As you know, today is the last Sunday we meet this month. This month of September has been a period of devotion, centering on the WACL conference, unforgettable for our Unification Church, for our Korea, and for Japan as well.
Members of the Unification Church, who must take responsibility for this nation
The day we looked toward and offered devotion for has already passed. We must give thanks before God that the WACL conference was brought to a successful conclusion. We come to feel that hereafter we ourselves must think of the will from a new angle and offer still more devotion.
Moreover, when we consider that the Asian situation has changed suddenly and remains in a tense state, we come to know that there remains for us a responsibility to offer devotion for this nation and this people.
The question of how, in this decade of the 1970s, we can look toward the unification of South and North Korea and when we will accomplish the one day of resolving the han that this people desires, cannot but be a great cross that must be passed through as a people. We come to feel that the question of Korea’s unification is not a question limited to the Korean people but a question hanging over Asia and not only over Asia but also connected even to the world.
The leading responsibility for this is not borne by the world and not borne by Asia, but must be borne by our Korean people. In the Korean people bearing responsibility, it is not the North Korean puppet regime that bears it; our citizens of South Korea must bear it.
If our citizens in South Korea are in a position of having to bear that responsibility, then concretely, who will bear that responsibility?
People of general society cannot bear the responsibility. A religious body that exerts spiritual influence upon society must bear that responsibility. Or some religion that has shared a bond with history until now must take responsibility for this reality. It is a fact beyond doubt that a band furnished with a certain spiritual attitude must take responsibility for the road these people must walk.
Then, considering the question of which organization will take responsibility, not only do we but also ordinary people today think that it will not do without the Unification Church. Seen from such a position, the spiritual attitude we hold and our manner of living become the problem.
The loyalty by which we are loyal toward the nation must be such loyalty as this. The motive of the content by which ten thousand things can be realized must be formed centering on us. Seen this way, we must consider that the most important question of all is whether we ourselves have indeed become able to be so.
Seen from such a position, in carrying out the responsibility our organization bears, both its beginning and its result depend in the end upon each individual member of the Unification Church. My single self is the problem. You yourselves are the problem. Though my one self is small, the conclusion comes down to this: in the end, the question of whether the spirit of tomorrow’s people is newly developed or not depends upon me.
A time to newly realize and pledge one’s own responsibility toward the people
In that sense, what kind of life will I leave behind—this is the question. Looking at your lives today, some will be near sixty years of age, some will be past forty, and some will be very young.
From such a position, what kind of life will you yourselves leave behind? You must hold a heart concerned for the road these people must walk and must feel for yourselves the mission you must fulfill. A person advanced in years, looking back on his own past, will come to know that in his past life there was no fruit at all and will feel that however much he strives and struggles now, he cannot reach the limit point he conceives of. Yet the more he knows such a thing and the more he feels it, the more he must not be discouraged by it but must pledge to invest all his energy still further into his short remaining life and bring about a final decision.
Rather than worrying that one is old, one must newly pledge oneself over the question of how to concentrate the whole of one’s remaining life and invest it before these people and before history. It is the same for the young. When there is a young person in his twenties who, holding a breast swelling with hope, has a new hope of taking responsibility for the future of these people, that hope is good.
Then what must be done for that hope to be accomplished?
While breaking through the surrounding environment, how can I become one who can put forward my assertion and attain my desire? When one considers the question of leading that environment and exerting influence upon it, of comforting the lonely when one meets them, of infusing strength into the powerless when one meets them, of planting in them tomorrow’s hope, and of how to spend the rest of one’s life, this is not a question you should think about lightly. It is not the kind of life, the kind of course of life, that one passes through thinking lightly.
Here, because one must go bearing compounded bonds extending in all four directions, one cannot but comfort the many people placed in positions where we must sympathize with them—the sorrowful, the lonely, the troubled, the suffering—and pursue a worthwhile remainder of life.
However much a young person boasts of his youthful position and is filled with hope dreaming of tomorrow, you must know that though he may attain that dream for his own single person, he cannot stand in a position of having taken responsibility for his mission before the people or before this age.
Seen from this standpoint, whether young or old, one must stand in a position of pledging oneself to attain the purpose one has been called to, realizing that since our Unification Church has received Heaven’s mandate, we must fulfill that responsibility. That is why the question of how we must spend our lives today is a serious question. And therefore, you yourselves must become resurrected bodies of history.
Considering our ancestors who came and went in the ages of history as citizens of the Republic of Korea, there was surely not one ancestor who did not hope that this nation called the Republic of Korea would become a rich and strong nation rather than a weak nation in Asia. Yet at no time did ancestors appear upon this earth who could say that they had accomplished that desire and that it had at last been accomplished today. When we consider such a fact, the question is whether we ourselves today can become a hopeful substantial being who can bring about the historical desire our ancestors were concerned for.
