The Life of Jesus as Seen from God's Will, and God's Warning to the Present Age, the Period of the Last Days

REVEREND SUN MYUNG MOON 20th Anniversary of the Washington Times Banquet  Washington Hilton, Washington, DC May 21, 2002 Respected Guests from America and Abroad: Celebrating the twentieth anniversary of The Washington Times has a particularly gratifying meaning for me. The memory is still fresh in my mind how, in May 1982, I made the final decision to publish The Washington Times in response to Heaven's direction. This took place while I was being unjustly tried in a New York federal court, in a prosecution motivated by both racial and religious bigotry. At that time, Communism was sweeping the world like a giant, angry wave. Even America had no effective means to deal with it. I followed the supreme Will of Heaven, which told me that America, the final fortress of the democratic world and a Christian country representing the Second Israel, must be protected from Communism. It is also the Will of Heaven to build the ideal world of peace that God is seeking, that is, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth and in Heaven, through Christianity. It was certainly not my intention to set up a newspaper company just to make money. Over the years, more than a billion dollars have been invested in The Washington Times alone, but I have never regretted this nor felt enmity toward anyone. That is because this was a way to practice true love toward Heaven and humankind. Already, more than thirty years have passed since I came to America. I have reached the age of 82, and I feel that the time is coming for me to return to my homeland. Before leaving, I would like to convey clearly to America, the nation in the realm of the Second Israel, and to all humankind a message concerning the actual situation of God and the spirit world. This is not just a message given from me as an individual. Heaven is giving its message and humankind must observe it in this age. Until now, humankind has been living in a state of ignorance about the Will of Heaven. First, humanity has not known about God and second, we have not known about the spirit world, where we all eventually must go, whether we like it or not. Now, we have entered the last days of human history. In the spirit world, numerous religious leaders, beginning with the founders of the four great religions, have accepted the Unification Principle, which is my teaching, as the truth of the highest dimension. They have completely mobilized and are returning to the Earth to resurrect by bringing their disciples and descendants to form new, true families through the blessing of marriage. Particularly for the sake of America, a Christian country representing the Second Israel, the four founders centering on Jesus have each chosen 120 of their historically famous disciples in order to establish a unified front. Now, through their return to Earth, they are furthering the work of the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace and the World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations in order to bring complete peace on Earth. They are proclaiming that humankind has no future unless we practice true love, or "a life lived for the sake of others," which is the True Parents' philosophy. Therefore, I would like to take the opportunity I have to give a commemorative address today and deliver a most valuable message to America and humanity on the topic, "The Life of Jesus as Seen from God's Will, and God's Warning to the Present Age, the Period of the Last Days." Jesus' Love on the Cross, and Its Legacy If we examine Jesus' Providence of the cross, we see that Jesus, the thief on the right, the thief on the left, and Barabbas sowed the seeds of history. The principle is that what is sown will be reaped. So the first to appear were the right wing world and the left wing world, that is, the democratic and the Communist realms, reflecting the "right thief type" and the "left thief type." Centering on Jesus' cross, Islam, the "Barabbas type," appeared next. Reflecting Barabbas, who received good fortune because of Jesus, Islam originated as a force resisting Christianity. Having been thus sown, history entered the age in which the form of the world was bound together in four major blocs. Gamal Abdel Nasser of the Arab bloc dreamed of uniting the Islamic realm into a unified Arab state. Christianity, meanwhile, is leading a new worldwide trend proclaiming, "Let's unite all religions." As we observe these currents, we see that history, which was sown in tragedy, is now appearing as the fruit of good centered on God for the first time. In the Last Days, such phenomena will become even more pronounced, as that which was sown in the beginning reaches fruition in its exact original form and is harvested. It was inevitable that this would come about because of the laws of the Providence. That is, unification is accomplished in accordance with True Parents' philosophy of true love. If the democratic world is internal, then the Communist world is external. If the right wing is internal, then the left wing is external. For this reason, the Messiah who is to come has no choice but to appear upon the internal foundation of the democratic world, which respects God. He must carry out a movement that absorbs the external environment and unifies the various cultural spheres centering on the mainstream Christian cultural sphere. Such a