DR. HAK JA HAN MOON

The Washington Times Arbor Ballroom
Washington, DC
March 19, 1999

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

I am deeply grateful that you have taken the time from your busy schedules to help me make today’s gathering such a success. Our theme for today is“The Path of Life for All Humankind.”

Today the world is lost in great confusion and cries out in agony. We face endless conflict as individuals, in our families, in our nations and in the world. As individuals, we are confronted with inner turmoil between our mind and body. Our families are plagued with the moral decadence of our young people and the breakdown of family-centered traditions. Historical rivalries lead to distrust and even war among our nations, fanning the embers of uncertainty and hopelessness in the world. The solution to all these problems lies in experiencing an ideal love relationship with God.

Throughout history, humankind has sought to answer the basic question: Why are we born? Some have concluded that they were born for the sake of their country. Others have decided that they were born for the sake of their parents. Still others believe they were born for their own sake. People of faith believe they are born for the sake of God.

Yet, it is not enough to say that God created the universe for the sole benefit of human beings, or even for Himself. The creation of humankind involved the cooperation of many beings and elements. Although each had its own inherent purpose, they had to be aligned to initiate the creative process. God’s purpose in creating, the angel’s purpose in assisting, nature’s purpose in providing the materials, and even the human purpose for being created must all be consistent. Each one must be pleased. There must be some common content that will be pleasing to God, to the angels, to the rest of creation, and to human beings themselves.

This common content must be something that gives greater happiness and joy the longer it is possessed. It should be something that, once we possess it, we would never let it go. It cannot be external in nature. It must be something internal and invisible. Things like knowledge, money and power are merely collateral conditions that are needed in people’s lives. We are not born into the world for the purpose of possessing them. Such external things may exist in a reciprocal relationship with humankind, but only temporarily, not eternally.

God has no need for money. If Almighty God ever needed money, He could create as much as He desired. Also, we know that God is the root of all knowledge, since He created the universe through certain principles and laws. Furthermore, the Creator God is the subject of power, so He has no need to seek power.

What, then, is this common content? It is something we cannot achieve through human effort alone. This is because human effort cannot control the fundamental origin of life. This content must be something capable of directing the motivation, course, and even final destination of each person’s life.

From this perspective, this common content can only be true love. Human beings are born in love and are destined to go the path of love. People even die for love. This shows that love is more valuable than life itself. Moreover, we see that love precedes life. That is why people willingly offer even their lives for the sake of love.

Love is eternal. When human beings reach the state of consciousness in which they are able to love the universe, all the doors of the universe open to them. For example, I am just a tiny being occupying this space right here. But centered on love, I can reciprocate in relationship with a being of any size or magnitude. Let us say that God is an extremely large being. Then by the power of love, I can rise to a position reciprocal to that of the Absolute God. This is possible because love is an attribute of God.

Thus, a person who recognizes and keeps God’s covenant of love can enjoy freedom anywhere in the universe. Such an individual, called by God to represent all humankind centering on this cosmic love, would be the Messiah. Jesus is that representative. We can never find this cosmic love without going through the Messiah. It is reasonable to say that all people on Earth will have to follow the Messiah. Jesus said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). The meaning of this would be clearer if the word love were added: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life, and the love; no one comes to the Father, but by me.”

Parents and Children

The Divine Principle of the Unification Church teaches that energy is produced when a subject and object become one. In a family, parents hold the position of the subject partner and children hold the position of object partner. Once they reciprocate in a relationship of love, they become one entity — a true family. This entity then becomes a new object, which can enter into unity with a larger subject. If God is that subject, then the parent-child unity becomes one with God. We can also say that when a perfect subject-object relationship is formed with God, centering on His ideal of love, God and humankind can exist in total oneness. When the realm of love between God and humanity becomes a reality, the light of love will shine throughout the universe as bright and constant as the sun.

Not only is each person a life-connecting entity in whom the lives of both parents are brought together as one, but we are also partners in our parents’ love. We are one with their love. Furthermore, we are one with their ideals, including happiness and peace.

Each person is connected to the lifeline, love-line and ideal-line of their parents, and no one can sever these lines. Even God cannot sever them, nor can the universe. In fact all the forces of the universe work together to safeguard these lines. This is because the parents are the cause and the children are the result. The parents and children are one, centering on love. Cause and effect become one to form a substantial realm of love. This is a principle of the universe.

Three Stages of Life

Each person comes into the world through three sets of parents. The first parent is the material world. Elements from the world of matter combine to form each person as the center of the material world and as a complex material being. Thus, it can be said that these physical elements themselves are the ancestors who gave us birth. On the other hand, the material world is an extension of us. The universe is created so that matter can settle only in the ideal of love. It is only in the ideal of love that all cells can live in tranquility. But this is all ruined whenever a person becomes angry.

Our second set of parents is our physical parents. By giving birth to us, our parents gave us a particular form, and to this extent they are the masters of our lives. However, no matter how hard they may try, these parents cannot be the masters of our love.

The master of love is God. In this context, God exists so that love can be expanded into the entire universe and made eternal. Because God is the subject of love, He becomes the parent centering on love. That is why God is our third parent. So we have three sets of parents.

Human life can be divided into three periods: life in the womb of about ten months, a physical life of about a hundred years, and life in the spirit world that lasts tens of thousands of years into eternity.

If we look at our own faces, we also see three stages: the mouth, the nose and the eyes. These reflect the three periods of our lives. The mouth symbolizes the period in the womb, which is a world of material. The nose symbolizes the period on Earth, which is the world of humanity. The eyes symbolize the period in Heaven, which is the spirit world.

To the fetus, the aquatic world of its mother’s womb is a world of total freedom. Interestingly, although it is constrained within the confines of the womb, the fetus feels completely free. In the womb, it can’t stretch its legs as much as it would like, and the fetus relies on an umbilical cord to breathe and receive nutrients for survival since its nose and mouth are both useless in this world. Nevertheless, to the fetus, the world in the womb is one of complete freedom.

As soon as the baby is born, it begins to cry. At the same time, it starts to breathe through its nose and becomes linked to the second world, the world of air.

As the baby leaves the womb to enter the world of air, the umbilical cord is destroyed along with the water sac and everything it needed in the world of the womb. With the death of these things, the baby is born into the bosom of its new mother, the planet Earth. Once born, the baby begins to eat with its mouth and breathe with its nose. The food we eat on Earth nourishes our physical bodies, but it does not contain the essential element of life. This life element is nothing other than love. Thus, while we are in this world, we also need to breathe the air of love. We need to inhale this air of love from our mother and father.

Growing in Love

A newborn baby automatically searches for its mother’s breast, following the vibrations of her love. Whether she is beautiful or ugly does not matter to the baby. The only thing that matters is that she is its mother. It is a sacred scene manifested in limitless variety. We are born in love and we grow by receiving love.

Once we are born, our parents take responsibility to see that we become good human beings during our life on Earth. Our parents act on behalf of the world, the nation and the family to teach and provide for us. We receive material things and education from our parents so that we may become complete as individuals. Based on this, we then become linked to a horizontal foundation of love, which is marriage.

Parents take responsibility for us until we marry. After marriage, we inherit the love shared by our mother and father. When we marry and start rearing our own children, we begin to understand how much our parents loved us and thus come to inherit parental love. In this way, the individual becomes capable of receiving and giving love completely. This is how each of us matures as a complete man or woman.

We are born and mature in the vertical love of our parents, and later we engage in horizontal love. This is the only way we can find the integrated realm of love. Heaven and Earth together form a spherical world, covering all the dimensions of top and bottom, left and right, as well as front and back. When the vertical and horizontal love relationships are linked, they interact, revolve, become integrated, and finally emerge as a single center of harmony. Once the vertical love of Heaven and Earth is firmly established as the axis internally and externally, then the need for horizontal love arises. This takes place during adolescence.

During adolescence, even the sight of an autumn leaf blowing along the ground can seem inspiring. Girls who used to be so reserved when they were younger suddenly start doing things to their hair, putting on make-up and trying on all sorts of clothes and accessories. Their interests expand as well. These are horizontal phenomena of love.

The Path of Life

When a husband and wife love each other, it symbolizes the planting of God. Parents represent God’s original position. Here, the husband and wife each embody different sides of God. Also, each child is like a small God. Since God is the original entity of true love, when the various members of the family link themselves to true love, they become one body with God. Here, parents are the living embodiment of God representing Him. Husband and wife each represent God, and the children represent Him as well. Thus, three generations, centering on true love, stand in the position of God.

This is why all members of the family – parents, husbands and wives, and children – need true love. A family formed in this way, centering on true love, is the foundation for the Kingdom of Heaven. Unless we first establish such a foundation, the Kingdom of Heaven can never be established. This is the formula. The family is the center of the entire physical universe. People today do not realize that their family represents their country, world and universe. They do not know that their family is the center. Breaking apart a family is an act of rebellion against the country, world and universe.

Because a perfect family is the foundation for a perfect universe, a person who loves the universe as she loves her family can travel freely everywhere. In such a case, God, as the Parent of the entire universe, sits in the central position to these manifold relationships of love.

When a man and woman become one centering on true love, they form an ideal couple, and build an ideal family. By doing so, they stand in a position representing God and thus are connected to everything in the universe. If this happens, then all of God’s possessions become theirs. Think how wonderful that would be! This is the reason we naturally desire to have dominion over all creation.

Men and women come together as pairs to build families, societies, nations and the world. Thus, the family centering on one man and one woman must be the model for the tribe. This tribe, in turn, must be the model for the nation. Families must strive to achieve the ideal family, tribe and nation. Therefore, until ideal families appear, ideal nations will never emerge.

God and My Family

Respected guests! The greatness of true love is that it enables us to become God’s object partners and also enables God to become us. The Bible speaks of God being in us and Jesus being in us. This is similar to the idea that the parent is in the child, the grandchild is in the grandparent, and the grandparent is in the grandchild.

A grandmother and grandfather should bind their hearts together centering on their grandchildren. This is necessary so that the vertical line of love can have a beginning. Also, grandchildren must become one with their grandparents. Grandparents are in the same position as God, so we should attend them as we would attend God. Grandchildren will not be able to find the vertical axis of love without doing this.

After the formation of this axis, the horizontal expansion can develop. The horizontal can be connected to all directions, but the vertical has only one direction. The horizontal can turn North, South, East or West; it has a range of 360 degrees. The vertical can move centering on one point only and cannot be split.

Our first task is to create mind and body unity, centering on love. Then, we need to know how to love the spirit world, which is the vertical world centered on God. Furthermore, if in the future a central country emerges, we should love humanity centering on that country. When we love the spirit world and the whole of humankind by means of sacrifice, service and dedication, we can automatically become the central figures who can have dominion over the two worlds, and make them into one. Then God will surely dwell there.

The entire spirit world, combined with the entire physical universe, is called the cosmos. The spirit world and the universe yearn for the unification of the cosmos centering on true love. True love can unify the cosmos. True love can transform all families into ideal families and make them one. Thus, we can conclude that true love is the only thing that humanity needs absolutely, whether we are alive on the Earth or are in the spirit world.

We can conclude, therefore, that nothing in this world is more precious than a true person who possesses true love. As the highest being in creation, human beings are in a reciprocal position equal to God’s. So human beings should be able to act even more quickly than electricity or light, which travels at three hundred thousand kilometers per second. It is our spiritual selves that make such a thing possible. The fastest action in the world is not electromagnetic waves.

In the world of God’s original ideal, a person who has experienced true love has the ability and authority to possess instantly anything God wants.

People need to experience such a state while on Earth. One can rise to this position only if the physical and spiritual selves become one while establishing a love relationship with God, centered on the true family. We can feel God’s love by loving our countrymen, the people of the world, and creation. Each of us, regardless of nationality, must develop the heart to love people of all races. We should love not just people but even the smallest microorganism. This love has to spring naturally from within. When a flower blooms, its beauty and fragrance come naturally. The blossom of love has to bloom in the same way. The fragrance of love should fill the air naturally.

To do this, we need to receive the nutrients that make it possible for the blossom of love to bloom. In the same way that plants receive nutrients from the soil and sun, we receive nutrients through our physical body and spirit self. We receive vitality elements through our physical bodies, and then we receive living spirit elements through our spirit selves.

This is how we become beings who are totally equipped to love and how we develop the ability to fly anywhere. When this happens, the solar system and the entire universe become the stage of our activity.

The Next World

When we finish our physical life, we go through a second birth. This is called death. The place into which we are born this second time is the spirit world. We go into the spirit world and, on behalf of the entire universe, receive love from God, our third parent. That is to say, we receive ideal love. So in the spirit world, unification is inevitable.

In the spirit world, people breathe and live centered on love. We are born in love, live in love, and give birth to sons and daughters through love as God’s representatives. Eventually, we reach the resting place of love, and return to God so that we may live eternally in His presence. In other words, our lives begin in love, ripen in love, and are finally harvested as the fruit of love. When a person dies, he harvests the fruit of his love.

During our life, we receive the love of our parents, share love with our husband or wife, and give love to our children, bringing to fruition all the seeds of God’s love sown in the internal world of love. Eventually, we harvest this fruit and go into the next world. So when we become completely one in love, we come to resemble God. If a husband and wife work together to complete the three stages of love and then go to the spirit world, they will exist as creators and lords in a reciprocal relationship with God, who is the eternal subject. That is what happens when a husband and wife die centering on love. We begin and end in God.

To die means to move from a world of land, where we crawl and walk, to a world where we fly freely. We pass through death in order to become qualified travelers who, with love, can enjoy the entire universe. That is why death is, in reality, a new birth.

The Suffering of God

Ladies and gentlemen, our life course is not a smooth path. This is because human beings fell. The Fall of the original human ancestors did not result in misery only for human beings. God, also, suffered misery. For this reason, we do not dedicate our lives only to the accomplishment of the ideal world. An even more important goal for our life is to clear away the sorrow and agony in the heart of God, who is the origin of all life. Thus, when human beings finally attain happiness, then God, too, will be happy. God and humankind have gone through the course of history in the same situation, pursuing the same goal.

As a result of losing Adam and Eve, God has walked the most difficult path, a path that no one would choose to walk. Human beings, too, have walked this inevitable path of destiny brought about by the Fall, always hoping for the coming day of salvation.

Humankind’s most fervent hope in relation to God is to become His sons and daughters. This is because no relationship is more intimate than that of parent and child. We were born when the love and life of our parents converged, and thus we represent their ideals. But words like love and ideals never refer to just one person. Life cannot be created by one person alone, but must come from a love relationship between husband and wife. So when God created humankind, He created us to be the object partners of His love, His life and His ideals. This is amazing and incredible.

If I did not exist, my parents’ love could not become visible. The love, life and ideals of my parents exist in relation to me. I am the fruit of my parents’ love, life and ideals. That is why the child’s position is the most precious of all.

Had Adam and Eve not fallen, they would have been the children of God’s direct lineage, and His royal descendants. That is, Adam and Eve were the prince and princess who stood to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven in the spirit world and on Earth. At the same time, because they were created as the objects of the invisible God, who is the subject, Adam and Eve were substantial beings who could receive His love. They were substantial manifestations of the invisible God.

It is the special privilege of a child of God to say, “God is mine. All that is His is also mine. Even His love, His life and His ideals are mine.” It is up to human beings to recover this amazing and incredible value that was originally ours.

The Messiah’s Mission

If God is the subject of love, who exists eternally, then the reciprocal partners of His love must also exist eternally. When I become one with God’s love, God becomes me.

Had Adam and Eve not fallen, their bodies would have been the homes where God could dwell. They would have placed God at the center of their hearts and become entities of love, life and lineage who were unified eternally through true love. If they had done this, our mind and body would not be in conflict today.

The Fall meant that we inherited the life and lineage of evil, centering on evil love. We were born from false parents. We, therefore, have to rebuild the lineage. We have to take the false olive tree and change it into a true olive tree. To do this, we should be engrafted onto the true olive tree, go through at least three generations, and produce the fruit that becomes the true olive tree representing the original standard. Only then will fallen human beings be restored to the original state. That is when the Providence of Salvation will be completed.

In this way, God is trying to make human beings become children of the parents of goodness, centering on love that is one with Him. This is why He sends the Messiah to the Earth as True Parents. The Messiah is the one who comes to return the lineage of all humankind to God and establish the original ideal of creation.

Before seeking to excel on the world stage, humankind should have first excelled in the original family of Adam and Eve. Had Adam and Eve taken their places as lineal prince and princess before God, they would have been the most exalted among all men and women. They, however, fell and lost their entitled positions of the elder son and daughter, the crown prince and princess. This tragedy has remained throughout human history. That is why humankind has traveled a path of life in search of the positions of first son and first daughter so that we might recover God’s true love.

If we are to receive His true love, we cannot live selfishly, centering on our own self. Instead, we should live for the sake of God and humankind as our brothers and sisters. The more a person sheds blood and tears for her brothers and sisters in place of her parents, the deeper, wider and higher will be the love she receives. This is the son and daughter we must become if we are to inherit everything from our parents. Every man and woman must go this path. Even if we have to face death ten times or a hundred times, we must continue our search for God’s true love. This is the supreme path of life.