When we ask whether we ourselves have become people possessing the subjecthood to make the present thirty million of these people feel keenly that Korea must hereafter be thus and so, or that centering on the question of economic revival, it must fulfill a new mission of the age in the Asia-Pacific era, and to plant in the populace of this nation a new hope for tomorrow and stimulate them to pledge their hearts anew—you must become people who can say, “Yes. In that matter, it will not do without me. In the sphere in which I am placed, it will not do without me, and it cannot but pass through the stage of living in which we live. Without fail, it will not do without cooperating with our central foundation.” The question is whether you have become awakened people who can represent the subjecthood of the present reality before these people.
We who cannot walk a smooth road
Even if we have been in such a position in the process of history until now or in the present age, when we consider the question of where there is an organization that can give hope to the people for the future and where there is an individual who can give hope to individuals, we must be able to receive from these people the recognition that “it will not do without these people; it must without fail be these people.”
When you look upon the thirty-eighth parallel standing in such a position, that thirty-eighth parallel is not the thirty-eighth parallel of the Republic of Korea; that thirty-eighth parallel is the thirty-eighth parallel of our Unification Church.
Through a band of unification not many in number, we must recover the land of North Korea, where more than thirteen million people live. We have been given the responsibility and mission of seeking a road for recovering that place. Whatever price of sacrifice we must pay, even if not one person remains, we must mobilize everything to carry out this work.
When we look upon the thirty-eighth parallel from such a position, what strategy must we carry out?
Must we carry out a normal strategy? We must be able to step forward boldly, with such and such thought and such and such background, declaring war and saying, centering on our strength, “Come at us with whatever you will.”
Then what strategy will we carry out, and how?
If there is one single tactic by which the purpose can be carried out, it is precisely a surprise operation. There is nothing but a surprise operation. When will the surprise operation be attempted? In broad daylight? There is no one who attempts a surprise operation in broad daylight. It must be done in the middle of the night. And not a quiet night, but a night when a fierce typhoon rages and a storm pours down. It must be done on such a night as anyone would dislike.
Then will the road one goes on be a highway? No. That road is a road of steep mountains and deep valleys. It cannot but be a deep mountain road where no one could pass and no footprint was left. And if among deep mountain roads there is the hardest road of thorns, that road will be a road that can decide life and death.
Who will walk that road? It is not a matter of going out to the front line and fighting and dying. You must know that unless there is a special commando unit that can face and cross even an environment producing many casualties along the way, that road cannot be broken through.
From this viewpoint, when we say that today the Unification Church has taken up that mission before the Republic of Korea, the only road by which that mission can be fulfilled is this road. That is why the question is what attitude of heart I must hold here and how I must set out. Without being resolved to die, one cannot even march. Without holding the hope of being newly resurrected after dying, one cannot bear this strategic mission.
Therefore, for the members of the Unification Church and the Unification denomination today to bear such a responsibility, they must walk a road of suffering. It will not do unless one becomes a pioneer who, from a position in which no one takes interest and one may be said to be already dead, overcomes difficulty and lays the road of tomorrow’s hope.
Even if such a course of life passes through one year, or ten years, and even at the cost of dying along the way, one must go. If I cannot fulfill this responsibility, I have a responsibility to pledge and to teach that this road must be walked even by my descendants. Without doing such work, one perishes.
If my life is ending and I am in a desperate position where I cannot, of myself, avoid this environment, then for the sake of a hopeful tomorrow I must take the hand of the comrades who watch my end, or of my sons and daughters, and leave at least a last will and an exhortation. Recalling my appearance in the race run until now, without establishing a successor who can run further than that, this will cannot be accomplished.
Seen from this viewpoint, if the Unification Church today has taken up such a mission, the Unification Church must not walk the smooth road that ordinary people have walked until now.
We must not go with such resolve that ordinary people, looking at us, can recognize us as an ordinary church. Only by walking a road on which they must recognize us, going beyond that environment as an unthinkable, abnormal church and accepting our work as a miracle, is there a prospect of tomorrow’s victory.
Considering such matters, you must know that today we stand at a present point where we must renew our resolve in a new sphere and criticize ourselves. Our Unification Church today must be so.
Jesus, who lived and departed with courage
Then what must the leader who guides the Unification Church do?
It is likewise the same. It is likewise the same for you who follow the Unification Church. The more numerous they are, the more those many people must converge upon one focal point and advance. Our being born too was to attain that; our living too must be to complete and accomplish that; and our dying too must be for that.
One must offer all devotion for this purpose and invest every effort to attain this purpose. You must know that the matter of having to maintain all the equipment necessary for the battle for this comes down to this.
From such a position, if the Unification Church cannot fulfill that responsibility, the Unification Church perishes. The Unification Church collapses. In driving you toward the final purpose, one must drive you to the very last extremity. There will be much sacrifice. What will happen if everyone collapses there and one person remains? This is the problem.