movement is carried out at the end of history. Such a thing cannot be looked at as circumstantial. The nature of the original cause leads to such a result. The Merit of the Thief on the Right When Jesus was crucified, he died along with the man on his right, who was not only a thief but also a murderer. If that thief had not been there, Jesus would have lost his relationship with the Earth and humankind. Even though he himself was near death, the thief on the right defended Jesus. In human history, who took Jesus' side? It was not Peter; it was not Jesus' father or mother; it was not the nation of Israel and it was not Judaism. It was only one person: the thief on the right. One individual alone maintained this relationship. While facing death, he transcended death and placed all his hopes on Jesus. That was none other than the thief on the right. You need to know that were it not for the thief on the right, Jesus would not have been able to resurrect and resume his providence on Earth. As Jesus was bringing to a conclusion four thousand years of history and the more than thirty years of his own life, there was only one person who connected with Jesus and attended Jesus as the one who embodied his most fervent hopes, even as he accompanied Jesus on the path of death. That was the thief on the right. The fact that the thief on the right has this position means that he surpassed the disciples. He was superior to Peter. This is so because although he did not know Jesus' teachings, his nature directed and empowered him to attend Jesus at the moment of death, until he breathed his last. Peter, John and the others of the twelve disciples, by contrast, knew Jesus' teachings and even pledged to become new persons, but ultimately were not able to achieve it. You have to know that, for this reason, the thief on the right became a central character in human history, a man who represented the Earth and salvaged the future. We need the right to inherit this history. We must inherit the tradition and foundation of Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Jesus, and beyond, and represent the historical sacrificial offering. Only then can we confront Satan, shouting, "In the course of history, you lost to Noah; you lost to Jacob; and were you subjugated by Moses! I stand on the foundation of all their victories and have inherited the entire tradition of providential history. So be gone, Satan!" Only then will Satan retreat. If you simply pray, "Be gone, Satan," it will avail you nothing. Do you think that Satan, who has been accusing people for six thousand years and has trampled upon God's providence and devastated the providence of restoration, is going to retreat just because you say he should do so and you believe in Jesus? Certainly not. You need the ability to say, "I am without a doubt a person for whom God has sought through His historical heart. I am a person who has been grafted onto the sacred and holy body of Jesus." Your name must be recorded on the book of inheritance that Jesus received from God. God's book of inheritance records those who inherited God's heart experienced through the four thousand years until He could send Jesus to this Earth. Then, instead of defeating Satan on the cross, you must be able to subjugate Satan and be victorious over him without being hung on the cross. You must take on a body of flesh and be resurrected in substantial form. Only those who are thus recognized as substantial inheritors can enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus' Death Gave Christianity Only a Spiritual Foundation Until now, Christianity has not been able to pursue the Kingdom of Heaven both on Earth and in the spirit. Christianity has had no choice but to yield the physical world, attending Jesus as the spiritual Messiah and setting spiritual salvation and a spiritual Kingdom as its goals. The people of Israel had a nation and possessed national authority as the chosen people, but worldwide Christianity today is in the position of the second Israel only as a spiritual nation; it has no national authority. Christians have no country. We stand in the realm of the second Israel with only a spiritual foundation, not a physical foundation. Because Christianity was not able to accomplish the original Will of God, who must bring about a Kingdom on Earth that is of both spirit and flesh, there is no other way except for the Lord to come again. I want to make one declaration to you here today. The crucifixion was not God's victory. Instead, it was Satan's victory. You will remember that Jesus said to those who arrested him in the Garden of Gethsemane, "... this is your hour - when darkness reigns." (Luke 22:53 NIV) You need to know that the cross was the place where the nation that God had prepared for four thousand years was lost, the place where the religious faith of Israel was lost, and the place where the followers of John the Baptist, the twelve disciples, the thief on the left, and everything else was lost. You need to know that Christianity was not there on the cross. When did Christianity begin? Jesus resurrected after three days and spent forty days meeting the disciples he had lost, who had turned against him. The Holy Spirit descended on the disciples, and you need to know that it was only then that Christianity began. Christians for the past two thousand years have believed in Christianity without knowing that it came into existence not by the principle of