The Original Homeland

The Divine Principle of the Unification Church teaches that the Fall occurred when human beings left the realm of God’s true love. Restoration means to return to that realm. When a person enters the realm of such love, he can merely look at his body and praise it tens of thousand of times. In that world, you know that your own body is one that receives God’s true love. Words cannot express such joy. This wonderful world is called the Kingdom of Heaven.

Until now, people knew relatively little about the spirit world. It is a world where people are recognized depending on how closely they followed God’s principle of existence – the principle of living for the sake of others. A world built on this content is the ideal Kingdom of Heaven.

This is the original homeland for which all humankind must search. Today, we live as fallen people who have been expelled from our homeland, so it is our destiny to return there. However, we cannot do this on our own.

God has worked through history to resolve this problem by establishing numerous religions in accordance with the different cultural backgrounds, customs and traditions of various nations. He has done this so that human beings would have a path to lead them back. Religion is the training ground where we can cultivate the qualifications that enable us to return to our homeland. In accordance with the cultural background of each region, God is guiding us toward one unified world of religion that can advance us to a higher ground.

Let us make the new millennium an age of true peace and true ideals in which people will practice the way of true love. I hope we will recover the value of true original human beings centered on God, establish true families, and live for others eternally, centering on God and the True Parents.

May your families and country be filled with an ever greater abundance of God’s love and blessings.

Thank you very much.

Address of Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon
delivered on her behalf at the
American Leadership Conference
Washington DC

Speaking Tour
Spring 1998

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, colleagues and friends:

This spring, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon and his wife, Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, are speaking throughout the world. We felt it valuable to share their message at this important conference. Their words are challenging and visionary, as always, but the core is always the theme of true love. It is an honest message from the husband and wife whose support has made it possible for this American Leadership Conference to take place.

Humanity is now facing the challenge, of the Last Days. In this era, families the world over are breaking down. Husbands and wives, parents and children are becoming enemies to one another. What is the cause of this tragedy?

The cause is a lack of true love. Equally significant is the fact that we are ignorant of our most important responsibility. That responsibility is to prepare for eternal life. If we are clear about the concept of eternal life, and if we accept its reality in our hearts, then we can lead our children and our families properly. But in truth, most people are unsure if the spirit world even exists.

If we truly understand the reality of the spirit world, we cannot sin, even when temptation presents itself. We cannot live selfishly, even if told to do so. On the other hand, if we do not understand the spirit world, we cannot enter the Kingdom of God, no matter what our religion.

On the larger scale, without knowing the meaning of eternal life, we cannot create a true social revolution. If it is not connected to eternal life, social revolution may make things worse. No one desires that.

To this day, religions have neither embraced nor encompassed the secular world. As a result, secularism now controls culture. Secularism overpowers the influence of religion. This happened because religions were unable to establish a clear concept of life in the next world, our eternal life.

People have practiced Christianity faithfully for many centuries, but today, many churches are confused. In the Last Days, they are objective to the changes taking place in the world. To solve this problem, we should reaffirm and proclaim a clear understanding of eternal life. In reality, however, no one has complete confidence that they know completely about eternal life. In fact, many people do not even know with certainty whether or not God exists. When faced with the obstacles and temptations of this world, most people waver. They fall away from their faith, and follow the secular way.

The reason we should understand eternal life

As we reach our forties and fifties, we come closer to the end of our life. We naturally become serious about the concept of eternal life. The older we become, the more serious we are. Ordinarily, the intensity of love declines as people age. But if our perception of eternal life has strong roots, then our love will grow and deepen as we get older.

How often have you been confused by the changes taking place in our world today? If our focus on eternal life is clear and unchanging, we will overcome the insecurities of our changing environment. We will be able to digest all the circumstances of our lives, the joys and sorrows that come our way.

God created Adam and Eve as His partners of true love. Accordingly, we should live as God’s true love partners. This should not be a theory. We should allow this dynamic to work in our lives and put it into practice each day.

Once we realize the power of true love, we will strive against adversity to walk the road of true love. In daily life, we will always feel the security which comes from belief in eternal life. When this conviction overflows within us, our lives will be secure.

This has important implications for education of our children. If it is clearly explained to them, young people readily embrace the concept of eternal life. They are uniquely blessed to feel eternal life resonate in their mind and body.

Until reaching their teenage years, boys and girls possess an unfallen purity of character. They reflect the original character of Adam and Eve, who did not fall until their teens. Because of this, it is vital that young people know God deeply.

Through knowledge of God, we can understand our inseparable relationship with Him. But in order to know this, young people must first understand the concept of eternal life.

Earthly life and eternal life

How long do you think you will live? All of us think we will live until we are seventy or eighty years old. It is hard to imagine that we will die before then. In this regard, we can all be considered greedy.

But in truth, even those who seem confident that they will live a long time have no idea when they are going to die. It could be as soon as today or tomorrow. We may even die during a meal or while we are sleeping. Does God guarantee anyone a long lifespan?

Imagine that you knew you would die within a year. You would have to prepare for your passing in a very short period of time. With this new found urgency, you might actually be happier. After all, you would be able to prepare for death in less time. The less time you use to prepare for death, the less time you will waste in your life. And if you prepare well, you can build a home for your eternal life.

How long do you wish to live? What if God told you that you had to die tonight? What legacy would you leave behind? Would you leave behind something of which God would be proud? While we are living in this world, we should always give our best. We should invest 24 hours-a-day to bring even one more person to God’s love.

The highest standard of dedication to God is to not even want to stop to eat or sleep. We should not be consumed by worry over worldly needs. If you live with such sincerity, you will have eternal life in the next world.

The shorter we expect our physical life to be, the more value we will find in it. In this context, we should ask ourselves, “How much do I love others?” “How much do I love my family?” “How much do I love my clan?” “What does it mean to love others, to love my family, to love my clan?” This serves as the foundation to love all humanity. It is a wise approach to life. You will not lose if you live this way

The reason to live an eternal life

The purpose of a life of faith is to seek the world of eternal life and God’s eternal love. The way of a life of faith is to discover and rejoice in God’s joy as our own. By living this way, we become one with God’s eternal love and eternal life.

Accordingly, it is most important for people of faith to invest unceasing energy for God’s life and love. The world’s religions have expanded through history, against the backdrop of every culture. This is because our human destiny is to live an eternal life.

We are to live not just in our own era, but also in harmony with the entire universe. Once we reach the limit of life on Earth, we continue life in an eternal, unlimited world. Such a world exists in reality. Even those who do not believe it exists, or who do not fully comprehend it, have postulated eternal life. They did this in order to help and comfort humanity through their suffering and pain.

But God’s existence is a reality beyond time and space. When we internalize the depth of this eternal truth, it becomes our starting point. Then we can find the answers to our questions concerning eternal life and God.

For what purpose and in what position did God create humankind? God created man and woman as His partners of true love. We were to have God’s absolute and unique value. This is a startling revelation! In this light, the value of each person’s life is infinite.

All people are meant to be born in true love, to live and grow in true love, and even to die in true love. God is eternal, unchanging and unique. We stand as the eternal object of God’s true love. Therefore, we are created to live eternally. Our eternal life has its roots in our relationship with God, as His partner of true love.

The eternal love partner of the Creator

God’s love is absolute. Since God’s love was lost through the human Fall, God has experienced indescribable misery and almost hopeless sorrow throughout history. No one has ever understood this; no one has been able to fully comfort God.

God, in the depth of His heart, wants to recreate His long-awaited love partner. God wants to embrace His children. He will travel any distance to meet them. Only by meeting His sons and daughters can He express His joy to the fullest. In actuality, God created the entire universe for His children.

Consider the earth’s atmosphere. When a low pressure system forms, a high pressure system appears automatically. Through this phenomenon, air circulation is self-sustaining.

God has taught us to forget the good that we do for others. This creates a spontaneous and natural circular motion of give and take in our daily lives. It is similar to the natural phenomenon we observe in the atmosphere. This constant cycle of give and take leads to eternal life.

Eternal life can begin with nothing other than eternal commitment. To be specific, as long as one lives for the sake of others, one will never perish. A life of giving will surely grow and progress steadily. The person who lives thus will eventually take a central position as the nucleus of society.

If God were to seek an absolute love partner, who would merit such a position? It is natural to conclude that God’s love partner would have to be humankind. That is why man is held to be the most precious being among all of God’s creation.

When we are able to accept that we are the eternal true love partner of the Creator, we can easily understand that we live for eternity. The concept of eternity naturally follows from this. It takes place right here! The religious world must bear in mind that the foundation of eternal life is the relationship of true love. In its simplest terms, eternal life stems neither from man nor from woman but from God’s true love.

Only true love provides salvation

Today, some Christians proclaim that any individual can possess eternal life through nothing more than belief in Jesus. If I ask them how one can secure eternal life, some people answer, “Just believe in Jesus.” I would like you to consider a further perspective on the meaning of eternal life.

Consider the aspect of continuity. The functioning of the physical body has continuity. For instance, our blood circulation, nervous system and brain should function continuously and smoothly.

From this perspective, how would you answer if someone asks you how you will secure eternal life? The life of the spirit also should have continuity. Then are you truly able to claim, “My eternal life is guaranteed through belief alone?” Does salvation come from belief alone? Absolutely not. We secure salvation only through the continuity of the practice of true love from this physical world to the spirit world.

According to the principles by which God created this world, only a true person can become God’s true love partner. Only with true love can one become such a person and obtain eternal life.

The key is to rid ourselves of the ignorance and burdens of the Fall. The fundamental question is how to free ourselves from evil love, an evil life and an evil lineage. Only in this context does liberation have any meaning. Only complete liberation from evil brings true freedom. True freedom is self-sustaining.

The idea necessary for eternal life

We are created to live an eternal life. We are similarly created to practice true love. Furthermore, we are to practice true love here on the Earth. We engage ourselves with many things in this world. These things become the material which insures our eternal life. In other words, everything we do in this world is training for eternal life.

We are fully capable of living forever! We desire an eternal life! In our search for eternal life, what does not change? Only true love does not change! Everything in this universe changes, but true love does not change.

This is because true love is the center. The center will remain intact even if everything that surrounds it disappears. True love is the center of the universe. It is God’s love. Consequently, as long as God is unchanging, true love is unchanging.

What does true love mean? A husband desires that his wife be better than he is. A wife also wants her husband to surpass her. Are there any parents who do not want their children to surpass them? Why do we share this feeling? It is because we all are created in the image of God (Gen 1:27). In other words, even God wants His love partner to be better than Himself.

God is absolute, but at the same time He is our Parent. Can God impose an absolute standard upon us, and not upon Himself as well? No, He cannot. In light of this, our value is the highest in the universe.

In fact, in the realm of true love, we can have a value even higher than that of God Himself, in the same sense that parents want their children to have value higher than themselves. This is why our minds have the highest of aspirations. Thus, we truly should feel that nothing is impossible.

God originally intended that His children rule this universe from the position of highest value. We were not to have been sidetracked or manipulated in any way. We were never to have been under the dominance of any force or being.

To confirm this, simply look into your mind. The mind desires complete freedom. No one wants their mind to be controlled. Once we secure the position of true love, we are totally free. We can travel anywhere. We can travel to God’s throne and become God’s friend.

God is eternal and absolute. Therefore, since God created us as His partners of true love, it is natural to conclude that we can enjoy eternal life. Clearly then, in order for a man to live an eternal life, he must dwell in the realm of true love. Only through true love is abundant eternal life possible.

The origin, motive and process of God’s creation centered on true love. No result can come without a process taking place, and the process of perfection is based upon the practice of true love. The perfection of mind and body is possible only when they both belong to the realm of true love.

Only true love can bring about the ideal. This is because God Himself exists for eternity upon the foundation of true love. Upon what, do you think, does God center His own eternal existence? Without question, God’s eternal life is centered on true love.

Therefore, we also live with true love as our center. In this way we create the realm of eternal life. In order to find this realm, we practice true love in daily life

I would like you to know that Reverend Moon has poured his life, his heart, and the resources of his church into America. Through this practice, true love was actualized. Without actualizing true love, there is no eternal life.

To know God, eternal life and true love

Even though we are not sure where in the spirit world God dwells, we should at least clearly understand that God is the center of true love. The power of true love is the fastest and the most direct. True love travels in a straight line. Why do you think I emphasize true love so fervently? It is because of my direct experience of this truth. Once you experience God and the eternal world, you too will never be able to have an indifferent attitude toward life.

First, we must know God. Second, we must know our eternal life. Third, we must know true love. True love means going beyond our limitations in giving to others. In this way, we can find eternal life. Without true love, there is no eternal life. Without eternal life, we can never meet God.

How should you prepare for the world of the future? First, be altruistic. Second, practice true love. Third, seek eternal life. With the sincere practice of these virtues, we can manage the world in the coming age. The opposite way is the self-centered way of life. That is the ideology of Satan. In contrast to satanic love, what is true love? True love is to invest yourself beyond the point of life and death. It is only through this intensity of love that we can find the true meaning of life.

The fundamental root of evil life is the satanic lineage. Our lineage belongs to Satan. Our love belongs to Satan. But God’s love transcends satanic love. And so the Bible teaches, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” (Mt 22:37-38)

What does this really mean? Loving God with all your soul and with all your mind means to give your life completely to God. This is the first great commandment.

The second commandment is, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” What does this mean? It tells us to love others even at the cost of our lives. We have to invest ourselves in this way of life.

Then why should we commit ourselves with total intensity? Unless we commit ourselves to this degree, first, we cannot make Satan surrender. Second, we cannot free ourselves from the satanic environment in which we live. Third, we cannot separate from our satanic lineage.

Even if we were able to separate from the satanic environment, we cannot separate from the satanic lineage by ourselves. We need the power of true love, which is greater than our life.

The world after death related to love

There is no concept of time for God. This means that the beginning and the end are the same in eternity. Likewise, the past, the present and the future are the same. Then what within God harmonizes everything and enables God to dwell in peace? This is a serious question. It is not God’s almighty power. It is not His omniscience. It is nothing other than the power of love. Even God Himself responds unconditionally to true love. This is because God does not need anything other than true love.

Most people agree that we will enter the spirit world upon our death. But the spirit world is not just the dwelling place of the departed. The spirit world is connected to true love. The starting point of God’s creation is true love. Therefore, once we secure true love in the physical world, this too will become the spirit world. This alone tells us how powerful true love is.

Through the perfect relationship of vertical and horizontal, harmonious movement in all directions, up and down, right and left, forward and back, can take place. But when vertical and horizontal are disconnected, there is no harmony. In that case, there can be no unification.

True love alone can connect vertical and horizontal. This brings about unification and harmony. The central thought of the Unification Church, based on the perspective of the Divine Principle, is that the ideal world is centered on true love.

Ladies and Gentlemen, God wants to guide humankind. God breathes through true love. Since the rhythm of the universe is in harmony with God, the universe exists for eternity. In God’s true love, we can find eternal life.

That is why when husband and wife connect with true love, they find complete joy. When the rhythm of true love is in balance, we can love one another. In this atmosphere there is only one direction in our life. That direction is centered on God.

Both the spirit world and the physical world move in conjunction with true love. The universe maintains a natural balance, centering on the vertical axis of true love. What is the common denominator of the universe? What is the universal norm, by which people of the past and the present can live together for eternity? What is the origin of human desire? The answer to all these questions is the same. The answer is true love. The norm is not selfish love; it is true love. Only the practice of true love can embrace people of all races, all nations and all religions.

Spiritual life as couples

The real purpose of life is to walk forward on the road of true love. We are to grow through harmonious relationships of true love. We should carefully maintain the ideal of true love in our hearts. We are actually the representatives of the spirit world. Let us constantly strive to spread true love. Let us sow the seeds of true love throughout our lives.

When we bear the fruit of true love and enter the eternal spirit world as a loving couple, we will be embraced by God’s eternal love. We then truly become one with God.

Even though the physical body grows old, as long as we live as husband and wife centering on true love, our spiritual body will actually become younger! This means that the longer we live, the more handsome as men and beautiful as women our spiritual body becomes.

Our spirit is our internal self. At the proper time we simply will shed the physical body. Our physical body may feel that it does not want to retire. But with the coming of old age, it eventually must surrender its life. On the other hand, our spiritual body, like a chestnut in autumn, becomes more solid and more handsome as it becomes our physical body’s successor.

Why is marriage necessary?

We must love the things of the material world, which includes our physical body and the food which nourishes it. We should not claim to love God, whom we cannot see, unless we love the things of creation, which we can see.

By loving all things, we absorb the essence of the creation. By doing this, we love and nourish the physical body.

Your first parents, of course, are your physical parents. Your second parent is the Earth. From the Earth we receive essential elements which the body needs in order to grow. In this way the Earth is the second parent.

