The Will and I
Sun Myung Moon
April 1, 1988 Belvedere
Translator - Col. Sang Kil Han
The whole of humanity, as well as the
animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, has a certain mission to fulfill.
Since God is the Creator, He must have a certain plan or pattern for what He
wants to accomplish, according to His will. However, we often feel that we
would like to do things only the way we want to do them, according to our own
will. There is no difference between the races as far as this feeling goes.
Oriental or Westerner, rich or poor, everyone has the urge to do as they like.
There are many different classes and
levels of people among the five billion people of the world, from the lofty to
the lowly. We all think we exist separately or independently from other people
or groups, but we do not exist that way. Americans are ancestrally connected to
Britain, Europe, and Africa. Beyond that, we are connected to all of history.
We are not alone. We are not independent. Have you ever stopped to think that
your eyes are not yours alone? Your father's eyes, your mother's eyes, your
grandparents' eyes, and all your ancestors' eyes are in your eyes. They are a
part of all history.
When we go out on the street in the
springtime, we see women dressed in all different colors, shapes, and designs.
Each one wants to stand out from the crowd and be unique, doesn't she? People
like to feel, "I do not belong to anyone. I am completely independent. I
don't have to be influenced by anyone." But to think like that is to no
avail, because it just isn't so.
While every one of us exists as
"I," as an individual, we are never alone and independent or detached
from others. We are a part of the whole of mankind, the whole line of history,
and "I" exist in the center of that.
We All Have a
Proper Place
Let us consider that we are all like works
of art in an exhibition. If the world is a museum, then "I" am one of
the exhibits. Each exhibit must stay in his position. No matter how valuable an
object is, or no matter how valuable an individual may be, if he does not stay
where he is supposed to and wanders around according to his own will, he is
immediately valueless because he is not serving his purpose.
We all have a proper place and should not
go just anywhere we feel. If I stay where I am supposed to stay and go in the
direction true human beings are supposed to go, then I, as a representative of
all human beings, will be cherished by the universe.
Leaders should be in the leaders'
position. If a leader leaves his position on his own and goes somewhere else,
he loses his value. He is the same person, but if he is in a different
position, he is not as valuable there. When a leader leaves his proper place
and goes the wrong way, the other people feel, "I wish he wasn't my
leader." In the same way, parents have certain expectations of their
children. They want their child to do what he is supposed to do and become
successful in life. But what if that child becomes involved with the wrong
things and makes trouble all the time? The parents might think, "Oh, I
wish that child wasn't mine." Is it because the parent is unloving that he
thinks this way? No. We can understand that parent's heart. It is because the
parent knows universal law; he knows which way his child should go. His
original mind and conscience know, and when that child goes astray, he feels a
great deal of pain.
This situation extends to the society and
national level. Even a country is supposed to go in a certain direction. If it
doesn't, we may wish that country just didn't exist. Look at the powerful
communist countries. A few decades ago, some people briefly thought that
communism was the highest ideology, but time has proven that communism is not
going in the direction of mankind's ideals. Now they are saying,
"Communism must contain itself; it must not spread." Even many of the
communist countries themselves think that communism should be dissolved.
Why is this? It is because the conscience
of each individual human being knows the original way he is supposed to go. We
always have to check and make sure we are in the right position. If we are not,
either we correct our position or our position is eliminated. We have to
constantly ask ourselves, "Am I standing in a position where I will never
be eliminated?" Do you have the confidence to say, "Yes, Father. I am
where I am supposed to be. I am very sure about that. I must stay where I am
because the world needs me and the universe needs me." This is a serious
matter. Some people are not sure, so they have to find out where their leader
wants them go. But suppose there is a person who is constantly checking himself
and striving to go in the right direction, the unmistakable direction. He
continually tries to bring himself more and more closely into the true
position. Such a person is destined to be a leader of the rest of mankind.
