Former Headquarters Church.
Until now, you have made vows resolving to face death with the Will set before you, and together with those vows, you have come through struggles in difficult circumstances.
You may not know it, but the Teacher knows well that the result has made an immense contribution to firmly establishing our foundation before this nation.
The Teacher is grateful to those who have labored, but you should know that the Teacher’s heart (심정) right now wishes to admonish those who, though they feel the mission of having to go forward knowing the Will, do not go.
“I” Am a Historical Being Standing at the Crossroads of Good and Evil
In whatever age, even though people are asleep, history is moving in the same direction as the Providence of Restoration. This is a fact we can know by looking at history.
The people living in that age may not have known it, because they were in ignorance or were placed in an evil generation, but the historical direction of that age was always moving toward one destination.
Because there is a God who manages the age and leads the age, history is advancing toward a single destination. We can surmise this fact even by observing the course of historical development.
Today you know that the single being called “I” is supremely precious and important. You also know well that such an “I” is at once a product of history, an existing entity in the present, and must become the wellspring of the future.
This “I” stands today at the crossroads of whether I will become a true “I” or an “I” that is not so. When I cry out for truth and try to grasp true value, a cosmic matter becomes connected there; and when I come to stand in an evil position, historical evil becomes connected there.
You must always keep in mind that this is the environment in which you stand. Thus, the single being called “I” stands at a crossroads where, standing on the right, one can become good, and standing on the left, one can become evil.
You must clearly realize that this is, of course, the position of ordinary people who cannot escape the historical environment, and likewise it is your position too—you who today know the Will and face the Will.
It is only natural that, after coming to know the Will, one should establish a good self centered on the Will. Yet we who have come to know the Will sometimes fail even to become a good self, and at times, without even knowing it, we come to stand in the opposite position.
We often experience that, when certain bonds and social circumstances surround us to sweep us toward the opposite position, we go there without knowing it, and even while knowing it.
The Process of Planning, the Process of Preparation, the Process of Practice
Then, centering on this self standing at such a crossroads, how should you go forward?
Every person has a period of thinking. After thinking, once one has decided that something is right, one needs a period in which one can prepare oneself, centering on the standard of one’s own resolve or vow regarding it. It is through this period of preparation that victory or defeat is at last decided.
One passes through a process of practice in which one succeeds or fails during this period of preparation.
Every person, without exception, possesses a conscience. Because the conscience moves on the foundation of goodness, a person who thinks centered on conscience always comes to think of what is true. To prepare what is true and to practice what is true is the original duty of a human being.
If this is so for human beings, then if there is a Creator who created heaven and earth, that Creator too must be so. Before creating heaven and earth, there must have been a period of thinking, and there must also have been a period of preparation.
Before God set the decisive plan to create all things of heaven and earth in this way, there was first a period of thinking. Then, centering on the plan thus established, He passed through a process of preparation and moved on to the stage of practice. It was in this way that He carried out the creation of heaven and earth.
That the creation of heaven and earth was like this means that God is such a being. God, too, had a period of thinking, then a period of preparation, and a period of practice. It was through such a process that He made all things of heaven and earth.
Then who is the central figure responsible who could be established at the stage of practice? It is the human being.
As a period of preparation for creating this human being, there was a creation period of five days; and centering on that period, after laying a foundation of victory in the world of the mind, He passed through the process of preparation and came all the way to the stage of practice.
God had to fight even in the inner world of the mind, and He had to fight even in making His preparation. Just as we human beings do, God, too, has walked until now from such a position.
The mission of practice must be fulfilled by God inwardly and by human beings outwardly. When God, the subject of inner victory, presents an inner condition and gives a command before human beings, the subject of outer victory, human beings must carry it out; and here a struggle inevitably follows.
This struggle is the responsibility entrusted to human beings. But because the human ancestors failed in the process of practice, bringing about the result called the Fall, today countless humankind has come to be placed under a destiny in which they must think again, prepare again, and cannot but practice again.
Therefore, today, anyone who has a conscience cannot but think; after thinking, cannot but prepare; and after preparing, cannot but pass through a process of struggle centered on the external environment.
Otherwise, victory or defeat is not decided. It is today’s human beings who stand in the position of having to pioneer a course of destiny in which such a process is re-enacted.