After being nurtured and cared for by our second parent, we prepare to meet our third parent. There is a process through which we pass in order to realize this. That process is our physical death. We do not meet our third parent free of charge. To be able to return to our third parent, we must resemble our original parent, God.

Why then do we get married? Very simply, we marry in order to resemble God. God exists as a being of dual characteristics. In God, the dual characteristics are completely harmonized as One. When God’s dual characteristics manifest in our world, they do so as man and woman. Accordingly, at the proper time, a man and a woman are like a seed. They unite to become one. Thus, husband and wife return to God. Together, we are a reflection of His original nature.

We need marriage because it is the true way to develop our love. In marriage, we ripen as a seed of God. Our entire life should be centered on true love. We should be born in true love; we should grow in true love; we should live centered on true love, and we should return to true love when we die.

The way of true love is life for the sake of others. This is the purpose of a holy marriage. If we take any other path, we are taking the wrong direction for eternal life.

There are over five billion people living in this world at present. Yet there are not many among the world’s population who understand the meaning of the Blessing. My husband and I have been the first to adopt the word “blessing” in the context of marriage. Many such marriage Blessings have now been conducted.

Where will humanity head in the future? Humanity cannot enter the Kingdom of God without passing through the gate of this Blessing. There are millions of Christians in our world today and Christianity will enter the Kingdom of God by passing through the gate of the Blessing.

Some people complain that Reverend Moon’s teaching is self-righteous. Of course, nothing can be done about this point of view since it is their own. Nonetheless, I am here to convey the message that the Unification marriage Blessing is the true road for all marriages.

No matter how much persecution it may cause, we are to connect the spirit world and the physical world in our lives. Through this Blessing we can connect Earth and Heaven, and enter the Kingdom of God.

Other religious people think of salvation in terms of the individual. They believe that as long as their faith is strong, they can enter the Kingdom of Heaven as individuals. But from the viewpoint of God’s original ideal, we were never intended to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as single people. We enter only with our loving spouse and family.

The marriage Blessing and eternal life is bestowed through True Parents. Through our union with the True Parents, we can fulfill God’s original hope for the individual, the family, the nation, the world and the entire cosmos. Ultimately, we can complete God’s ideal of creation.

Thus, the birthplace of True Parents is the starting point for humankind to find our true home. This is the starting place for the Kingdom of God on Earth and in Heaven.

With this foundation in place, we can welcome an era in which God is our sovereign. The society which does so will never perish. It will continuously prosper and reach its fullest strength.

I sincerely ask that you contemplate deeply about the meaning of this sermon. If you practice it, you will find the way to receive God’s abundant Blessing and eternal life.

May God truly bless you. Thank you very much.

WOMEN’S FEDERATION FOR WORLD PEACE WORLD CONVENTION
by Mrs. Hak Ja Han Moon

“This address was given at the opening of the convention held August 24-27, 1992, at the Sheraton Walker Hill Hotel in Seoul, Korea. Mrs. Moon is the President of the Women’s Federation for World Peace.”

Leaders of the Women’s Federation for World Peace who have come to Korea from the nations of the world, and leaders of the women’s associations of Korea!

I consider it a great honor to be able to share part of my beliefs about world peace with all of you women leaders from around the world and every domain of Korean society.

We are arriving at an important transitional era, entering a world on oneness which transcends the barriers of ideologies, the differences between languages and cultures, and racial conflicts. It is not by change that we women are holding this conference for the sake of a new world of love and peace today. It is the providence of God; it is predestined, necessitated by the rushing flow of history.

Until now, in history the role of men has been emphasized. The institutions of society and the world have been centered on men. Unfortunately, we cannot help but conclude that the reality of the world led by men has been, in short, a history of conflict and sin. Isn’t it because of this world of conflict and sin that we have dreamed of a world of happiness overflowing with peace and goodness? Because most of human history has been filled with war, revolution, fighting, oppression, domination, conflict and violence, the masculine logic of power made sense and the masculine ideologies dominated. The present age is different.

The history of today is calling for peace, reconciliation, compassion, love, service and sacrifice. It is an age in which the present problems cannot be solved by the masculine logic of power.

There is no longer any need for ideologies which oppress humanity. This is the age when the present problems must be solved by the more feminine logic of love, and the direction of history must be straightened out.

The 21st century is less than ten years away. Now communism, which has trampled humankind mercilessly while insisting on violent revolution and class struggle, is speaking its last words. World opinion has united into one voice saying that there must be no more war. These facts are signs proclaiming the opening curtain of a new age of women, and the historical transition announcing the arrival of an age of the liberation of women around the world.

Pioneer the future

Leaders of the Women’s Federation who have gathered from around the world! At this historical gathering, I do not wish to offer mere ceremonial greetings. I wish to proclaim before history the meaning of the past, present and the future.

In this era of the historical transition heading toward cooperation and understanding, I want to present the great principle for the construction of the eternal world of peace based on Godism. To establish a goal for the women who will pioneer the future world, in this address “World Peace and the Role of Women,” I would like to present to you the ideology of Godism and Headwing thought which my husband, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon has already advocated.

Originally God created an object of love in order to feel joy. To create one masterpiece a sculptor works day and night, invests his youth and all his strength. Where does the heart of such a sculptor come from? Doesn’t it resemble the heart of God who created an object of love in order to feel joy?

If we look at the world of existence, we can see that everything has an inherent duality. Minerals, plants, animals and people all exist in pairs. Therefore, in the world of humankind there are men and women; in the animal kingdom, there are males and females; and in the plant kingdom, there are stamens and pistils. On the molecular level, there are positive ions and negative ions. On the atomic level, there are protons and electrons. The whole world of being consists of pairs. To say that things exist in pairs means they exist with reciprocity and all beings exist centered on love. It means that without a reciprocal being to live for and love, no being can exist.

Do you know why all beings live in pairs? It is in order to have an ideal relationship centered on loving each other. Anywhere in this world, if one does not have a reciprocal being with whom to have a give and take of love, there can be no interaction. There can be no existence or multiplication without interaction.

A being without interaction is the same as a dead being. The reason God created man is that He absolutely needs an object to love. In human society the hearts of parents who want their children to become better than themselves have their roots in the heart of true love which God had when He created humankind.

The heart of wanting one’s reciprocal object to be better then oneself is originally due to the true love of God. If God invests 100, the being has only the value of 100; but God wants to invest more than 100, so He forgets and invests again. Finally, the reciprocal object becomes bigger than oneself; one still continues to forget, until one invests one’s life. This is where true love begins.

God’s true love is love which forgets that it has invested, so it invests again, and again, and again. If the memory of having given remains, then love cannot flow endlessly. Because love moves endlessly, one must not hold onto the memory of having given. Even if one gives and gives again, love continues to flow because the memory of giving does not remain.

In essence, true love means God’s absolute love. Included in love is the right of inheritance. By becoming one with God, the logic of eternal life is proven; the family and society which practice true love will not be destroyed and will develop throughout eternity. If man, who was created as God’s object, had not disobeyed God’s words, had grown according to God’s will and had inherited unchanging true love from God, our human world would have begun with a history of peace. There would not have been the miserable history of the bloodshed of war. In that true love, the confrontation and conflict between nations, societies and, of course, individuals would be surpassed and melted away, and a true world of peace would be realized.

Wrong inheritance

Because of the fall of the human ancestors, humankind could not completely inherit true love. Unfortunately, because man was not able to become perfect as the reciprocal object of God’s true love, the position of True Parents, who were to be the substantial representatives of true love in place of God, was not filled either.

What is the fundamental cause of the fall of the first human ancestors? In the Bible, it says it is because they ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. After they ate the fruit, what did they cover? They should have covered their mouths, but they covered their lower parts of their bodies. This means that they had entered into an immoral sexual relationship, centered on Satan. This is the fundamental cause of the multiplication of the evil blood lineage.

The origin of true love, true love and true lineage is the sexual organs of love. Through the fall, these sexual organs of love, which should have been holy, became the wicked place which destroyed heaven’s principle. They became the headquarters of evil. Thus the seeds of false love, false life and false blood lineage were sown. Adam and Eve, the ancestors of humankind, fell while still immature–as teenagers. Because they fostered evil in that way, the blood lineage of evil historically spread from there throughout the human world.

When the time of harvest, in the Last Days, comes, throughout the world young people like Adam and Eve will destroy the ethics of love and tend towards corruption. When we see this phenomena, we will know that the age of Satan’s authority has reached its climax. The present time is the day of judgment, when God’s rod of iron will come down. In history the cities and countries which were sexually immoral in God’s eyes were all destroyed.

Look at the advanced countries of the world today: America, Europe and Japan. Who can stop the tide of sexual immorality and free sex which is pouring in from all directions? Humankind, which fell and came to be on Satan’s side can be symbolized by wild olive trees. Fortunately, among them, God separated out some people to be wild olive trees in the realm of religion. They are the wild olive trees who belong to God, so God can freely dominate them. They were prepared so that when the Lord of the Second Advent came they could easily be cut and grafted all at once. At that time, finally, the wild olive trees return to their original state by becoming true olive trees. Therefore, people who believe in religion must find their original True Father because they were born unable to receive the original seed of life from him.

The ideal of goodness could not be realized as sons and daughters linked to the blood lineage of God centered on true love; therefore, the Messiah must come. The Messiah is he who comes as the True Parent. As True Father and True Mother, the True Parents come and cast out Satan and carry the serious responsibility of establishing the world of peace and the heavenly world of freedom and liberation.

Of course, we must define the image of the True Man, and also the images of the True Mother, True Wife and True Daughter. We must also attend the True Father who established the tradition of worldwide historical victory and the True Mother who has become the world level victorious representative of women.

Woman’s responsibility

We women have the responsibility to solve the resentment of Adam and Eve’s destruction by properly guiding men who have led disorderly and chaotic lives.

Distinguished leaders of all spheres of the Women’s Federation here and abroad! In the era of women which has arrived, we must spread, to the whole world, a model movement of the realization of true love in which we embrace our husbands and raise our children properly. By doing so, we should gain the active support of our husbands and children, and develop the Family Federation for World Peace.

The Women’s Federation for World Peace is not a movement for women alone. It must bear the fruit of ideal families through a movement of true love for our husbands and children.

Ideal families realized like this will join together and create the ideal nation and world. That is the reason the Women’s Federation for World Peace must develop into the Family Federation for World Peace. For that reason, women must take a leading role in politics, economics, culture, and each area of society to realize world peace. Godism and Headwing thought are the fundamental system of values that our Women’s Federation should espouse to unite the left and right-wings, to overcome atheistic materialism, and to guide the future after the 21st century.

Let us all go forward together to the world of peace centered on the True Parents who have the leading role in true love, cultivating our families as the dwelling place of true parents, true couples and true children.

Let me close my address by wishing God’s blessing on all of you, your families and your nations.

Mrs. Hak Ja Han Moon

President, Women’s Federation for World Peace
August 23, 1992

Members of the Women’s Federation for World Peace; It gives me great joy and honor to stand be for you today as president of this Federation. I would like to thank all those members and supporters who worked to prepare this rally. I would also like to thank those who travelled here from Japan in order to participate in the preparations.

Today, I will speak on the topic, “The Central Role of Women in the Ideal World.”

If someone were to ask you whether you think we live in a world that is predominantly good or predominantly evil, what would be your answer? I think you would reply that we live in a world of evil. It is not simply our world today that is evil. All the societies and nations that have existed throughout history have been evil as well. Evil actions have prevailed over good deeds. The world has seen more war than peace; more injustice than justice; more hatred than love; more division and strife than unity and harmony.

No one is satisfied to live in such a world. In fact, humankind has constantly sought for a way to break away from the world of evil and build a new world of true love, overflowing with peace, freedom and happiness. All individuals and all leaders on every level of society–whether the family, tribe, nation, state or world–share a common desire to accomplish a world of peace, freedom and happiness. The fact is, however, that despite all efforts since the beginning of human history, we have failed to achieve this dream and ideal.

Today, I would like to explain the fundamental reason for this failure. Then, I will propose a way in which we can finally accomplish the ideal world of our common desire. The ideas and concepts I am about to express do not come as the result of mere human intellectual exercise. As you are aware, my husband, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, has devoted a lifetime to resolving this issue. During my life of attendance to him, I have been profoundly moved and inspired by his life of tireless acts of devotion, motivated by a deep love for God and humanity.

When a wife, leading a life of attendance to her husband, receives deep insights into God’s truth and is profoundly inspired by her husband’s character and life, she has a responsibility to tell the world about her experiences. This is so, because the origins of today’s evil world of conflict and rampant decadence can be traced to the breakdown and disharmony in the fundamental husband-wife relationship.

Today, more than five billion people are alive on this earth, but when you think about it, there are only two people: man and woman–that is, husband and wife. A great many people are living side by side in our world, giving rise to all sorts of relationships and problems. Essentially, however, all these problems can be traced directly or indirectly to the man-woman relationship and the various issues associated with that relationship. Thus, it becomes important for us to examine the life of our original ancestors that is the first man and the first woman established on earth by God at the time of His creation, and try to discover the heavenly path that was intended for them to follow.

According to the biblical record in the Book of Genesis, God first created the heavens and the earth. Then he created one man, Adam, and one woman, Eve. He gave them the three great blessings, along with a portion of responsibility. In blessing them He said: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. (Gen. 1:28)” In giving responsibility to man and woman, He said: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat…(Gen 2:17)”

These words teach us about God’s purpose in creating this universe, and also reveal to us the essence of human existence. God’s blessing to “be fruitful” means that all persons born on this earth should grow to become persons of completed character. The second aspect of His blessing involves a man and woman, each possessing completed character, coming together in a husband-wife relationship, to bear and raise children as parents. God’s purpose of creation is for man and woman to fulfill their roles as husband and wife standing at the head of a family, that is, to be a father and mother. We are then to contribute to the general welfare by helping to build a world of greater convenience and greater abundance. It is God’s purpose to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

For this purpose to have been accomplished at the time of the original human ancestors, Adam and Eve needed to keep God’s commandment not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, before Adam and Eve reached perfection, that is, while they were still in a state of immaturity, they broke this commandment. They committed the fall by means of Satan, and brought about a situation whereby all humankind would inherit an evil lineage.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let us ask ourselves about this fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that God entreated Adam and Eve not to eat. It was not a literal fruit of a literal tree. In this commandment, God was telling Adam and Eve that the love which each of them possessed was meant to be brought together in union after they eventually became husband and wife, sometime in the future. IN the meantime, God was saying that their love should not be tempted by any third party during the time of their immaturity in such a way that an illicit sexual relationship would take place. In fact, such a third party existed in the Garden of Eden, in the form of the archangel. The Bible identifies the archangel that tempted Eve into committing the sin of illicit sex, as Lucifer. This was the fall of the original human ancestors, the original sin that caused the roots of sin and evil to be embedded deeply in human society.

Thus, human beings committed a sexual sin before God the Father, who presides over all heaven and earth. From the time of the original ancestors, humanity has formed an evil world in which descendants are procreated by means of illicit love.

Starting from the level of the individual, human society has expanded through the levels of family, tribe, nation, state and world. The evil lineage that originated with illicit sexual relations has cast its roots into every level of our world. The roots of this lineage are evident at all times and at all places in our world. It is for this reason that this world, instead of becoming a Kingdom of Heaven on earth, has become a hellish world filled with crime, war and fear. The fallen original human ancestors, Adam and Eve, were to have established themselves in the position of the eternal true parents of goodness, for all of humanity. Instead, they descended to the position of false parents, leaving behind them a lineage of evil.

Thus, the fall of Adam and Eve, and the evil lineage descended from them, represents the primary cause behind the unhappiness and tragedy experienced by all of humanity throughout history, and even today. Nothing can be more tragic than the fact that all the world’s people lost their chance to have true parents and became, instead, the descendants of false parents. This was a tragedy for God as well. God’s purpose of creation was to establish true original ancestors who would multiply into a true human race. Imagine His sorrow–imagine how great His pain must have been when the illicit fall of the original human ancestors caused Him to lost the entire human race to a lineage of evil.

If we are trying to save a person suffering from some physical illness, we must first find the cause of the disease, and then administer the appropriate treatment. In the same way, in order for human society to be liberated from the pain of sin and unhappiness, we must first find the fundamental cause of sin and unhappiness. This fundamental cause is the fall of the original human ancestors, or the original sin. Unless we remove the cause of this illness called original sin, we will never be able to completely eradicate sin and unhappiness from the world. Saints, heroes, great scholars, statesmen and philosophers may try to set this world right by creating better laws and institutions, or by educating people in morality. Such efforts are doomed to fail, however, unless they are based on a knowledge of the contents of the human fall, that is of the original sin. The deep roots of sin and unhappiness will continue to sprout new buds.