What is the true way? The Orient has produced
many saints. Confucius, Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed all came from the East. But
who is the saint of all saints? Christians would say Jesus, but wouldn't the
Buddhists say Buddha? This could be confusing. Are there many different paths a
human being must go? What if those four saints got together and tried to
determine whose way was better. One thing they wouldn't say is, "My way is
best." Instead they would each say, "I will ask Heaven and see which
direction is the best of all." That is the difference between saints and
ordinary people.
What about someone from the secular world?
How would they come up with the best idea? They would probably form a Board of
Directors and hire representatives. They would analyze their findings and come
to a certain conclusion. Their answer may be right for a season. They may be
right for that time in history, but for all other times it may not apply.
The founding fathers of America agreed
upon a system of democracy. They saw very clearly that democracy was the only
thing that would work. They tried to be very conscientious in creating their
constitution and then they asked God if it was right. When they got the answer
that it was, they ratified it. But that was 200 years ago. Look how much the
environment has changed since then. Is what the people decided 200 years ago
exactly right for now? Impossible. The American people should be constantly
going back to God and saying, "Are we still all right?" Yet has there
ever been a president who asked God exactly how to do things? No. Not here or
anywhere. Pragmatism has always served the immediate purpose. Pragmatism means
doing not what God decides but what man decides is the most practical thing in
the moment. We cannot be satisfied with pragmatism. We know there is something
higher. Shouldn't we abandon secularism and humanism in hopes of reaching
something more lasting and enduring?
When each of the four saints started out,
each was quite confident that he was going in the most righteous direction. But
eventually each came to realize that his way was not perfect after all. Today,
the followers of each of these saints are fighting bitterly amongst themselves
and against each other. That is proof enough that none of their ways is the
ultimate way. Then how shall we resolve this? Where can we find the true way?
We have to go back to Heaven and ask God what we should do.
More Precious
Than Scripture
Why did I come to America? It is very
simple. I knew that while the direction Christianity was going may have been
right once, it is no longer adequate. The people need to be shown a higher way,
a way that represents human beings and history more fully. The people need to
be uplifted so that America can serve as a leader of the entire world. I came
to America to provide that impetus. What if the four saints got together for a
conference and, with God as the chairman, discussed how the world should be?
First, there would be a debate, with each saint explaining his own view. Do you
think they would come to a conclusion as to which was the true way in one
month's time? How about a year's time? If God and the saints were at the
conference table year after year with still no consensus, they would get
exhausted and give up, wouldn't they?
Then would God, who is also getting tired
of the conference, say, "Well, since we can't come to an agreement, I'll
make the decision?" No. The four saints would say, "God, You can't go
against the law of Your own creation, the law of man's responsibility."
God would admit, "Okay, you're right. You four saints represent all of
humankind, so you decide. Tell me, what do you think are the most significant
teachings?" Jesus might say, "The Bible is the utmost
direction-giver. Without the Bible we could never follow the true way of
life." Then Mohammed might say, "No, we must decide everything based
on the Koran." Then there would be even more serious debates. But think
about it. What is more important and significant than those holy books? You
Unification Church members are saints or near-saints or should be. What is more
significant than the Bible, the Koran, or any book? What is the point about
which all the saints would say, "Yes, I agree that that is the most
important thing of all?"
Yes, it's true love. No one would oppose
this. Even Satan knows this. The most important things are true love, true
life, and true living. People have been so serious about the Koran and the
Bible, yet the purpose of these books was to lead people to a conscientious way
of life, the true way of life. The books themselves are not the goal.
Suppose these three things -- true love,
true life, and true living -- came up for consideration as the most important
things in the world. Would you, Confucius, and Jesus all vote for them? Yes,
and all five billion people in the world would agree about these three points.
Do you think anyone would find any objection to this conclusion, saying,
"That's not enough?" Not likely.
How about God? Would God reject that
conclusion? No, even God would have to agree. But should God say first,
"This is what I know you need?" Or should the four saints go to God
and say, "God, there is nothing more precious than this. This is what we
are longing for. Please give it to us."