The Path That One Who Seeks Truth Must Walk
Now, what is it that you must think about?
Of course, you should think thoughts that I like, and that can satisfy me. But although it is our mission to think, prepare, and practice with what an individual will rejoice in held in mind, to think of a good thing, prepare a good thing, and practice a good thing is not something that begins centered on oneself, is decided in oneself, and concludes in oneself.
We must know the fact that the better something is, the more it is connected to me all the way to the Cosmos.
What is good does not bear fruit beginning from the standard of my individual self. It bears fruit by passing through a world of relational bonds. Therefore, the good of the individual must be linked to the good of the family, the good of the family to the good of the tribe, and further to the good of the people, the nation, and the world.
A good person does not think centered on himself or who thinks only of the present age, but one who thinks of the past and the present, and indeed of the future as well.
On the path of history, if there is a person who is true individually, that person is one responsible for establishing others as true persons; if there is a true person in his own generation, that person stands representing all true persons. Should there come to be a true person in the future, he is a person with the responsibility to lay a foundation on behalf of all people.
Because a true person carries historical responsibility, he must have a heart (심정) that runs through past, present, and future, and he must stand in a position able to encompass the value of the past, the value of the present, and the value of the future.
Then why does our mind wish to stand in such a position, and why does it come seeking such a thing?
It is because God Himself, who moves the heavenly order, is in just such a position.
Since we are bound to the inevitable destiny of having to become outer substantial entities so that God may fulfill the mission of practice, our minds too cannot but move in the same direction.
When one beholds your minds moving in this way, no one can deny that we were born for a greater good, and that, as entities of value for a greater good, to conduct our lives as beings who stand in place of history, in place of the age, and in place of the future is the purpose of human life.
Then, when we look at the people living in today’s fallen world, have they become true people?
They have not. They have not become true families, nor true societies, true nations, or a true world. Moreover, even the spiritual world is placed in the same position.
When you see that this entire world today is not true, you must consider how harrowing our path will be—we who must yearn for truth and pursue truth— and how many fields must be pioneered.
If you have within you a desire to form a bond with the world of true ideals, then along the pioneering course you must walk, there will surely be steep mountains and rugged peaks.
From the course of my own individual goodness all the way to the course of cosmic goodness, all of it is a pioneering course.
Therefore, if there is a person who has an earnest heart longing for truth and craving truth, what resolve must he make?
He must make the resolute determination to wage a universe-historical struggle.
You must know that without this, one cannot pioneer the course of goodness. If this is so for us as individuals, then if there is a God who moves this Cosmos forward today, that God too is likewise.
Even at the first stage of thinking, it must be decided through fighting; then at the stage of preparation, one must prepare through fighting; and finally at the stage of practice, one must practice through fighting. The whole of that process is a struggle.
You must apply such a process of stages to your own single self and consider it once more.
If you have grasped some ideal, you must, centering on that ideal, become a strong company that writhes together with the universe-historical environment and, however difficult the circumstances one is placed in, will absolutely never yield in one’s lifetime. Only then does one remain.
Now is the time when you yourselves cannot but prepare to attain the very purpose of forming a bond with the ideal world of truth. And once you have prepared, you must furnish a posture of mind in which you yourself pledge to be an “I” that cannot but practice to bring this to fruition.
Then, however much heaven and earth, as an evil entity, launch a total assault upon you, you must become the victor from the heart onward.
Become a Spokesman for Good and a Judge of Evil
Is the unification ideal that we now aim for and advance toward something that has come forth proclaiming individual victory? No. We have come forth proclaiming the final, historic victory. Therefore, we must collide with the greatest historic test.
So that I am not broken there, I must be stronger than it; and to be so, I must, with a firm standard of heart that says of myself, “I can defeat all those things and still have strength to spare,” remain unmoved even if heaven and earth are shaken. It is precisely God who Himself establishes such a standard of heart and goes forward in preparation. God created all things of heaven and earth from such a position.
The countless people living upon this earth today have failed to establish within their hearts a decisive center based on such an ideal. This is what han (한) is. But if you have established one center, you must prepare together with that center.
If there is a person who dreams of becoming a person of character of worldwide and cosmic value, preparation is needed.