Considering that one last remaining person, that person must indeed become one of whom it can be said, “He is the substantial being we hoped for.” If you are in such a position where, even while being driven, you must uphold Heaven’s mandate and fight, staking your life to fulfill your responsibility and mission, what will you do? Will you fight and then retreat? That cannot be. History constantly changes. Because history constantly changes, if an individual was sacrificed in such a historical process, a day will, without fail, come when he can be born again together with that historical hope.
Therefore, you must hold thoroughly in your heart a conviction about that hope and invest all your devotion. The wise person dies together with God, not one who dies together with the enemy. Jesus lived and departed such a life. Jesus tried with all his strength to take responsibility for and lead the whole of Israel, but everything went wrong.
He hoped to walk together with his disciples the road of destiny he could not but walk, but eventually those disciples all abandoned Jesus and fled. Not all people died for the nation; they walked the road they themselves desired, centered on themselves. The only one who had to lay down his life and walk the road he could not but walk was Jesus alone. When we consider this, with whom did he walk the road of the cross?
Jesus’ devotion, which could not go together with human beings, was stronger than that of anyone who came following God. That is why he felt a responsibility to toil more than anyone who had toiled in the process of history until then, and Jesus was one who, centering on a view of purpose, held a stronger view of purpose than anyone. Such a Jesus did not walk the road of the cross alone. He walked it together with God.
We can feel, through the process in which Jesus’ final destiny was decided, the fact that only that road could put down, in the world of death, in the world of the enemy, the roots of a new relationship of tradition that could carry history forward. In Jesus’ words,
“Abba, Father, all things are possible for You; remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what You will (Mark 14:36)”
all the content is included.
Contained in them is the meaning: “I now go before the Father. In going, I do not go abjectly; let me go together with Your will. The countless of humankind who have gone until now could not go in the appearance You desired, but let me go cleanly in the appearance You desire. In going, let me leave behind a starting point that can be united with the standard by which, in the ages of history, a son whom You desire must go in this way.”
Even in such a lonely position, Jesus was always dignified. His praying, “Father, forgive their sin,” was not the prayer of a loser. Though he himself returns before God, the time to conquer the world will without fail come.
Moreover, he planted a worldview by which, even when that time of victory comes, this world would not be treated as an enemy, but the enemy could be embraced. His self, holding such a hope, dies and withdraws; but from the position of Jesus, who was confident of the realm of future victory, magnanimously blessing the band of Roman villains who would in the future suffer the grief of the loser and the bands that opposed him became the motive by which they were occupied inwardly and outwardly.
To leave something behind in one’s life
Such a life of Jesus is worthy of bowed-head respect before God and seen in terms of all historical tradition and even seen in terms of the history of forgiveness. In other words, was Jesus not one who lived and departed a life at which nothing catches, inwardly or outwardly? That is why Jesus’ life did not end as his one lifetime of some thirty years, but has remained until now as a historical life.
Accordingly, history until now has developed to accomplish the purpose Jesus left behind. Because God too has carried out His Providence until now to accomplish that purpose, in order for that direction to be united with the point of purpose, Christianity could not but become a worldwide religion. That is why we must consider the fact that, however much persecution Christianity passed through, it did not end in a destiny of perishing; rather, the closer a destiny of perishing came, the more it became a foundation of victory and a factor of tradition and developed into a new worldwide foundation.
It is likewise the same with the road the Unification Church walks today. One must hold a heart that can say, “I was born for God and for the world.” In other words, one must hold the conviction that I was born for the sake of the world, to settle the realm of life and death of the world. We must cross the thirty-eighth parallel. Even if there is a thirty-eighth parallel greater than that, we must cross it.
What we must consider is that the thirty-eighth parallel of the Korean people is not the problem. What happens when we break this down and form a unified people? There remains the thirty-eighth parallel with Communist China and the Soviet Union, which border on us.
That a thirty-eighth parallel dividing South and North lies across these people today is not so great a trial. This is a thirty-eighth parallel centering on our people, but next we must cross the more extreme thirty-eighth parallel with the Soviet Union and Communist China. To prepare the framework of peace that the people must settle, one cannot but prepare a foundation of victory that can settle even the greater thirty-eighth parallel.
Seen from this viewpoint, our nation’s thirty-eighth parallel is not a problem. If our Korean people became a people that could settle our thirty-eighth parallel and overcome the worldwide thirty-eighth parallel bordering the Soviet Union and Communist China, this people cannot but become a people that plants a new subjecthood in the world and presents a new direction. Do you indeed have the conviction that you can be so?