Religion, on the other hand, tells us that humankind fell, reveals to us the content of this fall, and gives us direct and indirect knowledge about the providence of God to achieve the total salvation of humanity from the world of sin. For this reason, all major religions can be considered the most aggressive form of treatment for the purpose of achieving salvation, by changing this world of evil into a world of good. The Korean word for religion, jong-kyo, can be written by using two Chinese characters–one character signifying the summit or highest peak of a mountain, and the second signifying teaching. Together, the characters mean “supreme teaching,” or, in English, “religion.” The teachings of the four great saints, Confucius, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed, and teachings by other great religious leaders, transcend historical eras and geographic distances, to act as the primary force for the preservation of the human conscience and morality, and the development of culture. Thus, all these religions are partners in the task of bringing the world of evil to a close, and building a new and ideal world that is the desire of God and humanity.

In particular, Christianity has received the most direct revelation regarding God’s salvation providence, and thus occupies the central position among all religions. We see in the Bible that human history is actually a record of the divine providence to recover the purpose of God’s creation, which was lost when the original human ancestors, Adam and Eve, committed the original sin, and became false parents. The central point of the Bible’s message is that the Messiah, that is, the True Parents, must come in he place of Adam and Eve, who became false parents, so that all people may be reborn. It was God’s original purpose of creation that Adam become the true father of humankind, and Eve become the true mother. In order to restore this purpose, God has had to carry out a providence to recreate Adam.

This, in fact, was the central goal in the preparation of the Israelites as God’s chosen people, and in the birth of Jesus. When Adam and Eve committed the fall, and humankind began to multiply through Satan’s lineage of evil, God immediately began His providence for the separation of the lineages of good and evil. In the family of Adam, a separation was created between the second born, Abel, located in a relational position with God, and the first born, Cain, located in a relational position with Satan. God established a plan so that the natural order of His original creation could be re-established in the family of Adam, through a natural subjugation of Cain before Abel. This opportunity was lost, however when Cain murdered Abel, and human history entered a prolonged period of separation and struggle between good and evil.

God worked through Noah, Abraham, Isaac and then Jacob. With the assistance he received from his mother Rebecca, Jacob succeeded in the natural subjugation of Esau, who was the older of the twin brothers. In this way, Jacob performed a decisive role in establishing the Israelites as God’s chosen people. Jacob’s son Judah had as his daughter-in-law Tamar, who bore him twin sons, Perez and Zerah. Perez fought with Zerah while the two were still in Tamar’s womb. Zerah was to have been born first, but Perez pushed him aside to become the first born of the two.

This struggle between first-born and second-born was a struggle of good and evil, taking place in the mother’s womb. The younger brother defeated his older brother, to become the first born, thus accomplishing restoration in the womb.

Examining the lineage of Perez, who was born as a result of this process of restoration within the womb, we see that his fortieth descendant was Jesus Christ, who came as the Messiah. Mary, the mother of Jesus, in order to conceive the baby Jesus, had to pass through an extremely dangerous situation, which could have resulted in her death, and she demonstrated a high standard of dedication in this process. The original human ancestors, Adam and Eve, engaged in illicit sexual relations as a result of temptation from Lucifer, who became Satan, passing on a lineage of evil to all of humankind that followed them. Because God’s salvation providence is equivalent to his providence of restoration, it has been necessary for Him to carry out the providence of restoration in such a way that a total break could be made from this lineage of evil.

This providence is the history of the chosen nation of Israel between the time of Abel and the birth of Jesus. Jesus was born as a result of a process involving the separation and struggle between good and evil for the purpose of restoring Adam’s fall and subsequent descent into the position of false parent. Thus, Jesus came as the True Father, that is, the second original ancestor of a humanity of goodness. It was therefore necessary for Jesus to restore a woman who would stand in the position of Eve in relation to him, become husband and wife with this woman, have children by her, and go on to establish himself in a position of having dominion over all of creation. This was the purpose of Jesus’ coming as the Messiah.

Jesus came as the Messiah for the purpose of restoring God’s three great blessings, by which he created Adam and Eve, and then told them to be fruitful, to multiply and to have dominion over all of creation. The chosen people of Israel, however, denied the one who had come as their Father, and said he was not the Messiah. Finally, in their failure to believe, they had him executed on a cross. What an incredible act of infidelity! What an incredibly great sin!

Jesus, who died on the cross, gave a promise for a second advent. He also said that when he returned, he would come as the bridegroom, and that all people of the world should prepare for his coming by adorning themselves as brides. In the Book of Revelation, Chapter 19, we see the Second Advent of Jesus recorded as involving his coming to earth and performing a marriage supper of the Lamb. This passage about the marriage supper refers to the restoration of the positions of the true husband and wife, and of the true parents, for the purpose of forming a family, such as what Adam and Eve would have formed in the Garden of Eden, had they not committed the fall.

How are we to remedy the society we live in, where all manner of sexual crimes, immorality and moral corruption run rampant and threaten to destroy our families? If we are unable to resolve this problem of the corruption of sexual mores, human society is certain to bring upon itself the same destruction that came to Sodom and Gomorrah. The fire of this judgment has already begun. The fearful disease of AIDS is heaven’s chastisement for the sexual corruption of our society, and a warning of what will come if we do not correct this.

Jesus said he would return when this world of evil reached its last days. The Jesus who returns will come as the True Father of all humanity, and show us the path of the true child, the path of the true husband and wife, and the path of the true parents that must be taken by all men and women of this world. Only in this way will we find a fundamental solution to the problem of moral decay. This is the truly good news that will save mankind from this world of evil. It is the mission of the Messiah, the Savior, to teach the way for humanity to make a total break from the tangled history of evil that came about when the path of true parents, true husband and wife, and true children, was lost.

Today, I declare to all heaven and earth that my husband, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, is the one who has devoted his entire life to pioneering the way of the Messiah, and of the True Parents. Despite ruthless persecution and torment from the evil world, he was worked to pioneer the future of humanity. He has done this by letting the world know about God’s purpose of creation and by establishing the truth concerning the original sin committed by the original human ancestors.

All the world’s major religions teach that their original founders will someday return to this world. According to the Unification Principle, which are the teachings of my husband, the return of these figures, that is, Buddha, True Man, Confucius, and the Second Advent of theology of Jesus, will be fulfilled through the return of one Messiah, one True Parent, for all of humanity. All religions are to be brought into a union, and unified through this person. Despite what some Christians believe, this Messiah, or True Parent, will not be the same Jesus who died two thousand years ago, returning on a cloud in the sky. Instead, a new person, who has inherited Jesus’ mission, is to be born on this earth. The country in which this person is born in the Republic of Korea. The Messiah, the True Parent of all mankind, is a Korean, whose principal language is Korean.

When is this Messiah to come? According to the Unification Principle, the Last Days are the time in which this sinful world is brought to a conclusion, and the Messiah is to come during the time of the Last Days. The Last Days refer to an approximate eighty-year period between World War I and the conclusion of the twentieth century. This corresponds to the transition period in world history, in which the True Parent of mankind is to be born in the Republic of Korea, and carry out his program for building a world of freedom and peace to take the place of today’s world, filled with evil and war.

For this reason, this is a period of great confusion, in which individuals, families, tribes, nations, states, and the world will be divided against each other in a conflict of good and evil. During this period, humankind has already experienced two world wars. Following World War II, there was the perpetual conflict and struggle between the democratic and communist worlds. Also during this period, Korea experienced forty years of Japanese colonial rule, that ended in liberation in 1945, followed by the tragedy of the Korean War. Today, Korea remains as the only country still divided by the struggle between communism and democracy.

The northern and southern halves of the Korean Peninsula today represent the fruits of the seeds of good and evil, separated from each other, and sown in the forms of Cain and Abel, following the fall of the original human ancestors. That is, the communism of North Korea is the fruit of all Cain-type philosophies and systems throughout history. North Korea has established itself as an atheistic communist state that denies religious value systems. It is a microcosm of the communist world. On the other hand, South Korea is the fruit of all Abel-type philosophies and systems throughout history. It is the country where religion thrives most in the world, and it stands in a position to represent the free world. Thus, the Korean Peninsula is a microcosm of the world separated between good and evil, with South Korea on the side of good, and North Korea on the side of evil set against each other in one final battle.

Thus, the unification of the Korean peninsula is the key to world peace and unification. Korean unification is not merely a political event or task. Korean unification holds providential and historical significance as an important step toward accomplishing God’s final goal to bring about an ideal world. It is a three-dimensional task, involving the numerous spirit men who have passed through this physical world. For this reason, the unification of the Republic of Korea is not a matter to be solved only by politicians. My husband, Rev. Moon, understands the will of heaven surrounding the Korean peninsula. During early December last year, he visited North Korea for seven days, met the North Korean ruler, President Kim Il Sung, and communicated to President Kim heaven’s command to him, related to the issue of Korean unification.

He said to the North Koreans: “You cannot unify North and South Korea by means of juche thought. North and South Korea can be unified peacefully only through Unification Thought, or Godism and headwing philosophy, expounded by Rev. Moon. When they tried to claim that the South first invaded the North in the Korean War, he refuted them flatly, saying it was the North that started the war, with its southward invasion.

I have accompanied my husband to many countries around the world, and met numerous world leaders. In order to make our trip to North Korea, however, we needed to make a truly courageous resolve, and a serious determination. Jacob, in biblical times, endured through great tribulation. He used his wisdom and determination to soften the heart of his older brother Esau, and finally succeeded in reconciling with him. It was in a similar way to Jacob, that my husband and I finally succeeded in sitting down to discussions with Kim Il Sung. No longer is Korean unification something that is to be left to politicians. God is now directly involved in this matter. Even now, my husband, Rev. Moon, is working day and night to mobilize his global network for the task of accomplishing Korean unification according to the will of God, and building an ideal world of peace, free from immorality and moral decadence.

The content of my speech today is not something that is believed, only by the small number of Unification Church members who follow my husband and myself. Social, religious and political leaders of more than one hundred and sixty countries around the world, as well as large numbers of young people all over the world, are working in accordance with these teachings, in order to build a new unified world, overflowing with freedom and peace. All around the world, the Republic of Korea is beginning to be revered as the country where the True Parents of humankind have come. A rapidly increasing number of people from around the world are coming to Korea, to learn its language and culture.

Our Women’s Federation for World Peace is a global organization. On April 10, in the Olympic Stadium in Seoul, we held a rally with one hundred and fifty thousand Korean women and representatives from sixty countries around the world. The focus of that rally was our fundamental solution to the threats to our families, stemming from the decline in moral standards, increasing drug abuse, and all forms of indecent sexual behavior in the world around us. We cannot afford to wait any longer before setting out to save human society from the fallen social customs, and sexual depravity by which men have oppressed women.

Our effort to learn the duties of true parents, true husbands and true wives, and true children, must finally culminate in the establishment of a Families’ Federation for World Peace, so that immorality and moral decadence will be expunged from all corners of the earth. We must work quickly to separate ourselves from the lineage of evil that has caused pain and suffering to humankind ever since the time of the Garden of Eden. Only then can we prepare ourselves fro the new world.

Until now, there was no way to defeat the immorality and moral degradation that has been destroying humanity. Now, however, a new hope, a new expression of truth, capable of bringing a total and complete solution to this problem, has arisen in the land of Korea. This new expression of truth pronounced by the True Parents, will accomplish the unification of Korea. It will then go on to become the guiding beacon for all humanity in the building of world peace. Let us all learn about this message of hope, so that we may join together in bringing an end to the sinful world that has brought us so much suffering since the beginning of history, and become the courageous women who will build the unified world, overflowing with freedom, peace and happiness.

Let us go the way of a true mother.
Let us go the way of a true wife.
Let us go the way of a true daughter.

Mrs. Hak Ja Han Moon

Introduction

In May through July, 1993, Mrs. Hak Ja Han Moon, International President of the Women’s Federation for World Peace, delivered this speech in 44 American cities. In October 1993, she delivered it on 40 college campuses in Korea, and then in November and December 1993 in 44 countries around the world. In 1994, she and her family spoke on 100 college campuses in America starting in March, then on 100 college campuses in Japan followed by a 70 nation speaking tour.

A mother of thirteen and grandmother of twenty, Mrs. Moon spoke out of deep love for our nation and our family life.

---

True Parents and the Completed Testament Age
given May through December 1993 in 44 countries
Mrs. Hak Ja Han Moon

Honored Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to you for coming here today. I am truly moved to see so many of you committed to building a peaceful world.

As we all know, our world today is not a world of peace and happiness but a world filled with conflict and despair. We are confronted with the breakdown of our families and the moral decline of our society.

We have become a nation of talk shows. We debate the issues over and over again and yet find no solutions. Why is this? This is because a true solution must include God and deal with the root of the problem and not just the symptoms. To find this root, we must first understand God’s purpose of creation and realize that we, today, face the most important turning point in the history of God’s providence.

At this crucial time, God asked my husband, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, to bring a new revelation to the American people. My husband, accordingly, just delivered this new message of hope in 12 major cities across America. Now, I would like to give you this same message, entitled “True Parents and the Completed Testament Age.”

God’s Original Ideal

God’s ideal in creating the first human ancestors, Adam and Eve, was that they perfect themselves through true love so that they could then create a good family of true love, true life, and true lineage. Such a good family would have been formed on the basis of unified heart and mind among family members in front of God.

When God created Adam and Eve, His first son and daughter, God wanted them to be better than Himself. Traditional thinking would say that this is absurd. But please take a moment to think about this. When we as parents look into the faces of our children, we wish upon them an infinite amount of love and hope. We want them to grow and achieve things we ourselves only dreamed of.

Similarly, God wants to give limitlessly to His children. God is not content in giving just 100 percent. God’s desire is to give a thousand times more than what He has. The nature of God’s Love is to give completely and then forget what He has given. Unlike some who calculate how much they have given and decide that it is enough, for God enough is never enough.

Moreover, God’s purpose in creating the world was to have an object of love. His purpose in creating parents and children, husbands and wives, and all things in this world in complementary pairs was to substantiate true love throughout His creation. Likewise, parents are to live for their children, and children for their parents. Husbands are to live for their wives, and wives for their husbands. All beings in creation are to live for and give to others.

If God’s ideal of true love had been realized through Adam’s family, that family would have become the beginning of the heavenly kingdom. It would have expanded throughout all of history to the clan, to the nation, and to the world. This would have been the world of true love~the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. Furthermore, there would have been a parallel expansion of the heavenly kingdom in the spiritual world.

Human History’s False Start

If God’s original ideal had been realized, then there would have been no need of a Messiah or of God’s providence to save humanity. Adam’s family, though it was merely a single family, would have been the center of the clan, of the nation, and of the world. It would have been the blueprint for all families in the future. It would have been the model for the realization of God’s ideal world.

Because of the fall of the original human ancestors, God’s work of salvation had to begin. Salvation history had to be repeatedly extended through the complicated and suffering courses of the Old Testament Age and the New Testament Age, culminating in today’s Completed Testament Age. God’s ideal of the true family and the heavenly kingdom, which He wanted to realize through Adam’s family, was destroyed because Adam and Eve fell away from God.

Due to the Fall, this present world is far from the good world of God’s ideal. Today’s world is, in fact, a “false” world, in that it is flooded with self-centered love. This came about because Adam and Eve became false parents based on false and self-centered love with Satan. They multiplied evil rather than goodness, creating a false family and passing on false life and a false lineage to their descendants. Thus, false clans, false nations, and a false world came into being.

Formula for Reconciliation

Therefore, the goal in God’s dispensation of salvation is for a man and a woman, representing Adam and Eve, to be restored as True Parents centered on God’s true love, so that the true family can be formed. From them would eventually flow the true clan, the true nation, and the true world. In other words, the seed from which God’s true love, true life, and true lineage can grow must be created.

My dear friends, have you ever wondered how a world filled with such evil and corruption could come from a God of love and goodness?

If you read the Bible carefully, you will see that the fall of man involves the loss of Adam’s entire family. First, the position of parents was lost through the fall of Adam and Eve. Second, the position of children was lost as Cain murdered Abel. God’s “blueprint” for an ideal family and world perfection was lost. Therefore, to restore the original family, God works in reverse to reclaim the positions of Cain and Abel, and then the positions of True Mother and True Father. This pattern of reconciliation of Cain and Abel as the foundation for restoring the True Parents has been God’s consistent formula throughout the history of restoration.

The separation of fallen mankind into a Cain-Abel division occurs over and over again in Judeo-Christian history. God first of all separated fallen mankind into two “brotherly” sides of Cain, symbolizing Satan, and Abel, symbolizing God, to work out the hatreds resulting from the Fall. God used the method of having Abel be hit first and sacrificed. As a result, Abel could stand on that very foundation to embrace Cain and recover the blessing given to the elder son. For example, the religion that most advances the purpose of salvation always receives Satan’s most severe persecution. It walks the path of constant opposition yet continues its sacrificial effort to save the sinful world. Likewise, good people always stand in the position of being struck first and sacrificed.

Looking almost anywhere in our fallen world, it is easy to notice struggles between good and evil, similar to the struggle between Cain and Abel. These struggles start in the conflict between each individual’s mind and body. The mind, which represents the Abel side, struggles to overcome the body, which represents the Cain side. The struggle within individuals has expanded to the family, nation, and world. As a result, humankind has always been divided into two opposing camps, one good, or Abel-like, and the other evil, or Cain-like, locked in struggle at every level. It has always been God’s intention, however, that both sides be restored, not that one triumph over and destroy the other.