The True Love
Direction
Today's topic is "The Will and
I." What is the will of God, anyway? The will of God is that man should
stand in a certain position and go in a certain direction -- the true love
direction. That is what God wanted to express from the very beginning. If
saints leave their position and go in a deviated direction, they no longer have
anything to do with God or God's will. If the saints do not become one with the
will of God, can they remain in the position of saints?
Imagine that the Unification Church is a
big exhibition center where all the different things that God wants to see are
exhibited. Shouldn't a person on display stay where he is supposed to stay and
go in the direction he is supposed to go? Here is the American museum. But
suppose the museum moves to Korea and all the objects have to be moved to the
Korean museum. Will the objects say, "No, I don't want to go to the Korean
museum. I am fine in the American museum?" What if the display were to go
to Africa. Would the objects say, "No, I would rather not go to the
African museum?" The purpose of the display is to show the whole world. If
that person on display says such things, is that person connected with God's
will or has he failed?
As a human being, actually as a saint, we
must say, "There is a way I must go. There is a way I must follow, whether
it be straight or winding. Whatever I may personally feel about it, still I am
destined to go that way."
It is very hard to know God and stay with
God, but at least we know the head of the museum, who can tell us where we are
supposed to be. There are many religions and some are very good, but who is
qualified to be the head of the museum of religion? All of the religions of the
world have been separated. They have been fighting and they have been confused,
but there is one that spends millions and millions of dollars plus time, effort
and prayer to bring all the world's religions together.
In the religious world, people are saying
that the only hope of the religious world is Rev. Moon. He has brought
religious people to the point where they would rather worship together than
apart. What is the purpose of the Unification Church? Is it to separate
Buddhism from Christianity or to divide the Christian churches? No. The purpose
of the Unification Church, of course, is to bring all the churches together
into one.
Many churches still insist merely on the
truth of their own scripture. But there is one church that places much more
importance upon these three things -- true love, true life, and true living.
Would God go to a place where utmost importance is put on doctrine or would He
follow us here? Why? Because when people come here, they can always find their
rightful position -- being an object to the true subject, God.
Perpetual
Circular Motion
Once you have correctly established the
position of subject and object, you can always talk to God. You are free in
this position of object to God, and you can find real peace and security there.
You are provided for; you have no worries. As long as you take these three
things seriously, then you don't have to worry about anything else, because
this is the will of God.
As you have noticed, the words
"life," "love," and "living" are all abstract
nouns. They do not have a shape. Therefore, God took time and great pains to
make physical things out of His ideas. Men and women were created by God with
substantial, physical bodies to be the embodiment of true love, true life, and
true living.
Did God inject true life and love into man
or did man inject it into God? God did it, therefore, He is the subject body.
He is the center of being, the one who exists totally for the sake of others.
This is the way God intended it. This is the philosophy that the Unification
Church is teaching -- the philosophy of living for the sake of others. This is
very, very important; this is the very essence of God's ideal.
What is true life? God is the center of
life, and He invested His own life into the creation. That is true life. God
invested Himself completely, not halfway. He did not keep some back. That is
what "true" means. True life means that God has completely placed
Himself into others.
True life is direct. It allows for no
deviation. But if you just continue going straight ahead and never return,
there can be no ideal. The ideal exists where there is perpetual circular
motion, going out and coming back again and again, forever. With true life
alone there can be no ideal. You need a response, or else there is no eternity.
But true love has the power to make you turn around, so when you add true love
to true life, the ideal is created. Look at little children -- they never want
to just go in a straight line even for a minute. They want to go around and
around. Aren't you that way too?
Why is love so precious and necessary?
Because love brings you your object or subject. Why did God inject such
preciousness-His own self and life -- into man? Isn't it because God also needs
love? Does God take pleasure in always pulling you in one direction? Doesn't He
need some response? When He pulls on you, wouldn't He want you to pull back on
Him?