The question is having the conviction and the conditions to win without fail
The question is whether you have become such an organization and such individuals as have the confidence that, even if communist forces furnish a worldwide footing and attack toward us, you can stand boldly before them without being driven back and confront them and win. God has been seeking such an organization and such people until now.
The communists have carried out their policies until now by tactics of disguise. This will someday be denounced. In the way evil has developed until now, it has not furnished a normal system of activity. When we consider the fact that it has invaded based on concealment and tactics of disguise, we can know that this is the business Satan carries on, centered on evil. This is the problem.
The key to solving this problem lies with our Unification denomination. Then what kind of life will I leave behind through this Unification denomination?
God’s desire, which He wants us to pursue, is to accomplish a vast and tremendous historical mission, including cosmic-historical content, rather than for you as individuals to take the lead and attain some individual purpose. God urges upon us not only a historical mission but even a mission of the age. Seen from this viewpoint, the question is whether you have become individual members of the Unification Church who, rather than becoming weaklings, can handle that environment and take responsibility for that environment.
For that, what kind of daily life will you live, and what kind of life will you leave behind? To leave something behind, one must practice. Otherwise, one cannot leave anything behind. A life of merely eating and living along somehow and departing is one that anyone can live. It is the same for people in North Korea and people in South Korea. Such people have nothing to lead.
What kind of life will you leave behind?
For that, one must become a self who can be so. To become a self who can leave something behind, what is merely of the Republic of Korea will not do. The Unification Church manner, the Unification Church way alone, will not do. Even if it is the Unification Church way, if it is worldwide, it remains.
In the present day of the twentieth century, it suffices if it is a way that any of the three billion of humankind can look upon and welcome with both hands raised. A way to which the three billion of humankind are indifferent, which can have no relationship with the three billion of humankind, which has no strength at all, all flows away. In that sense, centering on the WACL conference of September that we hosted, how shall we carry out activity that can remain in the history of the Unification Church? We must show content that no people and no religion have shown until now and reveal that appearance of activity.
This time, the WACL conference was held in Japan, and when it was held in Japan, it went very well. Because it is a national event unprecedented in the history of Japan, people’s interest cannot but be concentrated on it. In a word, it cannot but be a nationwide event. Accordingly, the communists too cannot but feel terror at the movements of our Unification Church. They cannot but think about what is behind it and cannot but be anxious. When the degree of that anxiety becomes stronger than the environment they have furnished, they prepare a second front and prepare a third front.
You must know that when there are many soldiers who think there is a strong possibility of losing rather than standing only for victory, an army with such weak fighting strength is more likely to be defeated than to win. But here we cannot lose. What will happen if we lose here? We cannot but devise countermeasures against losing. Winning is the iron rule.
To win in war, one must first win in military strength. Moreover, one must be stronger in equipment and stronger in spiritual attitude as well. And one must be strong in the power of living. When one has the confidence to win in every respect from one to a hundred and has actually furnished such conditions, there is no problem. The problem is when one has not furnished them.
It is the same hereafter with the goal called the unified front. One must not harbor such a delusive notion as losing. If one holds the conviction of winning, even losing is winning. Where is there a unified front in the sense of winning even by losing? Is that not a paradoxical statement? The words seem paradoxical, but in content, it is not so. God’s strategy is like this. In other words, God’s strategy is a strategy of being struck and taking back. It seems like losing, but eventually it is a win.
In the course of history, there was no saint and no good person who was not denounced. There is no history that comes free. There can be no saint in the ages of history who was not denounced. There is no case of a historic figure being born before a peaceful and happy nation and people. Without fail, a new historic figure is born at the boundary line where the nation’s fortune is declining and the order of society is falling into a state of breakdown.
Such a road is a rugged, rocky mountain, but the more rain falls upon that land and the more tumultuous the environment, the more that rock is exposed. The bad conditions of that environment rather help to expose the rocky mountain and to bring forth a foundation of bedrock. A tumultuous environment in which the wind blows rather helps in founding a new age. Seeing such things, you must look back and ask whether you have indeed lived through the history of that age.
If one has lived so, then though I now die while walking this road, it contains one hundred percent the possibility of resurrection. If among all the citizens of a perishing nation even one person survives, this tradition will without fail be inherited. One must become a person who can pledge with such conviction that though I die, I will overcome everything and follow that tradition and be loyal. Then that person, though he dies, is resurrected. Jesus too established such a tradition.
Prepare to confront the communists
When you shed blood, shed it clean away. When you shed sweat too, shed it clean away; even in dying, shed it clean away. Leave no lingering attachment to your desires but settle accounts cleanly. When one has settled accounts completely, it comes back. From this viewpoint, where will you go? Passing through the Republic of Korea, where will you go? If there is someone who wants to seek a peaceful nation where there is no suffering and no pain before him, he is a traitor to the people.