The more one wishes to stand in the position of commanding all people and being revered before all people, and the larger that scope, the more countless trials and sufferings follow; so preparation is needed that can handle these. Thus, you must establish a standard by which, whatever circumstance you collide with, you can rise above it and can say that such a circumstance has nothing to do with you. Until then, it cannot be done.
If you yourselves do not regard this ideal as the highest ideal, and entrust everything only to conscience and act according to conscience alone, you will leave behind no achievement of value in the substantial world, and you will leave behind no bond with the world that stands as the counterpart of that world.
If, in such a state, some circumstance were bound to you, then however many times — a thousand or ten thousand — you resolve to become a company that can handle that circumstance, you cannot win. That is because every circumstance is bound and handled by your reason.
You must think that not only the good position, but the evil position too, even the enemy’s foothold, has a bond with me. Therefore, if you do not steadily prepare with such a standard of victory, you cannot become a banner in the process of practice.
After furnishing such preparation, when you step onto the stage of the fight between good and evil, you must become a spokesman for good and a judge of evil. Upon us today rests the historic mission of having to stand at such a crossroads.
Then what is the position of the Teacher, who guides you today?
It is to have you pass through the process of a thinking Unification Church, a preparing Unification Church, and a practicing Unification Church. God’s Providence is likewise.
The thinking world of Restoration, the preparing world of Restoration, the practicing world of Restoration; the thinking world of goodness, the preparing world of goodness, the practicing world of goodness — it is coming forth, passing through these three stages of process.
Then what time is it now, as you come following the Teacher? It is the time of practice. You are following the Teacher in the practicing Unification Church.
Therefore, you do not know the thinking of the Unification Church or the preparing Unification Church.
If there is today a person responsible who would take charge of God’s Will and manage this age, he is not a passive person but a leading one.
The Unification Church, too, having come up to now through the age of thinking, the age of preparation, and the age of practice, has its standard established to a certain degree; so the Unification Church and the members of the Unification Church stand not in a passive position but in a leading position.
However much this is so, without laying a foundation of individual victory, one cannot stand in the position of an individual leader, and further cannot stand in the position of a leader of the family, the tribe, the people, the nation, or the world.
Therefore, you must know, in terms of the Will, what kind of age this now is, and accordingly lay first a foundation of individual victory.
Now is an age in which tribe and people are linked all at once, so that the people must be managed upon a foundation of tribal victory.
You may not know it, but historically, passing through periods of inner struggle — periods of struggle of thought, of preparation, and of practice — God has already furnished a hard-won foundation of victory. And yet, if human beings forget such historical value, then at that time they perish.
Stand Not in a Passive Position but in a Leading Position
A good person must take responsibility for the past, the present, and the future.
Moreover, if there is some foundation upon which loyalty was devoted for the sake of goodness, one must become a person of character who can inherit it one hundred percent, intact.
If good people held an individual foothold, a family foothold, a tribal foothold, a national foothold, you must inherit it.
Otherwise, you cannot stand upon an individual, family, tribal, or national foundation.
Then who will furnish individual victory, furnish family victory, and further furnish national, state, and worldwide victory?
You yourself must furnish that foundation from the individual all the way to the family, tribe, people, nation, and world. A person who has the environment in which to furnish it, or who knows that path, is blessed.
Seen from this viewpoint, the fact that on the course of the Providence of Restoration there is Heaven — a historical backing—that advances together when one advances, prepares together when one prepares, and fights together when one fights, is infinitely blessed news for us today.
That our forebears in history had providential bonds in which they aimed for goodness and fought beneath a common goal together with Heaven — to lay a foothold of individual victory, a foothold of national victory, a foothold of worldwide victory — is an infinitely happy thing for us.
Feeling grateful for such bonds, we must not let these bonds end at the national level, but must connect them forever, beyond the world and beyond the Cosmos, even to our descendants of the future. Therefore, we must run not only in the present age but in the future as well.
Only when we do so can your descendants set out using such things as a foothold; otherwise, it is severed.
The more a person thinks of the future rather than of this age—that is, rather than of present reality—the more he develops. When one endures the hardships of the present for the sake of the happiness of a future day and goes forward, development comes.
Today you have learned that you must go forward in the position of setting in order all the crises of every field—the national crisis, the ideological crisis, and so on—and you have learned what the true thing is, and what national resolve and worldwide resolve are. That being so, you must each stand not in a passive position but in a leading position, and all of you must become one.