Some examples of this division are: the thief on the right side of Jesus’ cross, representing Abel, and the thief on the left, representing Cain, and South Korea versus North Korea, which represents the last conflict between right wing and left wing on the world level. Moreover, there is the Christian-Muslim conflict in the Middle East. So the key to God’s work of salvation has always been to unify such divided sides, based on His ideal, in order to build a foundation on which to reclaim the True Mother and True Father.

Ladies and gentlemen, if a family is not centered on God’s ideal of love, there will be conflict among the members of that family. Without God’s love as an absolute center, such a family will ultimately break down. Moreover, a nation of such families will also decline. Because illicit, self-centered love invaded the first family, selfishness and greed have continued to dominate human history from the individual to the family, society, nation, and world. For this reason, God’s work of restoration begins at the individual level. Since Satan knows this, he focuses his efforts also on the individual level.

It is not by chance that self-centered individualism has become the dominant way of life in these last days. People feel increasingly alienated from those around them, and bear little sense of responsibility for the well-being of their country, society, or even their own families. Rising divorce statistics indicate that husbands and wives feel little responsibility toward their marriages; parents do not take responsibility for their children; individuals, devoid of any sense of human dignity, fail even to take responsibility for themselves.

America has seen such phenomena at work beginning with the youth movement of the sixties. Idealistic youth rejected the materialism around them in order to seek love and peace, but in the process, they also abandoned morality and responsibility. Unable to attain the true love they sought, many disillusioned young people resorted to suicide, drug abuse, and free sex.

True Love vs. Free Sex

Of all these, what pains God most is free sex. A world of free sex is absolutely contrary to the Will of God. Love comes from stimulation of unblemished emotion, but free sex is totally devoid of purity or true emotion. How many of us have been touched by the cruelty of infidelity and divorce? Where is God in all the one-night stands? What about the nightmares of the children who are sexually abused by a parent? Is free sex worth the price of a broken child?

Equally alarming is the policy of giving school children condoms, teaching the illusion of safe sex, and surrendering to the assumption that premarital sex is inevitable. Indeed, where there is homosexuality, free sex, drugs, and alcoholism, the world of true love is far away.

In this world, Satan openly tells people, “Drink! Smoke! Take drugs! Have sex!” Those who do God’s Will, on the other hand, live a lifestyle that is 180 degrees different from this. Throughout history, those who chose to walk a spiritual path of self-sacrifice have been bitterly opposed and persecuted by the rest of the world. It is only God’s love and blessing which have allowed the Unification Church, despite worldwide opposition, to prosper. The fact that our church has risen from obscurity in war-torn Korea, to become a world-level religious movement in only 38 years, testifies to God’s continued guidance and support.

There are those who continue to oppose the Unification Church, spreading wild rumors or trying to prevent our teachings from being heard. Again, Satan’s way is always to attack that which is most precious to God. Yet those who go against the Will of God can never prosper. The principle holds true that those on God’s side, who can endure unjust persecution, will win the right to take back the blessing. God’s strategy is always to be hit first, and then take back what is rightfully His.

Restoring True Love

Ladies and gentlemen, the Bible teaches that Eve first disobeyed God and entered into a relationship with Satan. Due to the Fall, not only Eve, but also Adam and their sons Cain and Abel, inherited Satan’s lineage, based upon selfishness and false love. As the descendants of the original couple which was compromised by Satan, we have all inherited a satanic lineage. This is why Jesus said in John 8:44, “You are of your father, the devil.”

The Old Testament described a process of restitution according to the formula “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” In the Divine Principle, we refer to making restitution for a wrong as “paying indemnity.” To make restitution for her wrong actions, fallen Eve needed to take the entire responsibility upon herself. She should have reversed the actions of the Fall and made spiritual and physical restitution for each step of the Fall.

It was God’s Will that Eve assist her younger son, Abel, to unite with the Will of God. We know from Genesis that Abel had his offering accepted by God. However, this was not all that was expected of Abel. Through Abel’s love, Cain was supposed to recognize Abel as God’s chosen person and unite with him.

If Cain and Abel had united, the second of the two problems of the Fall would have been solved. God would then have addressed the problem of Adam and Eve. Eve was meant to stand as the first mother of humanity. She should have united Cain and Abel and worked to establish a foundation for True Parents. Eve, however, did not fulfill this mission in her lifetime, and history had to wait for another woman who would pay fallen Eve’s restitution.

Rebekah: A Model Case

In the Bible, one of God’s great heroines is Rebekah, the spouse of Isaac. As the mother of Jacob and Esau, Rebekah held the same position in Isaac’s family that Eve held in Adam’s family. Unlike Eve, however, Rebekah understood God’s providence and helped her second son, Jacob, representing Abel’s position, to gain the blessing destined for the first son, Esau.

Just as Cain killed Abel, Esau wanted to kill Jacob when the blessing went to his younger brother. But with Rebekah’s help, these brothers eventually reconciled in a warm embrace, rather than resorting to violence.

This reconciliation was a major victory for God. This victory, nevertheless, was not complete, since the reconciliation represented only a symbolic purification of blood lineage. The substantial purification of blood lineage had to be accomplished in the womb. This is the reason for the paradoxical story of Tamar.

By understanding that Tamar, like Rebekah, was in the position of fallen Eve, it becomes possible to understand why Jesus was born of her lineage, the tribe of Judah.

I am sure that many of you have read the story about the birth of her twins. She conceived with Judah, her father-in-law, the twins Perez and Zerah. The Bible tells us that the two sons struggled even in the womb for the position of first-born. During Tamar’s labor, Zerah’s hand emerged and the midwife tied a red string around his wrist. Then, Zerah’s hand disappeared back into the womb and Perez, the younger, was born as the elder! Thus, the positions of Cain and Abel were restored even before birth took place. It was from this point that the Israelite people became the nation chosen to receive the Messiah.

In terms of conventional morality, the stories of Rebekah and Tamar would be questionable at best. Why God blessed them was a theological mystery until today. As we now see, God needed to reclaim His lineage from Satan so that Jesus could be born. Purified, true-love blood lineage was the point from which the Israelite nation started expanding. The word Israel means victory. Their victory was the purification of blood lineage.

Mary’s Life-Risking Course

The lineage of Judah developed for generations, expanding to the levels of tribe, society, and nation. From this same lineage, Mary was born in Israel 2,000 years later.

Mary had the responsibility to unite Cain and Abel figures on the family, clan, and national levels through paying appropriate indemnity and restoring elder sonship. Mary responded to God’s call and conceived Jesus even though, in the eyes of others, she had betrayed her parents and Joseph, to whom she was engaged. At that time, it was customary to stone to death any woman who became pregnant out of wedlock. However, Joseph, standing in the position of Adam, courageously protected his fiancee and resisted abandoning her.

Because of Mary’s faith, and the work of Rebekah and Tamar, Satan could not claim sovereignty over Jesus in Mary’s womb. Jesus was born in the position of a true son under God’s complete, direct lineage. He is the first true son of God after the purification of the fallen blood lineage. That is why Jesus, the first-begotten son of God, is the saint of all saints and the ancestor of God’s true blood lineage. His birth represented the conclusion of the Old Testament Age at the national level and the dawn of the New Testament Age at the worldwide level.

Mary, in the position to restore fallen Eve, had to build a unity between Jesus, who was in the position of Abel, and his elder cousin, John the Baptist, who was in the position of Cain. This unity was essential for the people of Israel to identify Jesus as the Messiah.

John was the elder. He had a great following and was widely respected. As Jesus explained to his disciples, the ministry of John was the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy that Elijah the prophet would return to “make straight the way of the Lord.”

But did John fulfill his role in God’s providence? The Gospel of Luke tells us that John came “in the spirit and power of Elijah.” John, however, denied that he was Elijah, and doubted the Messiahship of Jesus even after he had received a clear revelation at the Jordan River at the time of Jesus’ baptism. John was a well-respected religious figure, while Jesus was seen as only the illegitimate son of a poor carpenter. Without the support of John, it was impossible for the Jewish people to believe in and follow Jesus. Alone, Jesus undertook the difficult path of proclaiming himself.

John the Baptist should have helped Jesus reach the religious leadership of Israel. If John had fulfilled his role, then Judaism, in the position of Abel, and the nation of Israel, in the position of Cain, could have united centered on Jesus.

This would have laid the foundation for the Marriage of the Lamb. Jesus would have stood as the True Father of humanity, and his bride would have stood as the True Mother of humanity.

In less than seven years, his teaching would have expanded rapidly to the worldwide level, winning Asia and Rome to his side before he was 40. Eventually, Jesus and his bride would have achieved the individual heavenly kingdom, family heavenly kingdom, clan heavenly kingdom, and national heavenly kingdom.

A Dream Unfulfilled

However, this glorious destiny could not be realized. It was the religious people themselves who rejected Jesus’ words and called for His crucifixion.

Confronted by the faithlessness in Israel, Jesus determined to give his life to achieve spiritual salvation for humankind. However, he would have to come again in order to bring physical or earthly salvation in addition to spiritual salvation.

This is why the mind can draw close to God through Jesus, but the body continues to be tempted by evil. Even Saint Paul anguished over the contradiction of the desires of the flesh and the desires of the spirit. Many great Christian evangelists have also suffered because of this contradiction. At the dawn of the Completed Testament Age, the crucial challenge is to accomplish both physical salvation and spiritual salvation.

Because of Jesus’ death on the cross, the conflict between left wing and right wing appeared. This is like the separation into Cain and Abel necessitated by Adam’s fall. Likewise, Islam and Christianity appeared and began struggling. Because such separation was caused by the crucifixion of Jesus, Christ will work for unity at the time of the Second Coming.

The Unity Imperative

God’s preparation for the Second Advent required a world- level foundation of successful Cain-Abel reconciliation. This dispensation was carried out through the events surrounding World War II. The Allied countries of Britain, America, and France represented Christianity and were in the position of Abel. The Axis countries of Germany, Japan, and Italy were under the influence of nationalistic militarism and stood in the position of Cain. This war represented the expansion of the conflict between Cain and Abel to the world level.

Immediately after the Allied victory, great strides were made toward creating a world of peace centered upon Christianity. With Britain in the world-level position of Eve, and America and France representing Abel and Cain respectively, these Allied nations stood in the position ready to receive the Lord of the Second Advent.

Despite all of this preparation, God’s dispensation was not fulfilled at that time. God’s representative came to bring His word and was met with tremendous persecution and almost universal misunderstanding. This paralleled Jesus’ situation 2,000 years ago. Just as the Israelites of Jesus’ time awaited the Second Coming of Elijah on a chariot descending from heaven, Christians awaited the Second Coming by expecting Jesus himself to descend on a cloud from the sky.

In Revelation, Jesus reveals to the Apostle John that he will come with a new name. This foreshadowed that Jesus would come again through another man, just as Elijah had done.

At this crucial time after World War II, then, God instructed my husband to bring a new message of truth to Christians in Korea. Korean Christian leaders, however, rejected the possibility that he, a humble young man, had been chosen to bring this new message. Because the New Testament Age is an extension of the Old Testament Age, they could not believe that the Second Coming would be born as a man on earth any more than the Jewish people could believe it at the time of Jesus.

If the Christian churches had become one with my husband, the heavenly kingdom would already have been established on earth as well as in heaven. During the seven-year period from 1945 to 1952, when the New Testament Age ended, the entire world could have united in accordance with the providence of God.

A Thorny Path

Instead of uniting with him, however, these religious leaders became jealous of the growing number of his followers. They blindly opposed my husband without hearing him out. They even spread lies about him. Rumors of sexual misconduct and greed, the very antithesis of his teachings, were used to assassinate his character.

God had expanded Christianity and had raised up a mighty Christian nation like America for the purpose of preparing the way for the Second Coming. Whether they realized it or not, those ministers in Korea represented all of Christianity. Because America and worldwide Christianity failed to unite with my husband after World War II, they began to decline in their power and moral authority.

After World War II, the United States and Christianity stood on a victorious foundation of Cain-Abel unity. The time was ripe to receive the Second Coming. However, this opportunity failed to materialize and the whole world opposed my husband’s work. He was expelled into the wilderness. He was forced to the bottom and has been climbing back up ever since.

Thus, the Cold War began. The world separated again into two worldwide spheres of Cain and Abel, just as it had during World War II. Denying God, just as the thief on the left denied Jesus, communism represented the Cain-type world. Christian democracies, which affirmed the existence of God, represented the thief on the right, and the Abel-type world.

It was God’s Will that the Messiah of the Second Coming should unite the two hostile blocs. That is why we mobilized our church to help settle conflicts between the right wing, represented by the free world, and the left wing, represented by communism. We have also worked on behalf of Christianity and Judaism as a peacemaker with our Islamic brothers and sisters.

During the Cold War period, my husband fought to break down barriers on the individual, family, clan, national, worldwide, and cosmic levels in order to rebuild the lost foundation to receive the Messiah. Since my husband cannot live for 4,000 years or for 400 years, he knew that he would have to indemnify all of history in just 40 years. During this period of four decades, he restored the 4,000-year history before Jesus, and the 6,000-year biblical history since the Creation. After this indemnity was paid, the Cold War ended through the unity of Cain and Abel countries. This was consummated by the Unification Church at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, where 160 nations of the world came to Korea.

For decades, my husband has been completely misunderstood. For three years, he was imprisoned in a North Korean communist concentration camp. Altogether, he has been wrongly imprisoned six times for doing God’s work. Moreover, the media have mocked him as a monster who brainwashes the young for self-benefit. Can anyone disagree when I say that Reverend Moon is the most persecuted religious leader in the world? My heart is broken when I think of how my husband has suffered. But he always comforts me reassuring me that God has deep compassion for those persecuted for doing His work.

My husband and I have walked a path of indemnity, or restitution, in order to restore the failures of the past, including those of the Old and New Testament eras. Korea can be compared to the Old Testament Age, while America, a mostly Christian civilization, can be compared to the New Testament Age. For the first 20 years, my husband walked the road of indemnity of the Old Testament Age, centering on the Korean nation and the Unification Church, representing the positions of the Israelite nation and Judaism, respectively. On the foundation of this work, we established in 1960 the Holy Wedding of True Parents on the national level. Then, in 1971, my husband and I came to America. Over the next 20 years in the U.S., we walked the path of indemnity to fulfill the New Testament Age and to begin the Completed Testament Age. Thus, we established the True Parents’ family, the origin of true love, true life, and true blood lineage, based on God.

The reason why America is essential in the providential dispensation is because of her close ties with the Christian churches, Judaism, and Israel.

Even though America has dismissed and opposed my husband’s work, we continue to pray for America to realize her providential responsibility. It is our sincere desire that America avoids repeating her failure. A failure to unite with God’s Will would create the need for further indemnity and would deprive America of the blessing that God wishes to bestow upon this great nation. Indeed, without the help of our Unification movement, America would have waned long ago.

Rome thought that the world existed only for the sake of Rome. She did not realize that God had raised her up for the purpose of uniting with the Messiah and serving the world.

America faces a similar situation today. People must realize that God blessed America not for herself but for the sake of the world. America’s Pilgrim Fathers did not come here for wealth. They came here to attend God. If America fails to remember the purpose for which she is blessed, then her blessing will cease and she will perish. My husband and I desperately want to prevent this. We must save America.

For 20 years, we have struggled in this country, trying to bring God’s message to the American people. American leaders, prominent Christians and other leading figures of the world have only a faint idea of the forces that shape the future. They can offer little insight, hope, or guidance to their people. In these chaotic times, humankind is longing for a true direction and purpose, yet America and Christianity have no confident answer. God, however, has granted my husband and me an understanding of the forces involved in His providential history. We know the direction that humankind must go, and with the help of God, we will lead the world there.

What the Unification Church Offers

The truth which God revealed to my husband is contained in the Divine Principle. Looking at the history of humankind and the stories of the Bible from the providential viewpoint, the Divine Principle unlocks the answers to questions unsolved for thousands of years. Those who have sincerely studied its contents have found it to be a true gift from God, providing the only solutions to the problems facing our society today. Even in the formerly communist C.I.S., government leaders and thousands of young people have found their lives renewed through their studies of our teachings. Finally free from the oppression of communist ideology, they are hungry for the spiritual truth to guide their nations. Russian classrooms where our members are teaching “Godism,” or “Head-wing Ideology,” are overflowing.

There are countless other testimonies to the power of the Divine Principle to give hope and new life to young people. Last year, in Korea, we held a wedding celebration for 30,000 couples, all dedicating their lives to one another, to God, and to the world. In most families today, parents cannot effectively guide their children, especially on such intimate matters as love and marriage. Yet, my husband and I brought together young people from 131 different nations and realized their most cherished dreams of love in a historic way. This was indeed a great miracle of the modern world. In the future, as people come to understand the value and quality of these precious families, millions will seek such marriages. Through them, God can restore the family that Satan has destroyed. Such restored, God-centered families are the very building blocks of an ideal nation and world.

