DEVELOPMENT OF CIVILIZATION SEEN FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF THE PRINCIPLE, REVEREND SUN MYUNG MOON

FOUNDER'S ADDRESS 

FEDERATION OF CONTINENTAL NATIONS
FOR WORLD PEACE -- NORTH AMERICA
INAUGURAL CONVENTION

August 31, 1996

Meadowlands Hilton, Secaucus, New Jersey

congratulate you on your labors for the welfare of humankind and the realization of a peaceful world. I hope that this conference, convened with less than four years remaining in the twentieth century, can be a fruitful forum of discussion clarifying and expanding our hope for a peaceful world. I would like to share with you my thoughts on the realization of world peace and the ultimate human ideal.

I grew up on the Korean peninsula, where people suffered greatly as major powers fought over ideology and resources. Since my childhood, I have sought desperately to find answers to questions about life and the universe. I came to know the living God through my experiences with Him, and to know that God is the Lord of true love who has been present with humankind throughout history. I could not believe that God would have planned and created a world in which evil, conflict and war prevail. I do not have time to speak at length about the experiences of my youth. I will testify simply that those days were filled with an intense longing for the truth.

I have revealed the teaching of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, a teaching known as "the Principle." It was not easily learned. Needless to say, I received the essence of the Principle through deep, fervent and prayerful communion with God, Jesus and other saints in the spirit world. Its revelation is a victory gained through a desperate fight with Satan. I am devoting every moment of my life to the teaching and practice of the Principle. Those whose lives it has touched are sharing it throughout the world, in 184 countries. The Principle is transforming people's lives by bringing them into a new relationship with the living God.

God's Ideal and Human Perfection

s human beings created by God, we were born with an innate hope to attain our dreams and realize an ideal world in relationship with God. Even under the worst conditions, human beings never give up their desire for an ideal and peaceful world. When we say "ideal world," we should know that God is the origin of the very concept of the ideal.

God did not create the world for the sake of power, glory or wealth. Being absolute, unchanging and eternal, and being the origin of all existence, He has no particular need for these things, as He already has them in abundance.

However, it would not be right to think that God has fulfilled all His desires. God exists as the embodiment of true love. God needs a partner in order to experience love, just as we do. Love can be experienced only when there is a "subject and object" relationship. No being can experience love in isolation, all by itself.

God created human beings to give and receive love freely in relationship with Him. We were made to be the true object of the love of God. He created us as His sons and daughters. He is the True Parent of humankind.

God wanted Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, to mature in purity, centered on true love. He wanted Adam and Eve to become true people. He created this beautiful and delicate natural world as the environment for their biological growth. Human beings were to grow and develop within this environment.

God's central concern, however, is with human beings' internal character. By experiencing true love, God intended that we would come to reflect His true love and grow to perfection. God created the power of love to be the strongest of all forces. Through the experience of such power of love within the realm of Heaven's love and law, people are to increasingly resemble God, their Parent. To possess unlimited true love, people first must learn to be responsible.

When human beings come into oneness with God through true love, they resemble Him and become the perfect embodiment of true love, with wholesome character. Thus we can say that God's love is the essence of human happiness, life and ideals.

Adam and Eve were meant to mature in God's love and become true individuals, true husband and wife, and, by rearing children, true parents. People experience God's true love step by step, throughout the stages of life's growth. Each individual is meant to come to know the heart of children through the love of their parents, the heart of a sibling through the love between brothers and sisters, the heart of husband and wife through the love of a spouse, and the heart of parents through loving children. The family is the foundation upon which we establish these four realms of love and heart.

The family is the basis for love, happiness, life and lineage. We cannot learn and experience these four realms of love anywhere other than in the family. We know love only through actual experience. The true perfection of the individual, family, society and environment has its root in the realization of love within the family.

World Peace and the Providence of Restoration

hat is the reality of our world today? Despite advances in technology and the conveniences of modern life, the world is facing a profound crisis: the loss of our very humanity. Disorders and maladies of every kind -- violence, crime, drug abuse, war -- plague humankind. More significantly, the breakdown of the family, including the rising divorce rate, the collapse of sexual morality among youth and the problem of unmarried teenage mothers, is destroying the foundation of society.

Even though we have sought peace and happiness in many ways, none of us can be satisfied with the results we have achieved in our lives. After the First and Second World Wars, the League of Nations and then the United Nations were established to prevent further conflict. However, the global work of these organizations has not brought about a peaceful world. The efforts of religious groups also have not led to a world of happiness. The proud ideals of communism, the fascist illusion -- these failed to bring about one ideal world. Neither highly advanced technology nor skillful diplomacy have delivered us peace and happiness. This is because the cause of humanity's unhappiness and suffering lies in the human fall and our disobedience to God. The solution of the problem begins by eliminating this root cause.