It is through such people as you that a new ideal sets out, and only when you have built even a society, a nation, and a world that can move through that ideal does the ideal we aim for at last bring victory. This is borne witness to by historical fact.
Now Is the Time of Crossing Over into the Worldwide Era
Now you must inherit the foundation of the Unification Church’s victory. Then, when we consider centering on the meaning of the Providence of Restoration, from what position the inheritance must be received, the inner value by which heaven and earth were accomplished is a value you cannot even imagine and cannot even dream of.
You must not live just as you please, in a position that does not know the world—like a wave that merely flows by, like a passerby going past.
The Unification Church has laid a traditional foundation of victory that no one could move since heaven and earth came into being. It has laid a foundation that can become at once a historic victory and an epochal victory.
You are, historically, representatives of humankind. But now, even if you do not inherit this, there will surely arise a company that inherits this Will and practices it.
If this nation does not inherit it, the spiritual world will inherit it; if this people does not inherit it, the gentiles will inherit it; if you yourselves do not inherit it, your descendants will inherit it. Such an age has come.
If you fail to fulfill this epochal mission you now bear, then what your individual self can find now cannot be found even if the whole world is mobilized.
What does this mean?
It means the last, the very last. A mistake of the age when one had an individual mission can be forgiven when the age of family mission comes; a mistake of the age of family mission can be forgiven when the age of tribal mission comes; a mistake of the age of tribal mission can be forgiven when the age of national mission comes. But if one makes a mistake in the national age, one cannot be forgiven until the nation that was to be established is fully established. That is, one cannot be forgiven until it becomes a world of good sovereignty.
Then, knowing such a principle, in what position are we now placed?
We are placed at the time of crossing over from the national age into the worldwide age. So, for you to be forgiven, you must establish a worldwide fortune.
But if you cannot manage this worldwide fortune, and if the worldwide foundation is not concluded within your generation, then you have no way to be forgiven.
God can carry out the final judgment only when He centers on at least one national sovereignty. Because this has become the standard of Providence, at the time of establishing one national sovereignty and crossing over, there can be no law called forgiveness.
Then let us consider Noah through history. From the perspective of that age, Noah was a fool and a foolish man. Yet he was a person who knew how to think of the past, think of the present, and think of the future. Because the world in which Noah lived was evil, Noah should not have simply remained there as he was.
So he sought the time himself, sought a true person suited to that time, and hoped that this true person would guide him. But because there was no one to guide him, he received Heaven’s permission so that he himself could bear such responsibility.
Therefore, Noah was a person who thought when others did not think, a person who prepared the things others could not think of and the things others did not prepare, and a person who practiced the things others did not practice.
Abraham too was so, Moses too was so, Jesus too was so, and the Teacher too was so. He thought the things others did not think, prepared the things others did not prepare, and practiced the things others did not practice.
The Teacher has brought the Unification Church up to the stage where it must carry out decisive practice on a national scale.
Yet, in the course of your faith life since coming into the Unification Church, have you ever thought, prepared, and practiced for the Will as Noah of old did?
Have you ever thought, prepared, and practiced for the Will as the Teacher has?
Whether asleep or awake, whether eating or dressing, coming or going, in joy or in sorrow—have you tried pouring your whole heart and soul into your entire life? If not, Heaven cannot work for your sake.
It will not do to say that I was like this in the past, I am like this today, and so I will be like this in the future too. This age cannot acknowledge you just as you were in the past.
There is no problem if you have become a national self who can attest to the past and attest to the present, who can set the past in order and set the present in order; but if you are dominated by the past and dominated as well by the present, then Heaven cannot work there.
We Who Must Take the Place of Adam’s Mission
You are moving, but you are not developing. The Teacher, however, is developing onward. In carrying out the Providence of Restoration until now, God has seemed to retreat, yet He has developed onward. He has seemed to go down, yet He has gone up.
Then what time is it now?
Until now, we have received trials coming from the individual, or from the family, or from the whole people. Within the bounds of the Unification Church, we have received outer trials. But because we became a company that remained through them, we have become a company that, centering on a national standard, can stand in place of the people, can stand in place of religion, and can stand in place of the nation.