When I hear the rumors coming from your villages, I hear that the wealthy conglomerates have all prepared to pack their bundles and, if they have money, are depositing it in banks in Switzerland or abroad and preparing to flee the Republic of Korea. “You wretches, go! Once you have gone, you will not be able to come back in. When you try to come back in after going, the question will arise of where the parting of the ways of the people is and where the boundary line is.” That is what I think. Those who seek to use the nation for their own individual profit, those who seek to use the race—just wait and see.
For the nation, one must do the work of investing what is most important to oneself. If there is a person, or a band, who struggles with all devotion together with history and together with the age and overcomes that environment, then through that person, through that band, the Republic of Korea will not perish but will live. You yourselves must all hold such a thought. People say that to succeed in the Republic of Korea, one must go abroad to study. Yet though there are many people who say they must go abroad to study, there is no one who says he must go toward the thirty-eighth parallel. You must know this.
Hereafter, a time will without fail come when our Unification Church must go toward the thirty-eighth parallel. Teacher Moon, who leads the Unification Church, has not yet met his time. On the road of being driven until now, he should properly have been a man who vanished; what is the reason he has not vanished but remains? That must be researched. Where lies the cause by which, though everyone hoped for ruin and blocked the road, he did not perish but was able to prepare a foundation whose breadth could gradually widen?
You will not know. Even those researching the Unification Church do not know Teacher Moon. When everyone looks at me, they ask how such a thing can be, but it can be. One must become a person who, even when swallowed up in history and enveloped in a historical environment, does not lose his bearing and does not collapse. Even going forward without speaking, in the breadth of one’s thinking and in conviction, one must cross beyond the people and cross beyond the world. I am like that. So my road is time-sensitive.
Hereafter a day will without fail come when we confront them. A time will come when I cross the thirty-eighth parallel. On the day I cross that road and return again, this wretched man who once lived a prison life will love even the people who sneered and abandoned me. It is to meet that day that I go. At that time, all sorts of things will unfold. I will meet historic figures I have not witnessed in my life.
In the process of God carrying out the six-thousand-year course of the Providence of Restoration, there must have been people who betrayed Heaven’s side and did all sorts of things, saying they would become the enemy’s side. There must have been all sorts of enemies, but they could not halt the course of God marching toward eternity. Though the enemies carried out operations to halt it, they could not halt it. Because I came to know that God has passed through such a process of development, the road of the Unification Church is to follow such tactics of God and such a road.
The road Unification Church believers must walk
Then the question is what road I will walk. You must know this well. In praying, some of you will pray, longing for the outward environment. Such a person will flow away into the outward world. The people who pursued their profit have all fallen away from the Unification Church.
You must become people who complete the mission of a pioneer of the future world for the nation and the people and humankind and thereby connect a true relationship with God.
There, value does not lie in being watched by someone. When one considers that the bond with God is formed unseen, in the marrow of a deep inner heart, one must become a person who can, whether anyone watches or not, shed blood and sweat alone and take responsibility and walk a road of toil to form a bond with God. Through such people, a new relationship of heavenly Providence is formed, and a historical foundation of victory is laid. Only when you stand in such a position do you remain.
That is why, even in praying, one must pray unknown to others. In offering devotion too, one must offer it unknown to others. In the Last Days, anoint your head with oil and go into an inner room and pray. Even if the wind blows in the world and turmoil unfolds and everything collapses and falls, one must not die without leaving behind at least such a historical bond as makes one’s own self remain distinct. This is precisely the life the members of the Unification Church must live and the course of life they must leave behind.
What is it that remains?
In leaving a legacy to one’s beloved sons and daughters, there is no parent who leaves a scrap of rag, worn out and fit only to be thrown away. One leaves an object one has tended with devotion, a treasure known only to mother and father—one leaves such a treasure. Not something useless left over after picking out and selling everything, but a treasure that one keeps to the very last even when selling everything else, regarding it as more valuable than everything that was sold.
What is it? What is that thing left as a treasure?
The treasure itself is not the problem. When the parents’ love dwells in that treasure, the hearts of the parents who offered devotion as firm as iron and stone become one with it, and when that heart holds devotion that can move not only one’s mother and father but also the world and heaven and earth and subdue historic figures, this is a great treasure unprecedented in history.
One must not try to keep such a treasure within one’s own household. To take that treasure, one must cross mountains and cross seas and overcome repeated roads of suffering. One must pass many times through the difficult crossroads of life and death and find it. Only then does it become a treasure. If one hands such a thing down to one’s sons and daughters, that treasure comes to be recognized as a worldwide treasure. There must be something that can be so. That is work everyone must do.
Our Unification Church must walk such a road. That I set my hand to something is because it must not fail midway. On the day when, even after I set my hand to it, it does not work, I offer devotion fervently. And if even then it does not work, I offer devotion, staking my life. When one’s devotion is thus greater than anyone’s in the world, to the degree that one can take responsibility for some sphere, God establishes that person as a substantial object being upon this earth. Unless such a person is made manifest, God’s will cannot be accomplished.