My dear friends, when Jesus taught about the coming of the Messiah, he told the parable of the virgins who were awaiting the arrival of the bridegroom. According to the book of Revelation, Christianity is portrayed as a bride. America, representing Christianity, can also be seen as a bride nation.

Women’s Crucial Role

Therefore, America must take the responsibility of creating a foundation for worldwide unity upon which the bridegroom can finally be received. This signifies the restoration of the original positions of man and woman, restored Adam and Eve, to the realm of true equality. At this turning point in the history of restoration, a woman in the position of True Mother must prepare the world to receive the True Father.

When Christianity failed to meet her bridegroom the first time, God’s dispensation had to be delayed 40 years until 1992. During this time, my husband and I have worked and prayed to bring about the unity of Korea, Britain, America, France, Japan, Germany, and Italy.

That is why, in April 1992, my husband and I founded the Women’s Federation for World Peace. Last year, I, with the heart of a True Mother, visited these seven countries, as well as Russia and Oceania. I gathered together the women of these countries to form chapters of the Women’s Federation for World Peace. With these events, the nations that had been the worldwide Cain and Abel countries since World War II united together to receive the True Mother and prepare again the foundation to meet the True Father.

Based upon this foundation, my husband and I can now stand on a worldwide level as the first True Parents. As True Parents, we are ushering in the Completed Testament Age.

At this historical turning point, we have to practice on the worldwide level the principle that an individual’s mind and body must be united centered on God. To facilitate this, we have founded two organizations working for world peace. The Inter- Religious Federation for World Peace represents the world mind, and carries out the internal mission of uniting all the world’s religions on the basis of God’s love. The Federation for World Peace, on the other hand, represents the world body, and pursues the external mission of building up ideal societies with leaders in the fields of politics, economics, media, academia, and science.

Completing the Family Foundation

Looking at the vertical perspective of love, Adam and Eve should have related directly with God by developing in themselves the four types of love: children’s love, brother-sister love, conjugal love, and parental love.

Therefore, Adam and Eve should have originally gone through the four spheres of the heart, centering on God’s true love, as completed children, completed brother and sister, loving couple, and perfected parents. They would have, thus, achieved the completed family.

Adam and Eve should have become the role models for all in their family. Their children would have looked to their parents as ideal role models. They would have become brothers and sisters who loved each other as their parents loved them. They would have become married couples resembling the husband-wife relationship of their parents. Finally, with the birth of children, they would have established their own completed families, identical to that of their parents.

By setting up ideal, unbreakable families that fulfill the vertical and horizontal unity between parents and children, brothers and sisters, and husband and wife, we can finally build the eternal basis for God’s kingdom on earth as well as in heaven. Thus, all the families in the world originating from the same God-centered ancestors, Adam and Eve, would have equal, divine value.

Extension of the Messianic Ideal

Ladies and gentlemen, at the dawn of the Completed Testament Age, the time has come for each family to take up the messianic mission of completing the work of salvation all over the world. After restoring your family, the next step is to restore your community, tribe, and nation. We call this process “tribal messiahship.” In the Completed Testament Age, the mother’s role will be crucial. She must unite her children and her husband, and link her family with the True Parents. Already, we have sent thousands of Tribal Messiah missionaries around the world. Soon, the original ideal of the family will be achieved worldwide.

In every completed family, grandparents will be in the position of kings and queens representing God and good ancestors. Parents will be in the position of kings and queens representing present humanity, and children will be in the position of princes and princesses representing all future descendants. When all three generations are united, past, present, and future will live together in harmony.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great privilege to announce to you the establishment of the first True Family. My husband and I, together with our 13 children and 20 grandchildren are absolutely dedicated to serving God and humanity. With three generations in one family, we have achieved, on the family level, the central root, the central trunk, and the central bud of the “Tree of Life” mentioned in the Bible. It is our sincere hope that you will symbolically graft into this lineage by joining us in our efforts to create an ideal nation and world. This marks the beginning of the Completed Testament Age.

As the world enters the Completed Testament era, we will live with God again. Realizing this, we must accomplish the unity of our mind and body, parents and children, and husband and wife. Then we can establish ideal families centered upon God’s love.

With such families, the symptoms of our decaying society will vanish. As confident children of God, we will no longer be enslaved by the temptations of alcohol and drug abuse. Moreover, by understanding the holiness of love between a husband and a wife, we will possess the moral strength to stand strong against infidelity and promiscuity. Finally, we will work as a whole to eliminate war, racial prejudices, and world hunger.

Based upon this foundation, we can realize a world of true happiness, freedom, and peace. God is very much alive, and His original ideal for humankind is unchanging and absolute. It is our destiny to fulfill this ideal and liberate God’s heart.

My dear friends, the Women’s Federation for World Peace is called to this task. Let us work together to bring about its successful completion.

It is my hope that all Christians, and people of all faiths, will understand this message with a deep heart and an open mind. I sincerely pray that, by upholding the Will of God, we can all reach the place of God’s blessing.

May God bless you and your families.

Thank you very much.

Co-Founder and Co-Chairperson’s Address by

Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon

July 26, 1994
Omni Shoreham Hotel, Washington DC

Distinguished guests; youth representatives from 164 countries; students, ladies and gentlemen.

I would like to express my warmest appreciation to you for participating in this inaugural meeting of the Youth Federation for World Peace. I am delighted to meet all of you in this beautiful capital city to discuss the important issues that are before us. Despite our very busy schedules, we have come together because we feel the urgency of the times and see the problems of the world as our own. I pray that this bold attitude on our part can lead us into the next millennium where peace, freedom and love await us.

Today we are at a turning point in history. We are faced with an important choice. We can either be the harbinger of peace and love, or the victims of yet more wars and conflicts. What we do now will determine whether or not we can witness together the emergence of true world peace.

During the Cold War, there was an ideological confrontation between the left wing and the right wing. But now, with the end of the Cold War era, we are faced with deeper problems which threaten to destroy the moral fiber of our society and the sanctity of love in our families. The apparent breakdown of sexual morality and the widespread use of dangerous drugs have already taken their toll on our youth.

In the United States, for example, recent studies indicate that 6 out of 10 high school students admit to having used drugs, 40 per cent of 14-year-old girls will become pregnant before they reach their 19th birthday, and 30 per cent of all children born are being born to single-parent homes. The HIV virus, moreover, has reached epidemic proportions infecting one out of every 40 people in our inner cities while the suicide rate among our youth has increased by 300 percent over the past three decades.

The United States is not the only country plagued by the problems that are destroying our youth. Countries all over the world have their share of this global problem. How wonderful it would be if we could simply wish our problems away. But the issues before us are going to need much more than just good intentions. The world needs a new generation of leaders who understand the source of the problem and provide a comprehensive solution based upon a Godly perspective.

We have to realize that the problems of our society stem from the neglect of the spiritual. When we neglect God in our lives, we lose the source of values that should govern and safeguard our society against selfishness and greed. Without a proper set of priorities, our world becomes an empty shell with grand promises and very little substance.

Hence, disregard for God leads to disregard for the family, and disregard for the family leads to disregard for the nation and world. Thus the goal of the Youth Federation for World Peace is to reclaim God and the Godly family as the cornerstone of our civilization in an effort to remedy the societal ills and reach the goal of true world peace.

Originally, God wanted to see the fulfillment of the ideal of creation in the parenthood of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve as loving children, and eventually as loving parents to their own children, would have been the model of a loving family centered on God. Such a family would have been the building block for an ideal world of love and peace. But the Bible tells us that God’s ideal of the family was lost due to the fall of Adam and Eve. Tragically, with the loss of this first family, the potential for the realization of an ideal nation and world was also lost.

So then, how can we work to reclaim the ideal of the family? My husband and I believe that women must take the leading role. We founded the Women’s Federation for World Peace in 1992 to inspire women all around the world to take responsibility for their families, communities and nations. Working in parallel with the Federation for World Peace, the Women’s Federation has been working to educate men and women in the areas of politics, religion, arts and science to become role models as loving husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, and community leaders.

My husband and I feel that now is the time to create a complement to the Federation for World Peace and the Women’s Federation for World Peace. The Youth Federation for World Peace, by educating young men and women on the importance of a God centered family, will work together with these two organizations as a global family unit.

My dear friends! We are responsible for the future of the world. The world is in dire need of dedicated young men and women who can redirect the course of history for the betterment of humanity. Human history has been a testament to the struggle between good and evil starting from the internecine conflict between Cain and Abel, and culminating in the ideological confrontation between the communist world and the free democratic world. However, with the defeat of communism, representing victory of Abel over Cain, or of good over evil, we have the opportunity to set the world right with God.

Ladies and gentlemen. World peace is not merely a mental construct. It is a way of life that begins with the individual, grows within a loving family and reaches fruition in a global family. With the establishment of strong, true families centered on God, we can reclaim our youth from the bondage of substance abuse, violence and sexual immorality.

Armed with hope and love, I pray that the delegates of the Youth Federation for World Peace gathered here today can become the beacon of light shining the way into the next millennium.

May God bless you and your families.

Thank you very much.

Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon

Speech from her speaking tour in Korea, Japan and the USA
November 7, 2001

Respected leaders, ladies and gentlemen.

At this transitional point in human history, we have gathered as leaders who are concerned about the unification of Korea and world peace. The tragedies that took place in New York, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania on September 11 truly shocked the entire world. Along with the concern over peace and safety, we came to reflect upon fundamental and serious questions of modern civilization and future of humanity.

The Inter-religious International Federation for World Peace (IIFWP) and World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (WANGO) held a timely and significant conference in New York City this October 19 to 22. These two organizations, both of which my husband founded, brought together more than 400 participants from 101 countries. The participants included current and former heads of state, the highest leaders of major religions such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Confucianism, and representatives of academia and non-governmental organizations. The participants debated seriously on how to find peaceful solutions to today’s crises.

My homeland, the Korean Peninsula, as the world’s last divided country, is a troubled area that, along with the Middle East, attracts the world’s attention. In my husband’s opening address at the New York conference, he communicated a vision for lasting and fundamental peace, and today I again would like to share this view with you leaders assembled here. The title of my address is “The Nation and World of Peace Sought by God and Humanity.”

Resolving the Root of Conflict

Throughout history, human beings have continuously aspired for world peace. However, we have never realized that dream. We can look back at the end of the Cold War, at which time fierce political and military conflicts and struggles concluded. Many people expected that the long-awaited era of peace and stability would arrive based on the foundation of highly developed science.

Nonetheless, we came to realize that conflict, hatred and selfish desire are imbedded deeply within each of us and are still active. These are creating ever more serious disasters in new shapes and forms. Violence wreaked upon innocents is certainly an inhumane criminal act, and we must bring it to a halt. However, what can eradicate those inner conflicts and struggles, and resolve the fundamental human problems at their root? Where was the seed of hatred, conflict, and struggle sown, and how did it come to be rooted deeply within us?

The seed was planted in the family of the first human ancestors, Adam and Eve. The conflicts and struggles that resulted have continued from generation to generation until the present time.

Then, where is the path to resolve those conflicts and realize peace on Earth? Historically, human beings have been attempting to overcome conflicts and pursue peace through economic, political, diplomatic and military means. However, such methods obviously do not provide fundamental solutions, as we are still struggling with many unresolved problems.

There is but one fundamental way and it is simple. It is to restore the family that the first human ancestors lost; that is, the ideal family of God. This is the family with God at its center, the family that has achieved perfection in true love both vertically and horizontally.

God exists as the Original Being of true love and the invisible True Parent of humankind. Nonetheless, love cannot exist alone. It exists in relationships and it can bear fruit only through relationships. That is why God created us as His children, through whom He would seek to realize His true love.

The Three Blessings of God

The First Blessing of God to human beings, “be fruitful” (Genesis 1:28), called God’s children to become the object partners of His true love by becoming true persons. When we love someone, we want our object partner to be better than ourselves. Thus, in love, God, as the Father, wants His children to be better than Him. That is why God repeatedly invests Himself in human beings, the object partners of His love, and nevertheless constantly forgets about what He has already given and desires infinitely to give love more and more. This is so because love has its origin in the desire to live for the sake of others for eternity.

God then bestowed the Second Blessing, “multiply” (Genesis 1:28). The first human ancestors were to have grown to maturity as the children of God. After having reached perfection, as one with God in heart, they were to have become True Husband and Wife. Then, they were to have become substantial True Parents to their children, inheriting and passing on true love, true life and true lineage from God.

As such, God’s ideal of creation was to perfect true love both vertically and horizontally, beginning in the first family of our common ancestors. Since God’s love is absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal, that family also was to have become the absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal family, centered on true love. Human beings would have become substantial embodiments of love, totally united with God in heart. Then they would have obtained perfect freedom, happiness and the realization of all ideals.

Then they would have become the Lords of true love whom all beings in the universe would have loved and welcomed. This was God’s Third Blessing (Genesis 1:28). This is the Blessing to create a living environment in which we can experience joy and happiness, having dominion over the creation. This includes the care for and preservation of the world’s ecological balance as true masters of the creation.

Not by Power or Knowledge, but by True Love

Tragically, our human ancestors could not inherit the Three Blessings of God and establish the family of true love. That means they failed to become true persons, true spouses, true parents, and true Lords centered on true love. Instead, they disobeyed God, and He expelled them from the Garden of Eden. As the fallen human ancestors, they became false spouses to each other, with false love that has nothing to do with God’s Blessings. They gave birth to children and those children multiplied to populate the world of today.

Since the fall at the beginning of human history, human beings have not been born on the foundation of true love, in the attendance of God. Instead, we have lived in conflict, with struggle between mind and body. This conflict manifested as a tragedy of hatred and murder between two brothers, Cain and Abel, in the first family. That was the miserable reality of a family that left God.

A family built upon the basis of human relationships alone cannot become a family of the original ideal of creation. An ideal family is one that connects to God vertically and has a true person as its axis. Under the true love of true parents, among siblings who own and share a common axis, the family finally can establish the relationships of ultimate harmony and peace. We can experience true love within an ideal family that bears good fruit. The family is the original and best school of love. Power or knowledge can never create true love.

The Loss of God’s Blessings

Honorable leaders! What do you feel when you look at the reality of human society and at the youth of the contemporary world? Do you feel hope for a bright future? I believe that you experience agony over the increasing rates of crime, violence, drug abuse, immorality, corruption, teen pregnancy and so forth. These arise out of a confusion of values and foretell darkness enveloping our youth.

How did we arrive at this point? Better school systems and social improvements would have delayed the onset of these problems partially, but these do not address the fundamental cause of these problems, which is the breakdown and loss of families. This breakdown is a product of the time we are in, a time when humankind is harvesting the fruit sown by the loss of the first family of true love.

The destruction of the foremost school of true love leads to the phenomena of family breakdown, with enormously destructive side effects. This breakdown not only causes personal anxiety but also manifold problems on the national and worldwide levels. Of particular concern is the emotional instability of youth, which leads to changing life goals, spiritual wandering, and even deviation from healthy lifestyles.

Leaders who are concerned over the future should be very serious in order to solve the real problems of youth avoiding marriage, rampant divorce, and so forth, which destroy the fundamental foundation for families.

Having lost the First and Second Blessings, humankind does not understand how important it is to perfect one’s individuality, through which we can experience sacred and eternal conjugal love. We do not educate most of our youth in a thoroughgoing way about the importance of keeping purity before marriage and reaching individual maturity through true love. This is why they do not understand the value of true love, which is the fundamental root of joy, happiness and all ideals.

The tendency to make light of trust and fidelity between husband and wife, and to ignore the sacredness of marriage, is an internal cause of indescribable disasters and tragedies for humankind. True love has no place in the so-called free sex culture, in which people seek only the physical love between a man and a woman as the cardinal but momentary pleasure. The rapid spread of HIV-AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) threatens the very existence of the human race.

It is said that there is no safety zone against the AIDS virus. A greater terrorism than that over which the entire world is now trembling is before our eyes, allowing us no safety zone. Once contracted, its victims gradually give up their dreams for happiness, ideals, and life itself. Unless we resolve this catastrophe plaguing our planet, how can we claim that we are leaders?

Nor have we taken responsibility for the Third Blessing endowed by God, to “have dominion over the creation.” This requires that we take care of all creatures with true love. What would happen if the natural world were to rebel against the abuse and misuse it suffers at the hands of human beings who lord over it? Are not those symptoms beginning to appear? Before the natural world punishes our intolerable arrogance, we should stand before nature in true love as people of restored integrity.

The Perfection of “I”

Respected leaders, in order to examine today’s problem at a more fundamental level, I would like to consider the relationship between the true “I” and the true “we” in the context of God’s ideal of creation.

As a result of the fall, human beings did not achieve the position of the true “I.” For this reason, God has never been able to use the word “we.” That is to say that God has never been able to stand within the realm of the consciousness of His ideal of creation and establish a relationship that would allow Him to say, “This is mine” or “This is my child.”