So even if we are struck by the worldwide current, we must become a company that remains here; otherwise, the Unification Church cannot stand as a worldwide Unification Church, nor as a Unification Church able to command in place of all sovereignty.
Therefore, what is it that you must come to know through this assembly?
Until now we have received Heaven’s cooperation within the bounds of religion, and upon such a religious foundation we have come through outer trials and struggles; but now I must fight as a substantial being who stands in God’s place.
Adam had a mission to stand in God’s place. But Adam failed that mission. Now we must say that we will take responsibility for that mission in this age today.
You must become people steeped in such conviction; otherwise, you cannot push forward today’s national fortune. You must know such things.
Until now, God has pushed you forward. When He set you forth to fight, He had the spiritual world and the physical world cooperate there. But now, even without Heaven’s cooperation, upon this earth, a center standing in place of Heaven and you standing in place of the earth must become one body and fight onward.
Keeping in mind the very fact that God told Adam and Eve to have dominion over all things of heaven and earth, today a resolute determination must well up—that we will go to any place in this Cosmos if it is God’s word.
Unless you come forth holding that motive power so that no one can restrain it, you will fall along the way. You will retreat along the way.
Now we members of the Unification Church must cry out, “Follow my example.” I am a person who stands in God’s place, and I have resolved to fight in God’s place, so I must say, “Follow my example.”
In the heart of such a person, there is nothing but the single thought of conquering the enemy world, and the whole of his lifelong living becomes a period of preparing for that. And once preparation is made, he struggles without hesitation. Once one is seized by the conviction to do it, there is nothing one cannot do.
But the troublesome thing is that all of this connects through to the spiritual world.
Do you know what the people who commune with the spirit world are asking for?
They are asking to be allowed to join the movement of the Unification Church themselves. That is their request now.
These days, several people report to the Teacher that countless spirit individuals come and ask them to inquire of the Teacher as to when they should join in, since they too wish to join in here. But the Teacher hopes to do that work through you rather than doing it himself. He hopes that it will not be the Teacher alone who grants them the authority to join in, but that all the people who labor for the sake of this Will may also grant it.
The Teacher hopes that you will be able to command in place of the countless martyrs, loyal patriots, faithful women, and the prophets and righteous forebears who passed away for the sake of the Will.
Another Definition of Good
Then what must you do to become a person who can grant such a privilege?
Your ideal, which thinks of this age and thinks of the future, must accord with the heart (심정) of God.
So even now, if possible, the Teacher wishes to set you out in front and to remain behind himself. If those who received the Blessing this time stand completely before the Will, representing their families, and hold an ideological resolve centered on the heart of God, the Cosmos will turn.
It is not a matter of a particular region. It is because you become flimsy, gangs, and are merely pushed this way and that as the wind blows that you suffer so. However much such people labor and prepare, they cannot commune with the spiritual world.
For one who fights under the conviction that he will surely go out into the process of practice—the fight—and win, hunger is no problem. And God absolutely does not starve such a person. The Teacher has experienced this. If, in living through the world, you try to take a shortcut without struggling, you will only suffer wretchedly and collapse.
God is seeking to entrust a grave responsibility to us today. At such a time, criticize yourself, centering on yourself.
From the time I first came into the Unification Church until now, what have I done for the sake of the Will, and what have I collided with?
Everything until now has been work that set out from me and sought to bear its result in me. Is it good to say that since I did this in the past, I will do this in the future too?
Among the things I have done, the good ones must be given to the thirty million people, given to humankind, given to all people. At that time, if all things recognize it and rejoice, I too come to rejoice together.
If they do not recognize it, I will fall into despair; but even so, I must go with a heart resolved to give.
If I do not have such a heart, then when I go to the other world, and God says, “Until now I have labored for your sake; you labor for my sake,” how then would I lift my face?
God hands over to us even the full authority to go to the other world, and He rejoices to see us rejoice. He is not a God who says, “Ah! It saddens me that I cannot have it. Since things did not turn out this way for me, I cannot rejoice.”
When one quietly observes the young people of the Unification Church today, they set out from themselves and seek to conclude in themselves. So they perish. The Teacher is seeking to pull out that root fundamentally, without even Satan knowing.