Adam and Eve defiled true love during their time of growth. They fell away from God's Principle by having sexual relations and creating children before they reached maturity in true love

Human history thus began with Adam and Eve's lack of faith in God, their loving Parent, and their ultimate submission to Satan. By this action they became a false husband and false wife, and false parents. Our inheritance from the original family includes their legacy of corruption, conflict and suffering. This legacy has nothing to do with God's ideal of creation. We cannot imagine how God's Heart is broken!

God must, at any cost, restore His original ideal of true love and peace. What we call God's providence of salvation means His providence of restoration. For the sake of this restoration, He established religions and expanded a sphere of goodness.

The Messiah, sent by God, is the person who comes with the overall responsibility to complete the providence of restoration. The Messiah must come as the True Parent and must rectify everything, beginning at the very root of the problem.

Jesus came as the Messiah with the mission of the True Parent. He came to resurrect human beings on earth. He would thus restore them as true individuals, so that they might become true husbands and wives who would be true parents themselves. Unfortunately, because of the lack of faith on earth, he was unable to accomplish his purpose fully. As he ascended, however, he promised to return. He must return in order to restore God's ideal of creation.

Development of Civilization

esus was born in Israel, but he was not born for the Jewish people alone. Jesus came in the position of the Messiah and the True Parent. It was his purpose to realize God's ideal, that is, a world of true love and peace. At that time, Israel was under Roman colonial rule. If Jesus could have accomplished his purpose among the people of Palestine, then God's providence was that his message to spread throughout the world.

In fact, Palestine's location at the crossroads of three continents, Asia, Africa and Europe, led to the transmission of Jesus' teachings during the first centuries of the Christian era. Christianity spread south into Africa, east into Asia and west into Europe. Eventually, Christianity attained continental dominion in Europe, western Asia and the Americas. Through Christianity these vast continents each accomplished relative unity. These unified continental powers came to dominate the world in the modern era.

Civilization first emerged on continents, in Egypt, Mesopotamia and China. The center of western civilization then shifted to peninsular cultures in Greece, Rome and then Iberia. These peninsular civilizations gave way to an island civilization in Great Britain. The center of civilization then moved to the continental civilization of North America, and then across the Pacific to an island civilization centering in Japan. It is the view of providence that the development of civilization will bear fruit in a peninsular culture emerging in Korea.

Peninsular cultures have given rise to important civilizations. Great religions and philosophies have emerged from peninsular cultures to guide the realm of the human spirit. These include, among others, Greek philosophy, which came from the Balkan peninsula, Christian culture that blossomed on the Italian peninsula, Hindu philosophy and culture from India, Islamic culture which arose on the Arabian peninsula, Buddhist culture which flourished on the peninsulas of Southeast Asia, the art of navigation from the Iberian peninsula, and the Nordic culture on the Scandinavian peninsula.

These peninsular initiatives took root on continents. Greco-Roman and Iberian culture flourished in Europe and the Americas, and Islamic culture spread across Africa and Asia.

Seen from another perspective, civilization that developed along major rivers such as the Nile, the Yellow, and the Tigris and Euphrates, gave way to civilization centering around the Mediterranean Sea in Greece, Rome, Spain and North Africa. The center then shifted to the Atlantic civilization of North America, France and Great Britain. Civilization ultimately will bear fruit in a Pacific civilization, connecting North America, Japan and Korea.

Major historical religious founders, including Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Confucius and Jesus, emerged on continents. God's will as expressed through Jesus, established in Israel on the continent of Asia, was to reach the world via the peninsular powers of Rome, to the Americas, and Greece, to Asia. Today global power resides on the continents of North America and Asia. The will of God for Christ's return can be accomplished only when these and all continents invest themselves completely in service to the world, based upon the place where Jesus is to return -- that is, where the True Parents are to come -- in Korea, a peninsular nation.

The surface of the earth is composed of land and ocean. I believe that the ocean has played the role of a mother, from which the simplest forms of life were born. If the ocean symbolizes femininity because it gives life, nurtures and embraces, then we can say that land symbolizes masculinity. Thus, island nations surrounded by ocean signify the feminine, and continental nations, with the peninsular nations extending from them, symbolize the masculine.