God invested in us until He had nothing
left. He emptied Himself completely. That is the nature of being true. So we
should give something back to Him, shouldn't we? How? By living for the sake of
others. When you live for the sake of others, there is a force always coming
back and igniting love.
Invest Yourself
Totally
This is how God is: God invests everything
into a being, and then that being experiences love. Then that explosive love
will be returned back to the original Being who made all that investment. God
created everything according to this principle.
Since God gave everything to man, a man
should want to give everything to a woman. Then the woman will want to give
everything back to the man, and the man will want to give everything back to
God. Things are created that way. When this give and take action takes place in
a lively way, then the two will come into complete unity and never separate.
That is the focal point of God's love. When a man and woman are really in love
and live in love, God is living there too. That is the most ideal place, the
nucleus.
This is the secret of a subject-object
relationship, the secret of being a spouse. Pour your love into your spouse;
live for the sake of your spouse; do things for his sake, day after day. When
he gets saturated, he may say, "Why are you doing all this? I don't want
this," and he may even want to escape. But if you continue loving him, he
will turn around and return your love. Love will grow. That is the Principle of
Creation.
What are saints? Saints are the ones who
are ahead of other people in realizing, practicing, and teaching this
principle. In other words, saints are people who have expanded this realm of
living for the sake of others. It's all part of the law of the creation. We
must go and we must love. We must put all our love and everything we have into
our families, into other people, and into the nation. This is the course we
have to follow. Then this living principle will just go around and around and
expand throughout space.
There is only one way for us to go. I, as
an individual, must love my spouse and then bring all of society into oneness
and later meet God. Then I will fall in love with God and jump into that love
and live happily day by day. When I will really be living for the sake of other
people, the society, and the nation.
If you are trying to find love, you are
misguided. You cannot "find" love. It goes against the process of the
law of creation to look for love. You have to invest yourself first. Have you
done that? Have your poured your love into your spouse? Love is bound to come
back to you as much as you have poured your life into the other. When that
happens, love starts coming back.
We are establishing this tradition here on
earth for the first time in history. I have lived for the sake of leaving this
tradition behind. My life has been absolutely consistent with the will of God.
I always invest myself wholeheartedly. I spare nothing. I always search out how
I can give even more. Then all things start to follow me. At that point
ownership begins. That is when you start to truly own things.
A husband and
wife may think they love each other and say they love each other, but they need
to be patient with each other. If one disagrees with the other and gets
offended and they start quarreling, that is obviously not love. Love emerges
when we want to put our whole life into the relationship so there is nothing
more to put in. After that love starts coming back. Then there is no more
quarrelling.
The more we love, the more love and
ownership will come to us. That is the living, daily philosophy of the
Unification Church. When we practice this, we are guaranteed to be on the right
path. Even if we do not realize where we are going, we are going in the right
direction. Imagine a big family with many, many brothers and sisters and uncles
and aunts and in-laws. Who is going to be the center of that family, the master
of that house, in the future? It will be the person who invests the most into
that family. It will be the person who gives everything he has for the sake of
the other family members day in and day out without expecting anything in
return. You can predict who is going to be the center of that household and be
the true owner of everything. Everyone and everything will want to belong to
that person.
We know we must love the world, but that
concept is too vague. How do we love? This is something that Unification Church
members must know. We have to put our life totally into what we are doing. This
is what God has done for us. If we do that all things will want to belong to
us. In order to own everything with love, give. Give all you have. This is our
credo.
Don't say, "Where is love?"
Don't say, "My husband must love me," or "I expect love from my
wife." If you do, peace and love can never be realized within your family.
There is no love until we put our love in. Do you understand? This is an
amazing truth. On an individual level all the way up to the national level, we
must love unto our very lives. If you put in everything you have, your
investment will return as love towards you. How wonderful that is!