So our present concept of “I” has no relationship with the original ideal of God’s creation, and it is for this reason that we should deny ourselves absolutely.

God has conducted His restoration providence so that He could establish true men and true women, that is, His sons and daughters, whom He could freely include within His concept of “we.” Because God is the subject body of love, the subject body of life, and the subject body of lineage, He sought true sons and daughters who would live eternally with a complete and unbreakable standard.

We first are to perfect our individual character through the unification of mind and body. Then, on that foundation, we can build a vertical parent-child relationship with God. A vertical relationship by itself, however, is not sufficient to bring the word “we” into being. We also need to create a horizontal relationship in harmony with the vertical. To do this, man and woman form a husband-wife relationship through a true, blessed marriage, bear children, build a true family, and form a four-position foundation over three generations. Only then will God use the word “we” in reference to a family unit.

God’s Image in the Family

How, then, can we advance to such a position? God created all things from a position in which His mind and body were completely one. His creation was an act of total investment involving absolute love and absolute faith. There was no possibility that He would consider His own interest or situation. This was the fountainhead of the love that seeks to give one hundred percent and then still continue to give. This is true for God and it should be true as well for our families.

Parents, who stand in the position of God, are to invest themselves completely and absolutely with true love. In terms of the logic of origin-division-union, they should give birth to and rear children from the position of the origin, thus establishing a vertical axis for the concept of “we.” If the husband and wife, who stand in the position of division from the origin, become one with each other, centering on true love, they will establish the horizontal axis. Then the children, who are in the position of union, will align themselves automatically with the vertical and horizontal axes and become one. They will establish a new axis reaching from front to back. The first family that accomplishes this substantiates the concept of “we” that is complete vertically, horizontally, and front to back.

This is the reason the family is so important. The family is the most valuable gift given to us from Heaven. If the environment we call the family did not exist, how would we establish this absolute standard of “I”? If not for the family, we would never even dare to think of a “we” that is complete vertically, horizontally, and front to back. The cradle of love, peace, and happiness is nothing other than this family.

How, then, do we establish the true “I”? This is possible only through a life of true love for the sake of others. The person who denies him or herself completely, to the point of nothingness, and begins to live for the sake of the family, for the sake of the country, for the sake of all humanity, and for the sake of God, will automatically be able to establish the true “I.” We should never put ourselves forward arrogantly and use the word “I” in a casual manner. God has worked, steeped in grief in the back alleys of history, to push forward His providence of restoration. His only desire has been to establish children who could speak of the true “I.” Anyone who knows this heart of God can never claim the word “I” for him or herself in a casual manner.

When we establish God’s original idea of world peace and the ideal families for which God has been waiting tens of thousands of years, we will have the starting point for the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. Beginning there, we will be able to resolve the grief of the piteous God. I would like to call upon everyone here to join with me. First, let us work to establish the true “I” that can look at the sun without shame, look at the ocean with a clear conscience, and has nothing to hide before nature. Then let us establish the family to which God will refer as a part of His “we.”

God is Our True King

In this way, we can establish a relationship of true parents and children between God and ourselves. Furthermore, God, who is the true parent of humanity and the origin of love, life, and lineage, is the Ancestor of humanity and the True King who reigns over all. God lost the positions of Ancestor and King as a result of the human ancestors’ fall in the Garden of Eden.

In accordance with the progress of the providence of restoration, my husband declared the return to the ocean, to the land, to the cosmos, and to the heartistic realm of the fourth Adam. Then, on January 13, 2001, my husband and I performed the historic “Coronation Ceremony of God’s Kingship.” Adam’s family, as the first human family, was to have been the ancestors of humanity and to have set the foundation for the institution of the family. Originally, the king of the family someday would have inherited the positions of king of the country and king of the cosmos. Humanity was to have connected to the heavenly realm of the original ideal in that way and that way only.

We will establish national level kingship, because the age of indemnity is ending and we are entering the age of settlement by the process of family registration. This will develop and connect with the kingship of the world. This is why, on the occasion of True Children’s Day 2000, my husband declared that the Parents of Heaven and Earth now reign as King of the family in the Unification Church. This means that we now are able to enter the age in which families that have been registered can attend the Heavenly Parent as our King. Thus, each blessed family should be aware of its responsibility to establish the tradition of humanity attending the King of Heaven and Earth. This is the reason that the age of the church has ended and the age of the family federation has begun.

The entire universe is linked as one connected body centering on one nucleus. Each and every family should stand in the position of this nucleus. To be such, love the creation and consume it. Love all creatures that God created in love. They exist in His love, and by loving them you will fulfill the position of their true master.

You should feel as if your family is becoming one body, that your family constitutes a realm of true love before God. In that way your family will create a settlement, a cornerstone for attending the King, the Parents of Heaven and Earth. This is how you become a blessed family and inherit the realm of victory.

Steps to World Peace

Respected leaders! Now is the time for humanity voluntarily to repudiate all pride, ignorance, selfishness and hatred. Let us follow the laws of Heaven and be humble before God. Ever since God called my husband at the tender age of 16, he has committed himself totally to the realization of world peace, which has been God’s deepest wish. And at this time, I would like to set forth several crucial steps that are necessary for bringing peace to the world.

First, we are to live for the sake of others. A self-centered life not only causes discomfort to others, but also violates the laws of Heaven. Living for the sake of others, on the other hand, is the way we can resemble God. Loving our family, our community, our nation and the world is the way to inherit God’s true love. It is the way to live in accord with the fundamental order of the universe. Only through practicing true love can we become true individuals, true parents, true teachers and true Lords. Only then can we finally become the leaders who can bring about peace on Earth. A life of living for the sake of others is the first gate to peace.

In this sense, the path to peace ultimately will be based on “Godism” and “Head-Wing Ideology.” This is the teaching that can reconcile and embrace all actors in a conflict, from their thought to their fruit, by dealing with the starting point of conflict in the relationship between Cain and Abel. How can we break the chain of hatred and violence we perpetrate against one another? Returning hatred in response to hatred only leads to more hatred, terror and destruction. This is certainly not the path to peace. We can touch, educate and reconcile the conflicting parties only by true love.

True love that places God in the center disregards national boundaries; therefore it is international. True love transcends the high walls dividing religions and races; therefore it is inter-religious and inter-racial. True love centered on God’s ideal of living for the sake of others can generate the power to touch a person’s heart and spirit. By true love alone can the various reasons and causes of conflicts on Earth be overcome, whether the confrontation is between right and left, front and rear, above and below, or inner and outer. By true love alone can we establish a world of eternal peace.

Marriage as an Instrument of Peace

Second, the family is the fundamental unit for building peaceful nations and ultimately a peaceful world. As I already mentioned, the root of conflict originated in the first family. Therefore, until the family of the True Parents appears, it is impossible for us to enter the era of world peace.

The international Blessings that my husband and I promote worldwide are not the wedding ceremony of a particular religion. They are a movement to save all nations and the world. We teach youth to keep their purity before marriage and, when they reach adulthood, to marry under the Blessing of God. However, as a condition to receive the marriage Blessing, they first pledge to their spouse that they will maintain absolute trust and fidelity as husband and wife. Thus, the Blessing is a holy movement to build true families and lift up true parents who live centered on true love.

Families built upon such an ideal and such an education have no need to feel threatened by the AIDS virus. For them, preventing AIDS is easier than preventing a cold or flu. If we educate the youth of the world in this vision and practice it, we will completely eliminate the AIDS epidemic. We will eliminate the scourge of family breakdown as well.

Further, these families of true love will serve as the cornerstone for peaceful nations and a peaceful world. In particular, if individuals of enemy nations, who have lived in discord throughout history, come together in true love as in-laws, their reconciliation will bring nations and races together. It is a high wall to overcome. Nevertheless, here is the supreme formula for bringing true peace to the world: bring together children from enemy families and nations for the “Exchange Marriage Blessing.” These inter-religious and international families can build a realm of Blessing, perfecting true families of true love that both Heaven and Earth desire. From that point will begin the world of eternal peace that God and all humankind have desired.

A Challenge to Religious Leaders

Third, inter-religious reconciliation and cooperation is an essential condition for world peace. My husband and I have campaigned tirelessly for inter-religious harmony and dialogue. We always have devoted a far greater proportion of our funds for that purpose than for the growth and development of the Unification Church. Do you think that practicing such sacrificial love with an unchanging heart is easy? By no means! But we cannot expect world peace unless religious people reconcile and cooperate.

World peace is the original ideal of God. Therefore, religious leaders and believers should be the guides who lead people to peace. If religions only emphasize narrow-minded denominationalism and fail to teach true love for God and the universe, we will never free humankind from the horrors of war. In the face of this global crisis, religious leaders have to practice true love, humbly following God’s Will, walking hand in hand beyond the boundaries of their own religion.

The inner power of religion touches our hearts and can recreate us as people of peace. It can cultivate our ability to practice self-control from within. It can overcome historical hatreds and resentments among us. This is the root from which true peace and stability grow. If religions demonstrate love for each other, cooperate with each other, and serve each other, putting the higher ideal of peace ahead of their particular doctrines, rituals and cultural backgrounds, the world will change dramatically.

Beyond National Self-Interest

Fourth, I once again emphasize the proper role of the United Nations in realizing world peace. As a representative organization for world peace, the United Nations has made many contributions. It is a fact, however, that the world’s circumstances have changed and the complex situations in which nations find themselves today are unlike those at the time of the United Nations’ founding. In light of this, last year my husband and I presented proposals to solve the fundamental problems plaguing the planet Earth.

One of these proposals was to establish a special body that would discuss and evaluate the religious, spiritual and moral dimensions of world problems. The United Nations should serve the world and God’s ideal of creation effectively. To do so, it has to transcend the power of politics and national diplomacy, which reflect the motives of nations seeking their own self-interest. Only then can it truly protect the human rights of all peoples and nations and build world peace.

This imperative does not apply only to the United Nations. It will be difficult to maintain order in the world and protect public prosperity and peace as long as political sovereignty operates on the principle of national self-interest and ignores or undermines moral and spiritual values.

What is required is that high-level leaders ground themselves spiritually and morally upon God’s ideal and govern according to universal principles. No political power or earthly authority should stand above God and the laws of Heaven.

Moreover, the United Nations should listen to and embrace many of the views of the Non-Governmental Organizations. This is the reason we established WANGO. I encourage all NGOs and public service organizations, while not losing your original founding spirit, to dialogue and cooperate with one another. I request that you continue serving the world, be unselfish and stay free of corruption.

Our Historical Quest

Respected leaders! A person who only talks about world peace without practicing it is not a true leader. Given the current world situation, we cannot leisurely wait for the arrival of world peace while sitting down. It is an urgent time. God is calling each of us, the Ambassadors for Peace and everyone else, to create world peace by all means. Let us all take active roles as leaders in the movement for peace.

I wish and hope that, centered on the Peace Embassies, all service organizations national and international, including the United Nations, will participate actively in the movement for world peace. It is our historical quest.

Let us be united as one in mind and heart. Let us become pioneers for world peace, by first building ideal families of true love and living for the sake of others.

May God’s hand be upon you and bless you forever. Thank you very much.

Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon

American Speaking Tour
September, 2002

Monday 16 September 2002
Washington DC

Respected peace loving American dignitaries, ladies and gentlemen, I extend my warm greetings and gratitude to all of you for coming here this evening. You are now joining more than seventy million people worldwide including seven million in Korea and seven hundred million blessed couples in the heavenly spirit world who have participated in these gatherings for peace.

We are living in a truly historic and providential moment. This is a time of great heavenly fortune, the time when we will build the ideal world of peace that Heaven and Earth have longed to see for six thousand years. It is time to build the Kingdom of God in Heaven and on earth.

Throughout providential history, God raised various religions to arise in accordance with different historical periods and regional cultures. Working among these diverse traditions, men and women of faith have made continuous efforts to achieve a world of peace.

Yet even today, human beings groan in travail, because we are still unable to free ourselves from all manner of unethical and immoral behavior. People everywhere are dismayed to face the truth that, having failed to stem the tide of immorality, it is now rushing in with the power of a surging storm, threatening to sweep us all away in its turbulent waves. This is the tragic self-portrait of the modern human being.

Does this mean there is no hope for us eternally? My husband, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon and I have dedicated our lives to conveying the Word of God. These prophetic messages have been proven to be a true witness that transcends the earthly limitations of this age and our environment.

Today, once again, I come before you with a message from Heaven. To believe or not to believe is for each of you to decide for yourself, but I stand here firmly resolved to act in God’s stead to convey His message to the world in the time of the Last Days. The title of this message is, “God Is The Origin of Peace.”

I sincerely hope that you will open the doors of your heart. I encourage you to humbly receive Heaven’s warning to all of us living in the Last Days. In this age of ignorance and confusion, we must demonstrate wisdom.

In the beginning, human beings were created to live centered on God in the Garden of Eden, and to live in freedom and peace for eternity. However, as a result of the fall of our first ancestors Adam and Eve, the vision of this original world never became reality. Instead, from the day the fall occurred, a history of suffering and sorrow has unfolded on this earth.

God intended human beings to live with His true love and true ideals, but we were unable to grasp those ideals and did not even know what true love is. He wanted for us to sing songs of freedom and peace, and to possess the complete happiness of becoming one in heart in the presence of the Creator, and returning glory to Him. He intended us to live in an environment of perfect joy, but we lost the garden of happiness.

Tragically, we have not been able to become a holy people. Satan invaded the human family, defiling the relationships of true parents, true family and true brothers and sisters. Satan corrupted our true tribe, true society, true nation and true world.

That is not all. Satan is the one who has driven God Himself to spend the past six thousand years in a state of suffering and adversity. The fall marked the beginning of the history of death. From that day on, the earth became a world of suffering instead of a world of peace. No matter where in the world we live, we have been doomed to the way of conflict and struggle instead of peace.

Within the individual, there is continuous conflict between the mind and body. There has been conflict within families that has expanded into conflicts within nations and the whole world. Today we find there is no place on earth free of conflict. We need to come to terms with the fact that we are responsible for this history of sin. I repeat – all conflict is the result of the human fall.

If the whole world had originally grown from the good seed of a good tree and in a good environment, then without doubt, the world would today be a world of peace, a world of hope, and a world with a secure future. But this is not the case. We live in a world in which good and evil are tangled together. Even a good seed cannot bear good fruit when surrounded by an evil environment. The same is true for human beings. For humanity as a whole to be good, first it is necessary that each individual be good, but for them to bear fruit, we must create a good environment in the nation and world.

Just as creation passes through the four seasons, human history should continue eternally by revolving through cycles that are like the spring, summer, autumn and winter. Because of the fall, though, our world has never had that first moment of hope in which all humanity could take delight, the joyous springtime when we could greet the day of glory.

Cain and Abel, the children of our ancestors Adam and Eve, were not born out of God’s love. Adam and Eve were to have created God’s true lineage, but they created Satan’s false lineage instead through the act of the fall. So the children they bore were not God’s children but could only be children of the devil Satan.

Adam and Eve became the sinful ancestors of humanity, and the Bible records that they were chased out of the Garden of Eden. That is why in John 8:44, Jesus scolded the people, saying: “You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do.”

Without the fall, Adam and Eve would have received God’s words of blessing. He longed to tell them, “My beloved Adam and Eve, I created you in order to build a world fulfilling the purpose of creation, and to live in a garden of love. You are my children, and will be the masters, the parents, and the king and queen of peace and happiness.” Adam and Eve, our ancestors, were destined to stand as the everlasting true owners, true parents, and true king and queen of both the earthly world and the heavenly world.

Then what was it that pushed human beings onto the path of the tragic fall? The fall took place when human beings took a self-centered view of themselves, instead of obeying God’s Word. Today, the fruit of the fall is seen clearly in the extremes of selfish thinking and behavior that rage around us with impunity.

I am speaking of the reprehensible behavior of people routinely seeking their own benefit and convenience regardless of the position and situation of others. I refer to the shameless attitudes of people trying to save themselves without concern as to whether others live or die. These are examples of the type of behavior that brought about the fall.

This is certainly not the type of behavior planned by God at the time of creation. God did not desire to bring about such a world, and we did not want to be born into such a world.

Therefore, God has set His purpose to clear away this tragic, sorrowful and painful history and return to the world of peace, happiness, freedom, and goodness that He originally desired. He is working to set this fallen world right. This is the path of restoration and the path of the providence of salvation.

As the descendants of Adam and Eve, all humankind is fallen. But within each of us there still exists an original mind or conscience that is directed back toward the original world. This is why people throughout history have always desired and longed for the world God originally wanted to create. This long-cherished desire remains today as an ideal that cannot be extinguished or ignored.

God has carried out His providence again and again, in each historical period, so that He could inspire fallen human beings to return to His ideal with a new heart. Finally, we need a Savior, for if no central person capable of moving Heaven and Earth with these ideals appears, then true freedom, peace, and other ideals will never come about. Humanity will be fated to endure an endless path of sorrow and indemnity of celestial proportions.