People from peninsular nations in particular have inherited strength and courage by having to defend against enemies from the surrounding seas and continents. Under their pioneering, exploring and adventuring spirit, their brilliant cultures blossomed and expanded. People from continental nations have rugged endurance. They cultivated difficult natural environments over vast distances. Living for generations isolated from cosmopolitan cultures, continental peoples retain the permanent, unchanging values attached to the land. Through the right relationship of island, peninsular and continental peoples, world peace will come.

As we greet the new millennium, the continental nations are called to accomplished a providentially significant mission. They should fulfill a leading role in realizing a peaceful world by combining their power to serve the world, together with their common experiences, into the Federation of Continental Nations for World Peace.

Respected leaders, I have not been satisfied merely to speak about humankind living happily in a peaceful world. I have been receiving tremendous spiritual support in actually creating substantial projects and organizations for this purpose, the Federation for World Peace, the Inter Religious Federation for World Peace, the Women's Federation for World Peace, the Youth Federation for World Peace, the Student Federation for World Peace, the Professors World Peace Academy, the Federation of Island Nations for World Peace and the Federation of Peninsular Nations for World Peace, among others. The Federation of Continental Nations for World Peace is dedicated to this same purpose.

There are many obstacles blocking the way to human happiness and peace, including political and economic conflicts. Most fundamental, however, is the conflict between mind and body within the individual. Throughout history, the conflict between mind and body has never been completely resolved. This is the serious and miserable result of the human fall.

Thus, people with inner conflict establish families which cannot set up a proper standard of ethics and morality. They cannot experience the world of heart based on true love. Can such families achieve complete harmony and unity? Since the family unit has abandoned its responsibility to practice true love, it is now being shaken and destroyed. In light of the breakdown of the family, is peace in the society, nation and world a realistic possibility?

I convened the Inaugural World Convention of the Family Federation for World Peace in Washington, DC, the capitol of the United States, from July 30 to August 1 of this year. Two former United States presidents, Gerald Ford and George Bush, sitting and former heads of state from forty nations, as well as representatives of 120 nations gathered for that historic international conference.

The Family Federation for World Peace will be the most treasured organization, coming as it does on the foundation of those international organizations which I have already set up in the course of investing my life for the realization of a peaceful world of true love.

Today, each individual must recover his or her true human nature, by uniting mind and body harmoniously within the realm of God's true love. Humankind must prepare a realm of eternal happiness through a movement for sexual purity and for the realization of true families. The Family Federation is dedicated to this task.

From the viewpoint of God's dispensation in the course of human history, humankind is one great family that is to live in attendance to God as the True Parent, transcending national boundaries, race and religious differences. Despite the fact that humankind as a single community is destined to cooperate as a global family, we live in an age when we feel that we have nothing to do with the problems of our neighbors and other countries. We cannot, however, ignore the reality of humanity ravaged by war, crime, drug abuse, pollution, the destruction of the ecosystem, ethical corruption and the scourge of AIDS.

Today, with the eyes of history upon us, we must answer to God. How can humankind, whose mandate is the realization of complete harmony and unity, overcome the unfortunate reality and greet the coming millennium with hope? How can we realize a peaceful world, in which everyone lives for and trusts others without respect for personal and national interests? What is the new value system by which we shall attain this ideal? Rather than riding the chariot of science and technology pulled by the horses of secular humanism, we must humbly seek the answers within our original mind. If we cannot find the solution on earth, we must find it through listening to the voice of Heaven.