Goodness is not something that sets out from me and concludes in me; it is something whereby, beginning from me, thousands upon ten-thousands rejoice, and when their joy exceeds my joy, I can behold it and rejoice. If goodness were not so, then God would be the supreme dictator, and a God like that would be unnecessary.
All of you, quietly consider yourselves today. Ask yourselves whether you have truly become loyal subjects and filial children before God. Were you not, even a little, looking for a hole through which to turn back the moment things became disadvantageous to me?
If there are such individuals, the Teacher will not leave them be.
The very motive of Israel’s downfall lay right there. The cause of Noah’s family failing the substantial offering lay there too.
Before the leaders who took charge of the Providence of Restoration until now, the children, the families, or the disciples who ought to have centered on them—nearly all of them were like that.
Where did all the disciples who attended Jesus as their teacher go?
It was the very disciples who attended Jesus who sold him out. If among you today, too, there are people who think, “Ah! Going forward, centered on our Teacher, once a good age comes, I will become the Right State Councillor (右政丞),” they are all people who, centering on the world, seek to make Heaven a shield for their own worldly advancement, a shield for their success. There may be people who try to use goodness in that way, but goodness is absolutely never used. You must not use goodness. Goodness is absolutely never used.
For a time, it may seem to be used, but eventually, the one who used it perishes. After using it, one perishes.
The True Meaning of Seonghwa (成和)
If so, do you who go forward following the Will wish to return the result of using a good heart before yourself?
Or do you wish to return it before all people? The discernment of good and evil unfolds there, and the motive of victory or defeat also arises there.
The good person says, “Even if I die, I die for the whole, so even if I cannot return, pass this on to my descendants for ten thousand generations.” People who try to use goodness for their own single generation cannot even get past their single generation, and the path they were walking is blocked.
You must know the meaning of the characters of this name, the Seonghwa Youth Association. The word Seonghwa (成和) does not mean to harmonize from a passive position in response to some stimulus. It means to harmonize actively.
You set out centered on such a meaning, yet in the morning you are pleased, and in the evening you are weeping and making a fuss. And when night comes, you do whatever you please—but that must not be. People who have come to know the Will of God ought to weep in the morning and rejoice in the evening and at night.
And yet you are pleased at first, and later go on raising one condition after another. That is why the Seonghwa graduates are made to suffer wearisomely.
If hanging all of you upon the cross at once could save the people; if driving all of you out to the very front line so that you collapse, hurling you into a pit of death, could save the people — then such a thing would have to be commanded, and the responsibility to make you do it and to do it rests with the Teacher and with you.
That is why the goal we now hold is that worldly things such as school or the workplace are nothing whatsoever.
This is why, on the occasion of this Children's Day, we intend to launch such a merciless activity nationwide.
If you cannot take part in it together, there is no choice but to part ways. It is because there is much hindrance to those who come after.
When the Teacher was the same age as you, he could not even sleep properly at night, and could not eat or dress as he wished. You decide everything just as you please, don’t you? Go on doing it that way. See what happens.
Even now, the Teacher walks the path of religion, the path of the Way—that is, the path of life—and fights with the forces of death that are on that path. You are here now, but you do not know when you may die. You do not know when you may go to the public graveyard.
Do you think you will live a thousand years, ten thousand years?
Because you have all been left the solemn task of having to settle the problem of eternal life centered on my life, it must become the course of our living to resolve that han. And yet here you are thinking other thoughts, so it is as if you are living someone else’s life.
The Teacher was not so. In the very moment of fighting the forces of death, I thought that if I were defeated here, then here I would die.
Have you not thought such thoughts?
Young people may not think about when they will die, but since one does not live a thousand or ten thousand years, you must know how serious a problem this is.
Become Heaven’s Elite Soldiers Who Take Responsibility for the Misfortune of All People
All of you, quietly consider. Before long, this hand too will be only bone.
Now everyone tries to groom it beautifully, but when one dies, only the bare bones will remain. And after a certain period passes, even the bones will decompose into elements and vanish. Such a thing is what I am.
Everyone, without exception, becomes so. But if by that all things were resolved and any wish whatsoever were fulfilled, then afterward there would be no problem at all. If so, what worry would there be?
Do you think the Teacher is doing this work because he is inferior to you?
If that were so, he would have packed his bundle long ago.
However much one circles round and round, however much one tries to take another path, knowing that one cannot go, that one cannot but walk this path—that is why he walks it. It is a serious problem.