Therefore, God without fail makes him manifest. If he becomes manifest, would it not become a palace of peace? The place where one decided the end and, waving the flag of victory on the final high ground, became a hero of that nation and decided the destiny of the nation in victory is not a palace. It is not the central street of a city. You must know that because it is a place where fierce battle unfolded, it is a triangular zone, or a rugged mountain valley, or a rugged mountain summit. If there is a person who revealed the worthwhile value of his life there, is that person not a great one who made that nation furnish its spiritual bearing?
Considering such matters, the Unification Church today must make people who can take responsibility for such a position. It is to make such people that I make you suffer. To put it more simply, it is to make you suffer. It is not to make people who collapse before that hardship, but to make people like strong shells and bullets who can grow greater still. It is to try to make people who can break through not a single thirty-eighth parallel but three-dimensional thirty-eighth parallels layered one upon another. Then the enemy too, when he comes out, will slip back in. When one’s heart changes and one relaxes from a position where one’s whole body shrinks, one must kick free and step forward, saying, “You wretch.” The road we must walk is long. It is the road Unification Church believers must walk; they cannot but live such a life.
Only by living for the world and for heaven and earth does one remain eternally
Let flow away whatever will flow away! How many people will remain? As Elijah said in a position where life was ending, “Lord, I alone am left,” such a position comes only once. When all the people who believed and followed me as an individual withdraw, will I remain as one individual? Centering on the families of the Unification Church, if the countless families I blessed and believed in withdraw, will I say that I have failed in the position of a loser at the family level? No.
It is the same when considering the denomination. Even if, going forward, centering on the denomination, everyone collapses and no one remains, one cannot say that it has failed. Am I not here? If even one person remains there, that person is precisely a person representing the Unification Church and a being of hope representing ten million.
If he and I become one—in other words, if the subject and object spoken of in the Principle of Creation become one—an actual result of creation is bound to appear.
Therefore, before the road the Unification Church walks, failure cannot be conceived of even in a dream. Whatever it is, it may help me, but it cannot be a minus. That is why the Unification Church develops. God demands people like us.
If the president of a nation could not hold such a resolve, God’s work could not be done centering on that people. But however haggard and insignificant his appearance, if he held such a resolve, would not a new framework of Heaven be prepared through that person, and would the founding of a new history begin? This is the natural principle.
Even if a prison awaits before the road I walk, I must go. In going, I must go, offering all devotion. Even if I am persecuted, I must go, fulfilling the way of loyalty at the risk of death. A person who goes that way must, however often he collapses along the way, rise again and go.
In the life I have lived until now, God has been with me in such positions. If there is an enemy who drives me into the jaws of death, just wait and see about that enemy. That enemy’s sons and daughters will rescue me. You must know that that is the highest strategy for subjugating an enemy.
Though the pastors and elders of the established churches opposed the Unification Church, hereafter the sons and daughters of those pastors and elders will follow me. They will do anything. In repaying an enemy, there is no better strategy than that. The communists carry on such business by force. When they purge a person who has rebelled against them, they make his sons and daughters level guns and swords and purge their parents. But God, in doing such work, does not do it by leveling guns and swords. He does it with tears of love. Seen outwardly, the method may look the same, but the content is different.
Centering on such matters, you must leave behind a legacy that can remain not only in the ages of history but also in the satanic world and in the heavenly world as well. Considering what that legacy is, it is not a life for oneself alone. That life must be a life for the world, a life for heaven and earth—only then will it long remain in history, will it not?
Without passing through today and tomorrow, through each day’s living, your life cannot develop. Accordingly, to attain the purpose of one’s life, one must pass each day as a day of living that can remain, and each hour as an hour that can remain, and therefore, whatever crest lies before us, one must tread upon it and cross over.
One must become a person who, whatever crest there is in one’s generation, can conceive of a strategy for using some elasticity to cross that crest and recapture the second high ground at once and go beyond. To live such a life, do not worry that it ends within one year or within one’s own generation. The road that comes hereafter is limitless. It does not end with that crest. The trial one undergoes in crossing that crest is not the problem. What is it that will come after the trial? That is what one is curious about. It does not end with the undergoing of the trial itself; after the trial, something without fail comes.
When we take interest in the result of having overcome the trial rather than in the trial we are presently undergoing, when the emotion and the deep feeling are greater than the trial we are now undergoing, we can always look upon a position of victory.
Even in the position of the cross, walk the road of victory together with Heaven
Considering such matters, what kind of prayer must you yourselves pray to take responsibility for the destiny of the nation? Have you prayed such a prayer?