the cross, but by the principle of the resurrection. If you realize this fact, then you must repent. Because Christianity began on the foundation of Jesus' resurrection, Christianity has been strictly spiritual. What would have happened if Jesus had not died on the cross? In that case, the nation of Israel would have followed Jesus' teachings, stabilized and endured. Judaism also would have remained as it was. Jesus knew that if he were to die on the cross, multitudes of people in future ages would have to follow him on the way of the cross, and that they would not be able to do so without shedding blood. Many Christians would have to suffer, and even when the Lord came again he would have to go the way of suffering. You need to know that this is the reason that Jesus had to pray as he did in the Garden of Gethsemane. Christians today say that Jesus prayed for deliverance because he had a physical body and feared the pain of death. But was Jesus such a trivial Messiah? Certainly not. What, then, did Jesus mean by saying, "It is finished," when he committed his spirit on the cross? Jesus had come with the mission to save both spirit and flesh, but he realized that he could not completely fulfill God's Will in a world in which there was no foundation. So, he offered himself completely in order to establish a condition for spiritual salvation and allow that providence to begin. Having completed that, in the end he said, "It is finished." You probably have never featured this even in your imagination. Christianity and Judaism should realize even now that the Lord, who tried to demolish Satan's nation and do away with Satan's kingship, and to accomplish God's will and restore humanity, died a tragic death. When they realize this, they should repent and become one. They should become one and prepare to receive the Lord on his return. Truth must conform to reason. The time has come for all Christians to throw off the age of blind faith and move ahead into a new age united as one, to sort out this world and bring it to salvation. You need to know that the time has come in which the term "unification" is essential. Jesus' Three-Day Suffering Course What does it mean that Jesus suffered pain during the three days following his death? Heaven, Earth and Hell all remained in the realm of death. For Jesus to gain authority over Heaven and Earth, he needed to encompass the depths and heights of this realm of death. For this reason, in order to pursue the connection of life and go the path that could comfort God, Jesus needed to prevail, even if it meant descending into the lowest environment such as Hell and suffering pain. Because Jesus passed through Hell, he prepared a path by which it was possible to make a new beginning toward Heaven. Though he was cast out and isolated on Earth, and finally forced to go the way of death, he was able to leave a path of hope for future generations. That is the reason Jesus had to go on his three-day course. Jesus did not go to Hell for three days just to look around. He already knew about Hell. He needed to go there, pass judgment and pave the way to go from the world of death to the world of life. In this way, he laid a foundation of victory on Earth, which is the world of death and Hell, and established a starting point from which it is possible to reach Heaven. Even on the Cross, Jesus Was Concerned for Heaven and Loved His Enemies In the eyes of the religious establishment, Jesus was a heretic, and in the eyes of the nation, he was a destroyer of the religious law. His own clan rejected him and chased him out of his home. The group surrounding John the Baptist rejected him. So he went into the wilderness, but there Satan pursued him. That was not all. Eventually, the entire country mobilized to force him to go the way of death on the cross, the path of Golgotha. Jesus, though, shed tears for the nation that was rejecting him as a traitor. The Jewish establishment treated Jesus as a heretic, but he shed more blood and tears for them than did any priest. Not a single person of that age would stand on his side, but Jesus was a friend of that age. He was rejected as a traitor, but he was the greatest patriot. He was rejected as a heretic, but he was the most faithful believer. Jesus walked a wretched path, the path of the cross, where people ripped his clothing, drove him on, and forced him to the ground. That was not all. Evil men whipped and beat him. In this situation, if Jesus had been like Elijah, he might have said to the people, "I am the only one of the Lord's prophets left." (1 Kings 18:22) But when Jesus left his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane and went to pray, he said, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." (Luke 22:42) This was his greatness. He understood that his body was a sacrificial offering for the nation, a sacrificial offering for humanity and a sacrificial offering for Heaven's Providence. Because he understood this, Jesus, while not denying his own sorrow, was more concerned about how great a sorrow God must have felt. Jesus had appeared for the sake of the nation and he was concerned how great God's sorrow was to see him rejected as a traitor. Jesus was the prince of Heaven, the central personage of the entire universe, and the Messiah. If he chose, he could have fallen prey to self-pity and asked why he should go the miserable way of the cross. He could have set the entire universe in motion to