In these circumstances, God cannot appear to us in glory, peace or freedom, and the path of restoration cannot be an easy one. God appears in the midst of difficulties, and to meet Him we must first make ourselves a sacrificial offering. This is because the path of restoration is the way of indemnity.

This means that until we are able to wipe away the sorrow in God’s heart and dissolve all the grievances there, we cannot hope to accomplish peace among humanity, much less see God’s ideal of creation bear fruit on earth. Since we caused God’s pain through the fall, we are responsible to liberate Him from the burden of grief that weighs like a massive stone in His heart.

But who among us is truly thinking like that today? Even the most devout believers in Jesus are blind and deaf to this truth, thinking that they will simply be saved. However, as fallen human beings, we need to return to the state before the fall.

Having lost God, we must go back to the state of grace we would have been in had we never lost Him. Having lost the True Parents of humanity, we must return to the position we would have been had we not lost them. We must return to live in a garden of peace centered on God and True Parents as their children.

What strategy does the omniscient and almighty God use to change this hellish world into a world of peace? We need to be reminded that in order to accomplish this purpose, God has endured a history of sacrifice and bloodshed, and suffered through wearisome religious rituals and rules. This history is referred to as the providence of salvation, or the providence of restoration.

Originally, if human beings had not fallen, our mind and body, being centered on God’s love, would not contradict each other. Because of the fall, however, the mind and body came to stand in opposing positions. Even if it were possible to somehow arrive at an ideal world, without each individual solving this problem and establishing a true standard of heart, even living in the ideal world of one’s dreams would be meaningless.

The Absolute Being, who is the Lord of Creation, created the entire universe to love and to become one with Him. Human beings, the highest among created beings, are to stand in the position of lords of creation. To do this, we must be able to incarnate God’s heart. Becoming one with God’s heart does more than establish the parent-child relationship between God and ourselves. It is also the link connecting humanity with the rest of creation.

In restoring the ideal world of peace, the world of the original ideal of creation, it is first necessary to establish certain conditions. We must go through the process of restoration through indemnity.

What is meant by restoration through indemnity? Whenever something or someone loses its original position and state of being, it cannot be restored to its original position and status without first paying a certain price. The setting of such conditions is referred to as restoration through indemnity.

If there were only Heaven and Earth, God and us, we would not need the word “indemnity.” It is there because of Satan, who caused our first ancestors to fall. If Satan did not exist, there would be no need for indemnity. There would also be no need for the phrase, “unity of religions,” which we now proclaim with all our might, nor would we need expressions such as “the liberation of God,” or “the liberation of humanity.”

The fall brought about the destruction of human life and turned history into a record of anguish and failure, a chronicle of war. In order to wipe away this history and unravel all the fundamental problems, God needs to establish anew the original starting point. He does this through a person who can live a life of true love for the sake of God, humanity and all creation. This is the mission of the Messiah.

What did Jesus do when he was on this earth? Although he was persecuted and died on the cross, he truly loved humanity. Jesus left this world giving the supreme example of love on the cross. Throughout his life, Jesus never said he wanted to receive love. Rather, he said that he came to serve, and that he would love even his enemies. Without that kind of love, we cannot find the origin of peace; and without the origin of peace, we cannot establish a world of peace.

The world of peace can never come to exist as long as we focus only on receiving love. Our own parents are not our only parents, nor are our physical siblings our only brothers and sisters. Even our own children are not our only children. Once we become people of true character, we will come to feel every person is our parent, sibling or child, and we will want to treat them as such. We will not be able to look at all the people now wandering in the world of death without tears coming to our eyes.

When you see young people thrashing around in a quagmire of drugs and debauchery, you will feel compelled to devote your full heart and soul to saving them, as if they were your own children. This is a manifestation of the love that unconsciously and naturally seeks to give rather than receive.

Unity is another prerequisite of freedom and peace. Consider the life of a husband and wife. If the two have not become one, how can they enjoy the freedom of husband and wife in a true sense? If a husband and wife are not one, then there is no hope for harmony in the family. Peace in the family will be an impossible dream.

A person blasphemes God if he stands before the unchanging God and says he will become a changeable person. We blaspheme love if we stand in the presence of His unchanging love and practice a changing love. The foundation for peace begins in our own hearts when we share both sorrow and joy with God. From there, we can expand the base of freedom and happiness in the world.

For this reason, a religious movement must arise on this earth that teaches us to achieve complete mastery over the body, and is able to unify the people of the world. Jesus started such a movement.

Please bear in mind that these words are a warning from God proclaimed to humanity wading through the turbid waters of a corrupt world in the Last Days. We are all called to fulfill this task of restoration. It is our destiny. We can never escape our destiny which is Heaven’s absolute command.

I think that everyone, at some point in life, searches for the origin of peace and happiness. From where do peace and happiness really come? They do not originate from America, or Korea, or the United Nations. The crucial issue is how we human beings, whose minds and bodies are in conflict, can come to embrace a true view of the universe and find peace and happiness in our own hearts.

In our own hearts, the remnants of a 6,000-year long war between good and evil continue to flare. The First World War was fierce, as was the Second World War. Such wars, though, were relatively small occurrences in a much larger conflict. Neither of them lasted more than five years.

Yet the struggle between mind and body that goes on within each of us is the worst kind of war. It is a war that knows no end and whose inevitable result speeds us on to ruin. Everyone feels the torment of this struggle in his or her own life. The confrontation between mind and body is a fierce battle of good versus evil representing the eternal struggle between God and Satan.

Because of this conflict, the true human image has been hidden away in a dense fog and trapped behind a high fence. We must generate a wind of truth and love that is strong enough to blow away the fog. We must tear down the mighty wall in ourselves that stands so high as to pierce the sky. The course of overcoming this struggle is our destiny.

To win this battle, we must overcome the desires of the body such as sleep, greed, and unprincipled sexual desire. When he set out on his course, my husband Reverend Moon declared his personal motto, “Before seeking dominion over the universe, first control your own self.” And this is how he has lived throughout his life.

We must be honest about the state of the world and of our nation today. The Bible says that in the Last Days the hearts of men will grow cold, and that humanity will live like orphans. It also predicts that nations will flounder in confusion and despair. Have you ever experienced true peace in your heart, even for a moment? Does our nation have a true master?

Where are the true patriots who truly love this country and its people to the extent that they are willing to offer their lives to bring about peace? Who can put forward a philosophy or ideology with the power to save the young people of this country, who are sick and spiritually declining? Their plight is truly pitiful, and we cannot but feel intense grief over them.

All of this goes back to the fact that each of us has been unable to establish a standard of one heart, one body and one thought within ourselves. Without mind-body unity, how can we hope for harmony in the family or peace in the country or the world?

Throughout the ages, our original minds have longed for peace, happiness, and unification. The problem has always been our physical body, which is at war with the desire of the mind. Yet our flesh is the container that holds our mind, so we cannot just discard it whenever we want. The important thing is how we handle this physical body, whose impulses and directions change minute by minute.

After the fall, the body became Satan’s dwelling place. As the apostle Paul laments in Romans 7:23-25, “I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

When we look honestly within ourselves, we can all see these elements of good and evil. Our mind or conscience is oriented toward good, but our body pulls in the opposite direction, toward evil. If we cannot resolve this conflict of mind and body, then sin will indeed torment us for eternity. This is true even for so great a saint as Paul.

Ladies and Gentlemen: What is the true way to world peace? War cannot be the answer. Wealth, power or knowledge are not the solution either. Nor can it be done with the political or diplomatic power of the United Nations. Nothing can be expected from the forum of the United Nations as long as its primary considerations are the desires of selfish individuals and the national interest of each member state.

As long as fallen nature remains within us, it does not matter how much we may sing of our ideals or call out for peace; history will always be riddled with struggle and turmoil. That is why we conclude that we will not find the path to peace until we have pulled out this fallen nature by the root.

The way to world peace does not lie far off at the ends of the earth, but rather will be found only in the place where each of us is able to unify our divided mind and body. The wider the gap between a person’s mind and body, the greater the struggle and the resulting pain.

The mind is God’s sentry post, while the body is Satan’s frontline. We need to narrow the gap between the mind and body, and finally unify them as one.

To pull out our deeply rooted fallen nature that was inherited from our false parents, we need True Parents. They alone are able to remove Satan’s false lineage. We must meet the True Parents, and achieve mind-body oneness and unity of thought by learning from them how to practice true love and to live a life for the sake of others.

Ladies and Gentlemen, look at the world. There are so many problems. They begin with struggles between mind and body, husband and wife, and go all the way to conflicts and wars among nations. They can be traced to countless causes. But if we dig down to the root cause we will always arrive at the problems between mind and body, and man and woman.

The history of human suffering itself began with a false relationship between a man and a woman. Disharmony within the family quickly develops into various problems in the society and then the world.

If we could just resolve the problems involving men and women in every family, every society and country, and on the worldwide level, and establish one model, then the world would be able to unite as a world of peace. It would be the ideal world of the original creation.

God originally wanted a world of true peace to take root on this earth centering on our first ancestors, Adam and Eve. If they had not fallen but had grown according to God’s will and perfected their character, they would have received God’s blessing, formed an ideal family, and built the ideal Kingdom of Heaven free of evil and pain.

That would have been an eternal world of peace. From generation to generation, humanity would have enjoyed a life of happiness. We would be able to communicate directly with God as His direct sons and daughters, and to commune freely with our ancestors in Heaven. It would have become a world in which good would have absolute dominion, and people would be incapable of sinning.

Human history began on the wrong foot, but our Heavenly Father did not forsake us. Instead, for six thousand years, God has devoted His heart and soul for the sake of finding His lost children. Not once has He regretted that He created human beings. He has never been discouraged in the face of Satan’s ability to have his way. With single-minded devotion, God has worked with true love and forgiveness to carry out the providence of restoration.

It is not by mere circumstance that we are able to study and learn a little more deeply about God today than we could before. We need to be grateful for Heaven’s grace, and to our ancestors who guided us to this truth.

Our utmost task is to perfect our character through the oneness of mind and body, to set right the families that have splintered under Satan’s rule, and to establish restored true families.

God’s hope is to dwell eternally with a family that is united through three generations. The greatness of true love is that it enables us to become God’s object partners and also enables God to become one with us. The ideal family attends the grandparents as they would attend Heaven, shows absolute obedience to the parents, and creates children through the absolute relationship of a husband and wife who raise their children in purity and without sin. When we do this, our families will attain a unity of heart with God and become the birthplace of eternal happiness and peace.

Ladies and Gentlemen, human beings were originally created so that our mind and body would respond to God’s true love and form oneness. Many people on the earth today, however, live in ignorance of the role of the mind. They do not know that the mind actually is the basis upon which we can develop the character that can find peace centering on God’s love. There is enough room in every human mind to embrace God.

Any person who comes to have such a righteous mind will want to move all people at once into the palace of peace. Because human beings are God’s children created in His image, we all possess the potential to be free of mind-body conflict and to establish the origin of true unification in ourselves.

There is no possibility of contradiction or conflict within God, the Absolute Being. His divine character is reflected throughout creation, and in the dual structure of mind and body and male and female in human beings. God exists in a state of having formed absolute and total unification within Himself. So it stands to reason that human beings, who were created to resemble God, the Great King of all creation, must also have the ability to achieve the full unification of mind and body.

Yet as a result of the fall, human beings lost the standard of harmony and unification between the mind and body and live instead in a quagmire of struggle and contradiction.

It is nearly impossible to live a life where the mind has total control over the body in a world in which the forces of evil are rampant. That is why God in His wisdom has permitted the necessary and appropriate religions to arise for the sake of saving fallen humanity, giving consideration to every age, culture, regional environment and circumstance.

Throughout history human beings have tried to follow the teachings of religion and to steadily pioneer the path of life centered on the mind. We have learned the path of self-denial, and how to place our hope in the eternal world and not be attached to the present reality.

In Christianity, for example, we are taught to focus on God’s kingdom and His righteousness, not this world. The scriptures warn us not to be selfish or to seek to live lavishly in this world. Christianity has always emphasized peace that originates in the world of the mind and heart.

A good illustration of this is Jesus’ teaching, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” This concept of the Kingdom of Heaven has nothing to do with worldly affluence or power, and is echoed in many other faiths. Buddha’s declaration, “In all of Heaven and Earth, I alone am the most honored one,” can also be understood in the same context.

Methods may differ from one religion to another, but the mission of all religions is to strengthen the internal hope and aspirations of human beings. They guide us to examine ourselves and to live a life where the mind subjugates the body. In this way, God has carried on His providence for human salvation through religion for six thousand long years.

But the fact is, until now no religious leader or sage has been able to show us how to completely overcome the conflict between mind and body and bring about eternal unification and lasting peace. No one could teach us how to conquer the body once and for all by centering on the mind.

No one could show us where we could find the true standard for peace. No one could bring us to that point of complete unity where parents become eternally one, and husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, parents and children and all one’s relatives can all become eternally united as one.

Now, however, the time for peace has come! Heaven’s long wait has ended. We are living in the final moment of the Last Days of human history. Heaven cannot extend or allow any further delay of the providence for human salvation.

This is because the True Parents, whom Heaven and Earth have hoped would come and have longed to see, are now on this earth. They are taking all responsibility upon themselves and are successfully completing the providence of restoration. In the world entangled in chaos and debauchery, they are establishing an order of true love.

Ladies and Gentlemen: It is said, that those who believe will be blessed. My husband, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, and I, who are bringing this truth of Heaven to you, are standing as the True Parents.

The philosophy and thought of True Parents revealed to Reverend Moon is a truth that promises peace to humanity. Both communism and democracy have tried and failed to bring peace. The thought that will prevail is “Godism,” the philosophy and tradition of “living for the sake of others”. Only this sacrificial way of life based on Heavenly Parentism is capable of leading us to eternal life and peace.

In this way, we will come to the amazing realization that, as God’s reciprocal partner of love, we will come to possess a value even greater than God’s. We should praise God for this. This love is the only way that we can at last connect to the eternal world of peace. It is the starting point of eternal life in the Kingdom of God on earth and in Heaven.

In our capacity as the True Parents of humanity, my husband and I have already unified the entire spirit world. We are receiving messages of support and unity from the Founders of the four great religions centering on Jesus, including Buddha, Confucius and Muhammad, and from 120 major disciples of each of these leaders. They sent these messages after having studied our teachings in the Divine Principle and Unification Thought seminars in the spirit world. They are filled with hope, and feel immense gratitude toward the True Parents.

Even Communist leaders from around the world who have gone to the spirit world, beginning with Marx and Lenin, have completed the Divine Principle seminar in accordance with True Parents’ command. They too are sending messages soaked with tears of repentance and deep lamentation.

All of these people in the spiritual world now have only one hope. This is that their believers and followers will accept the teachings of the True Parents as quickly as possible, work for peace, and prepare themselves for their eternal life.

Their messages implore us not to waste our precious, fleeting time on earth, but to prepare wisely for life in the spirit world, where all people will live together for eternity after casting off our physical body.

What does this mean for men and women now living on earth?

First, it means that all people – men and women, young and old, rich and poor alike – must believe in the unequivocal fact that God is actually alive and is working His Will. We must not think of Him only conceptually. God is watching our every step and every act with eyes of fire, bright with expectation.

God is waiting for the day when all human beings who left His bosom and went to Satan will repent and return to Him. Long ago, he painted a picture of what it will be like when the prodigal child, who once left Him, returns to the Father with tears of repentance. Now His urgent request is that we actually do this. God wants us to comfort and attend the True Parents, who still remain on earth and walk the path of blood, sweat and tears for the sake of human restoration.

God’s desperate hope is that we will receive the warning that He gives in these Last Days with a serious heart, correct the errors of our lives, and live in a way that we will not regret later.

Second, we are being warned that we must accept as fact the existence of the spirit world, and live every aspect of our lives in accordance with heavenly law. God is sternly telling us to discover our higher selves, develop a more advanced spiritual nature, and establish a world of peace on this earth without delay.

God is watching us. Tens of thousands of wise men and women together with all of our ancestors are watching our daily life. When we realize this for a surety, how will you be able to go against heavenly law?

Soon, you too will begin having spiritual experiences. The time has come when your ancestors will be mobilized to directly observe and guide your life, and even your thoughts. The numerous Unification members, who believe in and follow the True Parents’ teachings, are already experiencing this state of life.

Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you again for coming here this evening. You are truly blessed, because you are able to live in the historic and providential age when the Messiah, the True Parents of humankind, have returned to earth.

This is the time when North and South Korea and all other nations will be unified, not by guns and knives but by love and truth. This is the time when all the religions of the world will become one under the guidance of the True Parents, and when all the sages and ancestors in spirit world will come down to earth to live with us and communicate directly with us.

I would like to conclude this address by urging all humanity to fulfill the responsibility to which we have been called by uniting to build a world of peace that transcends race, ideology, and national boundaries.

I pray that God’s boundless blessings will come upon your family and nation in abundance.

Thank you very much.