In stepping forward to complete such a mission, if the table of food you received were the last, how would you eat that food? What will I do? If walking the road of life is the last road of offering devotion, staking one’s whole life, how will I walk that road? In offering devotion, however great the devotion one offered in the past, one must walk the last road.
That is why the road that men and women who bear the will must walk is that the older one grows, the more loyal one must be. Would it not be so? The cross one has taken up with a heart of driving oneself is a light that crosses over a great mountain. Will one flow away together with that cross? I tell you to become a person who, even in a life in which one may be tumbled over while embracing this cross, seeks the road of victory together with the people, together with the world, together with Heaven. Such a person does not perish. Even if everything is shattered when something strikes it, that person’s loyalty, that itself, remains. You must know that.
I must now go forward toward the world. To others, it may look like a delusion, but there is nothing delusive about it. What is the factor by which one can go forward that strongly? Invest devotion beyond that of educating the humankind of the world. Is it not so? When the subject is greater than the object, the object must invest still more devotion. Whether asleep or awake, one must invest devotion.
Knowing that this is the goal of one’s living and the goal of one’s life, when it becomes hard as one goes forward, one must pray, “Father, only when I fulfill this responsibility will You be liberated, and will Your sons and daughters be liberated; so for the sake of this liberation, let my one person become manure and become the framework of liberation for later generations.” The position of praying this way and shedding tears alone, all by oneself, in a lonely environment is a more solemn position than the position of raising high the flag of peace in the world and being praised.
Seen in that sense, Jesus’ threefold prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane before the cross was a more serious prayer than any prayer. God could not but keep His eyes fixed on that place where he gathered his heart and prayed. That place, appealing to the hope of the countless people of humankind who follow the heavenly bond, could not but become a direct place. Because he entered such a place bearing such a will, to find that hope, one cannot but go with him even to the position of death. Therefore, is not seeking that hope the appearance of a living Christianity?
When I look quietly at young people today, if I say, “Let us do some work,” they only look at the person beside them. Wretched fellows. Just wait and see whether such fellows remain. One must hold the resolve that nothing can be done without me.
One must hold such a view of purpose that even in bringing about the final worldwide decision, it cannot be done without me. Only then does one not change. Will it do to appear quietly where profit arises and slip away quietly where loss arises? Is there anyone who likes such a person?
Do you like such a person? Women, do you like him or not? “We do not like him.” Women too do not like such a person. Then do the men like him? “We do not like him.”
From such a viewpoint, what I want to ask of you at this point of looking upon the thirty-eighth parallel is that when it is time to draw the sword and march, one must march. From such a position, in what appearance will you remain? The Unification denomination has been active since 1970 under the slogan “Victorious Unified Front”; what is the result of that? I do not know how you are doing, but I am offering all my devotion to it.
Who is the person who will remain to the very end together with the Unification Church?
The Unification Church does not perish. Even if you try to make it perish, it does not perish. It must not perish. It is not that it does not perish because I say it does not perish. Heavenly law is so arranged. You must live according to this principle.
One must not live for oneself but must sacrifice oneself. In sacrificing, rather than saying one will sacrifice for ten years, one must hold a heart of sacrificing everything of oneself for heavenly law. No one can stand against people who go to martyrdom with such a heart.
Having decided a matter, one must act. Having decided, one must not dither. And in the midst of acting, one cannot rest. One must without fail finish the work and then rest. In finishing, one finishes after holding a feast of celebration before God. You must live such a life.
The older men here must go forward having resolved that when a time comes hereafter when they must defend the thirty-eighth parallel, they will serve as platoon commander and as battalion commander. The more we feel that our time is gradually approaching, the more you must feel in your hearts that you are breathing together with the people and must perceive and analyze and criticize the destiny of the people within your sphere of living. And thus, you must become people who can be founders of tomorrow and seekers of the way in history. That is why at this hour today you must become people who can leave something behind. I mean that we must leave something behind.
To leave something behind, one must show it. Even in looking, you must look at what is worth leaving behind. Even in smelling, you must smell what is worth leaving behind, and in tasting something, you must taste what is worth leaving behind. In hearing, too, one must hear what is worth leaving behind, and in leaving behind, one must leave what is worth leaving behind.
Everything my whole body faces must be something that can be left behind. For that, it must be worldwide. Being worldwide means being centered not on human beings but on God. A person who, to leave it behind as God’s, establishes the way of a filial child and the way of a loyal subject upon the foundation of God’s heart, and who, whomever he faces, immediately perceives him and leaves behind a bond of heart from a position possessing subject-like content that can assimilate him, does not perish.
That is why, the more I feel the time approaching, the more I consider how many people believe in me. In building a house, sand is needed, and even broken chips of stone are needed. Even scattered fragments of block are all needed and are gathered, but when the house is completed, the remaining grains of sand and broken fragments must be cleared away. At that time, the broken block fragments are a hindrance.
