196, 1971/08/28)

25. If you live your life on earth according to the teachings of the highest principles of Unification Thought and head-wing philosophy, yours will become a life of perfection, which you will carry into the spirit world.

The way you live your life on earth will become the way you live in the spirit world. So you have to live happily on earth to live in the spirit world. It is said that human beings cannot fulfill their desires, but that is not true.

If you have true love, you will fulfill your desires and more. In other words, life in both the physical and spiritual worlds can come to perfection when people live centered on True Parents and their royal authority.

If you live centering on the royal authority of the True Parents, you will complete the heavenly world, and in addition, you will live a life guaranteed to have eternal value both in this world and in the spirit world. (232-335, 1992/07/10)

26. As for the individual, even when one bears the worldwide cross and staggers along, one should not collapse. Even if one does collapse, it has to be on the foundation of the family. Even if one dies, it has to be on the foundation of the family. This is a unification Thought.

Even if our family dies, we must bring our relatives along and go beyond the boundaries of the tribe. Even if our tribe perishes, we go beyond the borders of the nation.

We must become fertilizer for the nation. Even if we are struck by a multitude of arrows and feel mortifying pain from each of them, heaven's glory is assured by those arrows of misery.

As soon as people under the sovereignty of evil overcome their situation and step forward, the condition will be laid to establish the tradition of God's people. We can be proud to erect the kingdom that is victorious over Satan's world.

Tightening our belt, even with a hungry stomach, we fix our eyes on the enemy camp ahead and stagger on step by step. This is how the Unification Church marches on. Even if the Unification Church ceases to exist, the nation that the Unification Church redeems will not perish.

That is why I mercilessly push you down the path of suffering. (048-254, 1971/09/19)

27. In the human world, the viewpoints of individuals have differed, and the viewpoints of families have differed. God's love is the only power that can take overall responsibility to resolve these differences in viewpoints.

Unification Thought, centering on God's love and heart, proposes to realize a world that transcends limited viewpoints, achieving unity at the levels of individual, family, tribe, nation,n, and world, and finally, unity with God.

At that point, there will be no sovereign power, in the sense of a sovereign having a high position and the subjects having a low position.

The sovereign will exist for the sake of the subjects, just as the subject partner exists for the object partner. This will resolve terms such as “ruler” and “ruled,” as they are spoken in the world today. There is no valid argument against this. Nothing except God's love can reach this conclusion.

Currently, there are viewpoints concerning love, such as “I love because of money,” or “I love because of this or that.” Such attitudes are not pure. Unification Thought transcends such views and regains and promotes God's love.

In the future, both the democratic and communist worlds need to assimilate this standard of love and unite into one. If they cannot do that, the ideal world cannot come about. (060-283, 1972/08/18)

28. Today the world is awaiting the Messiah's philosophy. The Messiah's philosophy has the power to unite the democratic and communist worlds. But if Cain and Abel cannot unite, the position of Parents cannot be restored.

Who will enable Cain and Abel to unite? Abel has to reach out to bring unity with Cain. Cain does not reach out to unite with Abel. Who will unite this world? It is Abel's task.

We are well aware of the good and bad points of democracy, and the good and bad points of communism.

You need to understand how much better are the good points of Godism compared to the strengths of communism. We have been studying the democratic world based on Christianity, and the communist world based on philosophical materialism.

We need to achieve unity based on Unification Thought. In the contemporary world, we need Unification Thought because it is based on God's Will. It is the central truth and central love that make the Messiah's teachings unique.

Therefore, wherever each of you goes from here, you must carry the Messiah's teaching. Using his truth and love, you can go anywhere. You must not worry about current difficulties and chaotic situations.

You must overcome them and expand real truth and true love. This is what God desires, what I desire, and what humanity desires. This is our duty and responsibility. (118-164, 1982/05/23)

29. A nation should pursue neither isolationism nor imperialism. It needs to advance to the world stage.

Although the Republic of Korea started as one nation, it is not supposed to stop there. It needs to show the teaching the world should follow. If such a teaching were to exist, it would conform not to human ideas but to God's ideas. That is the viewpoint of our Unification Thought.

The core of these teachings is not human beings, but love. Love is the essence. It is a love that goes beyond loving our ethnic people. Unification Thought emphasizes that families should not unite just around themselves but with God as their center.

This is a higher kind of love than the secular love that draws us to love only our family. When we realize this, then based on our family, a new, unprecedented ethical view will emerge.

Within the structure of an ethical system born of such powerful love, family relationships can expand horizontally to transcend the clan and go on to form a tribe or nation.

These types of relationships are capable of influencing the world. They will preserve and manifest love originating from the heart of the ultimate subject partner, God. The entire world will surely value such an ethical system.
(060-265, 1972/08/18)

30. When I first wrote Unification Thought, I began by focusing on ontology. Then I decided to change it to the theory of the original image. Typical theories of the original image discuss God's form and God's nature but do not base their accounts on a religious concept.

They are written merely from an academic viewpoint. Many philosophies deny God because they do not understand God. In Unification Thought, the theory of the original image explains what God, the origin, is like.

At present, Unification Thought has 11 sections. It does not include a theory of the ideal family or a theory of the spirit world, or heaven.

These two need to be added to make 13 sections. This must match the number 13. (353-181, 2001/09/06)