A Knife Not Sharpened Grows Dull

After completing grammar school, I moved to Seoul and lived
alone in the Heuksok Dong neighborhood while attending
the Kyongsong Institute of Commerce and Industry. The
winter in Seoul was extremely cold. It was normal for the temperature to fall to minus twenty degrees Celsius, and when it did, the Han River would freeze over. The house where I lived was on a ridge, and there was no running water. We drew our water from a well that was so deep it took more than ten arm-lengths of rope for the pail to reach the water below. The rope kept breaking, so I made a chain and attached it to the pail. Each time I brought water up, though, my hands would freeze to the chain and I could only keep them warm by blowing on them. To fight the cold, I used my knitting talents. I made a sweater, thick socks, a cap, and gloves. The hat was so stylish that when I wore it around town people would think I was a woman. I never heated my room, even on the coldest winter days, mainly because I didn’t have the money to do so. I also felt that having a roof over my head when I slept meant that I was living in luxury compared to homeless people forced to find ways to keep themselves warm on the streets. One day, it was so cold I slept while holding a light bulb against
my body under the quilt, like a hot-water bottle. During the night, I
burned myself on the hot bulb, causing some skin to peel. Even now,
when someone mentions Seoul, the first thing that comes to mind is
how cold it was back then.
My meals consisted of a bowl of rice and never more than one side
dish, whereas average Korean meals include up to twelve side dishes. It
was always one meal, one dish. One side dish was enough. Even today,
because of the habit I formed while living alone, I don’t need many side
dishes at my meals. I prefer to have just one side dish that is prepared
well. When I see a meal that has been prepared with many side dishes, it
only seems troublesome to me. I never ate lunch while attending school
in Seoul. I became accustomed to eating just two meals a day while
roaming around the hills as a child. I continued this lifestyle until I was
nearly thirty.
My time in Seoul gave me a good understanding of how much work
goes into managing a household.
I returned to Heuksok Dong in the 1980s and was surprised to find
the house where I once lived still standing. The room where I lived and
the courtyard where I used to hang my laundry were still there. I was
sad to see, though, that the well where I had to blow on my hands while
pulling up pails of water was gone.
During my time in Heuksok Dong, I adopted for myself the motto,
“Before seeking to dominate the universe, first perfect your ability to
dominate yourself.” This means that to have the strength to save the
nation and save the world, I first had to train my own body. I trained
myself through prayer and meditation and through sports and exercise
programs. As a result, I would not be swayed by hunger or any other
emotion or desire of the physical body. Even when I ate a meal, I would
say, “Rice, I want you to become the fertilizer for the work that I am
preparing myself to do.” I learned boxing, soccer, and self-defense techniques.
Because of this, although I have gained some weight since I was
young, I still have the flexibility of a young person.
Kyongsong Institute of Commerce and Industry had a policy that
the students would take turns cleaning their own classrooms. In my
class, I decided to clean the classroom every day by myself. I did not
do this as some kind of punishment. It was an expression of my desire
that welled up naturally from within to love the school more than
anyone else. In the beginning, others would try to help, but they could
see I didn’t appreciate this and preferred to do it alone. Eventually my
classmates decided, “Go ahead. Do it by yourself.” And so the cleaning
became my job.
I was an unusually quiet student. Unlike my classmates, I didn’t engage
in idle chatter, and I would often go an entire day without speaking
a word. This may have been the reason that, although I never engaged
in physical violence, my classmates treated me with respect and were
careful how they acted in my presence. If I went to the toilet and there
was a line of students waiting their turn, they would immediately let me
go first. If someone had a problem, I was frequently the one they sought
out for advice.
I was very persistent in asking questions during class, and there
were more than a few teachers who were stumped by my questions.
For example, when we were learning a new formula in mathematics
or physics class, I would ask, “Who made this formula? Please explain
it to us step by step so that I can understand it exactly,” and refused to
back down until I got clear answers. I was relentless with my teachers,
digging deeper and deeper. I couldn’t accept any principle in the world
until I had taken it apart and figured it out for myself. I found myself
wishing I had been the person to first discover such a beautiful formula.
The stubborn character that had made me cry all night as a little boy
was making its appearance in my studies as well. Just as when I prayed, I
poured myself completely into my studies and invested my full sincerity
and dedication.
Any task we do requires sincerity and dedication, and not just for
a day or two. It needs to be a continuous process. A knife used once
and never sharpened turns dull. The same is true with sincerity and
dedication. We need to continue our efforts on a daily basis with the
thought that we are sharpening our blade daily. Whatever the task, if
we continue the effort in this way, we eventually reach a mystical state.
If you pick up a paintbrush and focus your sincerity and dedication on
your hand and say to yourself, “A great artist will come and help me,”
and concentrate your mind, you can create a wonderful painting that
will inspire the world.
I dedicated myself to learning how to speak faster and more accurately
than anyone else. I would go into a small anteroom where no
one could hear me and practice tongue-twisters out loud. I practiced
pouring out what I wanted to say very quickly. Eventually, I was able
to say ten words in the time that it took others to say just one. Even
now, though I am old, I can speak very quickly. Some say that I speak
so quickly that they have difficulty understanding me, but my heart is
in such a hurry that I cannot bear to speak slowly. My mind is full of
things I want to say. How can I slow down?
In that sense, I am very much like my grandfather, who enjoyed
talking with people. Grandfather could go three or four hours talking
to people in our home’s guest room, explaining to them his views on
the events of the day. I am the same way. When I am with people and
there is good communication of heart, I completely lose track of time,
and I don’t know if night is falling or if the sun is rising. The words in
my heart form an unstoppable flow. When I am like this, I don’t want
to eat; I just want to talk. It’s difficult for the people who are listening,
and beads of sweat begin to appear on their foreheads. Sweat is running
down my face, too, as I continue talking, and they dare not ask to excuse
themselves and leave. We often end up staying up all night together.