If you want to be a true mother or true
father, you must ask yourself how much you have loved your children in a
righteous way. Children who are loved absolutely will never want to leave you,
even if you scold them. When everything comes back to you and wants to be owned
by you, you can live happily every day. That is the ideal. God loves us, but we
have to love God too. All things belong to God, and if we love God, all things
also belong to us. There is no other way to own anything in the universe except
through loving God. If we love God, we begin to own things.
Your Own Mind
Knows
How do you know if you have invested
everything? Your own mind knows before anyone tells you. You know whether you
have given your 100 percent or not. Nobody needs to tell you. In the spirit
world you will not be able to pretend, because everything will be revealed.
Daily living for the sake of each other is the ideal. There is no other way you
can find the ideal. Did you know that God tries to love even Satan? That is the
amazing reality we must learn.
Every day I am so excited that I hate it
when one day ends. I can't wait until the next day dawns. That kind of
excitement is the ideal way. Unless and until we put everything we have into
what we are doing, we cannot realize true joy. Just put in more and more
everyday without thinking what will be returned. Then you will always have more
and more -- never less. I have always followed this formula.
At the last moment you may feel you have
done enough. Then insist on putting in one more bit of effort. This one step
makes all the difference. When love owns you, you can't oppose it. You have to
belong to somebody. How can you object to belonging to someone who truly loves
you?
Do you think I'm a happy person? Why do
you think so? Because I know that in the future, even Satan, even the
communists, will not be able to oppose me. How can they oppose me when I love
them?
What is the will of God? It is to fulfill
the ideal of creation, which is to form a four position foundation and live for
the sake of others. When you do so, all the love ownership comes back to God.
If you fulfill this, you will have lived the will of God. Such a couple will be
an ideal family and live happily ever after. This is the nucleus through which
the whole world can be connected. The world is an extension of such a family.
The ideal life is putting everything we
have into our ideal. No country will oppose this way of life; therefore, we can
go anywhere and be welcome. This is the ideal; his is the will of God; and this
is our philosophy. If we really live this philosophy, won't the world become
the ideal world?
The secular world today has its
philosophy: "I want to be loved. I'm going to take whatever I can
get." With that philosophy, there can never be unity or peace. The
Unification Church's teaching and God's formula is to live for the sake of
other people. Then automatically, the world will come into unity.
How can we say that it will automatically
come into unity? Because God lives that way. If we live that way, our unity
becomes broader and broader. God lives the way I have described, and we are
about to live the same way. This is the way I have always lived. There is no
other way; there is no other secret but this. The proof is striking. Now we all
see that the ideal world is at hand.
Do you say, "Oh, I expect the ideal
world will come pretty soon. I don't need make any effort to live in that kind
of world. When I die, I will go to heaven." If we think like that, we are
no better than thieves. What is a thief? He doesn't work, yet he takes
everything. You have to realize that you have come thus far because of the investment
of True Parents. Without that investment, you would not be able to participate
in God's world.
Not With Shame
But Dignity
If we do not do enough, how can we stand
in front of God? Our conscience will not permit us to. One thing we should
never be in the future is ashamed of ourselves. I have always lived conscious
of the fact that I could never lead a life I was ashamed of.
We need salvation. This is a very real
situation. We want to be saved, and we will be saved, not with shame but with
dignity. We cannot eat as we like; we cannot sleep as we like; we cannot say
and do things as we like when there is the possibility that later we might be
ashamed of that action. At this very moment, our brothers and sisters are
losing their lives in the hands of Satan. How can we be complacent?
You must not just borrow this way of
thinking and this way of life from me, but you must make it your own. You must
be proud of the concept itself and live this life just as I do so that you can
become true descendants. I do not just think this way, I live way. It is not
just words; it is actions.
Now we know how we will achieve salvation
and how we can be saved with dignity, without shame. We are all individual
messiahs of love. When we practice love, love will come back to us, with
ownership. That is reality.
Plant love and you will never perish. You
may suffer, but you will never perish or be ashamed. Do you understand? Those
who say, "Father, I understand deeply now and I will live the way of
love," raise your hands. Let us pray.
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