If one has settled all these problems of life oneself and found the true path of human life, does it end here?
No. There are my beloved parents and siblings, and at the same time, there are the people and humankind, and there are heaven and earth.
How serious a problem this is! In this serious process that the whole must traverse, if we cannot settle this difficult problem, this grave problem of death, then the whole must bear lamentation and despair amid suffering and walk the path of death. When one thinks of such a harrowing scene, one cannot sleep peacefully because one is tired, and one cannot rest because it is hard.
The Teacher was so. When one enters such a position, there comes into view the sight of young men and women who, agonizing over the problem of life, take poison or fall from cliff paths thousands of feet high.
Who will take responsibility for such people?
All the people of Korea today must know such tragic conditions well, whether through the newspapers or through other media. People will consider it to be someone else’s affair, but one never knows when such a thing might come to my sons and daughters. And one never knows when such a thing might happen in my family. No one can guarantee that he will not be caught in such a fate. One cannot think that it has nothing to do with me.
All the tragic conditions that have unfolded in history are not someone else’s; they are my very own. They are all my mission, my responsibility. It is not unrelated just because it did not occur around oneself. It is not arranged that way.
That today we have come to hold this gathering of Seonghwa graduates is entirely to make you suffer wearisomely. Only then will the han be resolved.
Have you become people who hold the conviction that you will not change even if all thirty million people oppose you?
You have not. Until now, the Teacher, with what he prepared centering on such conviction, has stood on the stage of practice and has not been pushed back by any enemy. Do you too have such confidence? The Teacher cannot believe it.
Can such people as you be sent out to the final, decisive battlefield where one cannot but win?
The Teacher cannot believe it. If they were sent out just as they are, there is a great possibility that all would either flee to the rear, or become stragglers, or slip out to the side.
When one asks whether there are young men and women of the Unification Church who can break through the central part of the enemy camp, occupy the enemy world, plant Heaven’s flag there, and return the glory of victory to all people, you must quietly consider what you yourselves are like.
Become One Who Attains Victory and Takes Part in the Seat of Supreme Glory
As I said the other day at the meeting of district leaders, too, open up the way so that the curfew does not hinder the movement of the Unification Church. The Teacher will lead you directly. Even so, will you discuss the curfew and not move?
You say you will be caught and taken to the police station?
The Teacher wishes to see for himself you collapsing on the roadside while trying to fulfill your responsibility.
If you say you cannot do that, then stop. In such an environment where you say you cannot, let us see whether Heaven can do it. These days, the Teacher thinks such thoughts and resolves that he will do it.
But even if the road is laid and the materials are prepared, when they cannot be carried to the place where they ought to be carried, they are of no use. If the owner cannot do as he wills with them, they are of no use. They are stolen away by a thief, or they rot away as something unneeded.
Some people dropped out after receiving their sixth graduation diploma three years ago, and I think it was well that such people dropped out.
Such a company would have become the same kind of company as the company that, while Moses led the people of Israel toward Canaan, grumbled and complained in the wilderness, opposed him, saying they could not go, and drove Moses out.
You must fight and lay a foundation of victory in the inner world where you think, centering on the mind. And there, with a vow, you must steadily prepare and become goodness itself. Then, by fighting splendidly and winning on the final stage of practice — not in Korea, but on the world stage — you must be able to take part in the seat of supreme glory. I ask you to become such people.
You must not look only at yourselves, but must look to Heaven and look to the Teacher. The Teacher has not grown weary until now.
In the old days, when fighting, he took up a defensive battle, but now he wages an offensive battle. The teacher, too, stands and goes forward on the front line, so it will not do for you to stay still. You, too, must go forward.
So do not give your mind any opening; always furnish a posture of readiness, so that the moment a command is given, you take one hundred percent action upon that command. You must become people who can do this.
Now, gathering anew the conviction that we can become so, we must shake this three-thousand-li peninsula. Do you understand?
Do you have the confidence to do it?
So do not give your mind any opening; always furnish a posture of readiness, so that the moment a command is given, you take one hundred percent action upon that command. You must become people who can do this.
Now, gathering anew the conviction that we can become so, we must shake this three-thousand-li peninsula. Do you understand? Do you have the confidence to do it?