Likewise, the more time passes, the more, when I consider how many people believe in me as I have believed in them, the direction of my action keeps changing. It is the same in God’s dealings with us human beings. One must go into an inner room and form a bond with God in a one-to-one position over a worldwide matter. God does not issue His command before many people; He issues His command through one single person. That one person, representing the Unification Church, is in a one-to-one position with God.
Considering the question of how to explore such a deep one-to-one position with Heaven and how to pioneer to become the standard-bearer who remains there, it cannot be done with an ordinary standard of living. When all the husks fall away and rot, will not only what possesses the content of life remain? That one dies last, even if it dies and perishes last, even if it perishes.
Then who is that person who, even if he perishes, perishes last?
Who is that person who will remain to the very last together with the Unification Church? I cannot but think of such a thing. Since we have come to know that God hopes for people who can be so, each of us must become such a person. For that, what must be done? You yourselves must go forward, pledging to be loyal to the people and the world and God.
To become a figure who can remain in history
I study with such a heart as well.
Why does one feel weariness in studying?
One feels weariness because one studies for oneself. But suppose that whether thirty million live or die depends on this one page here and on one phrase. Study with the serious heart of offering still more devotion and adding that one word, with the heart that by adding one word, thirty million live and by subtracting one word, thirty million perish.
Why would your head be poor?
Can you forget what happened in a serious position? I tell you to do it, staking your life. There are times when you feel the pounding beat of your heart, are there not? When one is serious, it is so. Can you forget what you resolved in such a serious position? Even a poor head is entirely a matter of degree.
It is because the mind is scattered that one does not remember, but when the moment of one’s own death approaches in the jaws of death and a clever plan for surviving occurs to one, will one remember that plan or not? When you study, take hold of one page of a book, one page, and invest yourself in it, staking your life.
When I read the Bible and think seriously, “What could this be?”
I offer devotion for one year, two years, three years to solve that problem. I dig out the root until I can say, “Ah, so that is how it came about.”
When one walks a road for oneself, only disappointment remains. On the road, walking for the people and for the world, there is always hope. Why? Because the people and the world are resurrected. If you live your life acting with such thought, then even if at present nothing remains to you, that person will remain as a historic figure.
That all the suffering he underwent becomes historical suffering and remains in the breasts of countless humans, and that all the circumstances he met in his life wish to be conveyed to countless human societies—this is the history of humankind that comes following the bond of truth. That is why Jesus too lived and departed a wretched life. How did it come about that the course of that pitiful man, who brought along some ten disciples on the shore of Galilee and lost them all and, rejected by them, shed blood and died before Roman soldiers and enemies, turned out that way?
Jesus died in the same appearance as the robbers beside him, but the content he thought of was different. That is why he came to remain in the breast of every human being and left behind the content necessary for God’s Providence of Restoration. You must know that that place became a foundation of resurrection and is the place that has gathered up history. To leave something behind, one must pass through a difficult process rather than remain in comfortable circumstances. You must know that; otherwise, nothing at all remains.
What one seeks to leave behind, centering on oneself, does not remain. It flows away together with the history of the clan. Because what will remain at the last is God, know that only the road of fighting centered on God will, without fail, remain in history, and I hope you will strive from that viewpoint.
For our Unification Church hereafter to cross the thirty-eighth parallel and become the standard-bearer of world peace, we must not go around but must go straight.
Our Unification Church today is like that. When we founded our Victory Over Communism Association, the officials concerned in the intelligence agency and such places said, “Now the Unification Church should not jump in like that but should put forward people of social repute and manage it quietly. Why of all things should the Unification crowd do it and be misunderstood and hated? Was that not a mistake? But we must do it this way. Because we set out that way, we must finish that way. Not fleeing—since we began with the cross, we must gather it in with the cross. This is the policy of the Unification Church.
In a life woven of suffering and hardship, what we must be concerned about is how we will leave behind a result of victory through a process of tribulation.
Members of the Unification Church must walk the road of hardship. If, having done all you can in your generation, you still cannot live well, then even going to the spirit world, you will without fail live well without being accused by me. Since walking this road will without fail prepare a worldwide foundation of victory, we who walk this road must go strongly and boldly without hesitation.
When Elijah said before God, “I alone am left,” God said, “There are seven thousand who have not bowed to Baal” (1 Kings 19:18).
There were many times when I too could have said, “I alone am left.”
But it is not that I alone am left. Our side is many. It is only that you do not know; our side is many. The number of Unification Church members is not only these few here. There are many.
Now, for you to become figures who can remain in history, you must walk a road of suffering heavier than the present road of suffering. Otherwise, you cannot remain in history.
If you offer all devotion together with Heaven and together with the humankind of the world, your lives will without fail remain. Knowing this, I ask you to become such people.