breathe a deep sigh of despair with him. But he understood that his position was not to sigh in despair. Instead, he even went so far as to feel apologetic toward Heaven for having been rejected. Jesus bore the responsibility to rally the religious establishment, rally the nation, build the Kingdom of Heaven and return the world to the Father's bosom. Yet when he was forced to abandon that mission and walk the way of the cross, he did not feel enmity toward anyone. He did not pray, "Let this cup pass from me," out of a fear of death. Rather, he prayed this because he knew that his death would add to the grief of the nation and to God's grief. Jesus knew that if he died on the cross, there would be an even heavier cross remaining for the future generations of humanity. It would mean that the sorrowful history would not end. He knew that the path of Golgotha would not end with him. He knew that the path of death would not end. And he knew that if he went the way of Golgotha, those who followed him would also have to go the same way. Jesus knew that an even more difficult course lay beyond the cross. As he was made to wear a crown of thorns, and the nails were hammered into his hands and feet, and his side was stabbed with a spear, Jesus knew that these events would have impact far beyond his own death. When he turned to Heaven and said, "It is finished," he did not mean that the path of the cross for the world was finished. He meant that Heaven had received his heart's tearful plea of concern over the cross. We need to know that Jesus comforted Heaven by taking upon himself all the mistakes committed by the prophets and patriots and offering himself as a living sacrifice. And even beyond that, as he neared death Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34) God had a mind to pass judgment immediately, judgment that was even greater than that of Noah's time. But Jesus died clinging to the nation, clinging to the religious establishment and clinging to the cross. For this reason, God could not abandon humanity but held on to us. Because this bond of heart existed between Jesus, the future generations of humanity and the remaining people of Israel, God has been unable to abandon the religious organizations and people of succeeding generations who have turned against Him. Instead, He has clung to them. Meaning of the Bread and Wine that Jesus Shared with Us I am sure you are well aware that God, who had been carrying out His Providence of restoration for four thousand years, could not complete His Will in Heaven and on Earth simply by the Providence of having Jesus resurrect. So He established a new testament in His word, and through it He has worked His providence to bring together His will in Heaven with that on Earth and establish the promised original Garden. If we look in the Bible, we see that Jesus said the wine and bread that he gave us were the promise and new covenant. After Jesus was on Earth, we received his flesh and blood, and these represented the life of the perfected whole that must be accomplished. At the same time, they represented the providence in its entirety. What does the fact that we received Jesus' blood and flesh symbolize? This is not just the flesh and blood of Jesus as one individual. In a larger sense, these signify Heaven and Earth and, in a smaller sense, they signify the core and the individual body. Also, the flesh symbolizes the truth and blood of the Holy Spirit. Jesus gave us all this without condition. What has been blocked between God and human beings? Heaven's Will should be manifested on Earth and everything on Earth ultimately should be connected to Heaven's Will. In this way, Heaven and Earth will move toward a single goal. This is what is blocked. Jesus established a new promise before he departed, so after his death the necessity of human beings, that is, the disciples who followed Jesus, connecting the spiritual and physical worlds remained as a condition. Had Jesus not died, Heaven and Earth would have been connected through him. Because he died, Jesus came to represent the conditions in Heaven and the Holy Spirit came to represent the conditions on Earth. Respected guests, the time now has come. Heaven's time, for which God has been waiting six thousand years and Christians have been waiting two thousand years, has come. It is the time to build the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth and in Heaven on an inter-religious, international and inter-organizational footing. Heaven's fortune has finally arrived. Jesus, Peter, John and the other disciples, plus thousands and even tens of thousands of religious leaders in the spirit world are now of one mind and one body and they are descending freely to the physical world to attend True Parents. Without a doubt, the Unified Cosmic Nation of Heaven's Will and the Kingdom of Heaven in which Heaven and Earth can be as one in eternal peace will settle on the Earth. Now is the time for America, the Christian country representing the Second Israel, to stand in the forefront. I declare to the world that America has the responsibility to guide all the world's people. But it must not do so with weapons; it must do this in truth and love by living for the sake of others upon the foundation of true love, true life, and true lineage. Finally, I hope that The Washington Times, UPI, and other major media will accept this lofty command from Heaven and take up the task of educating humankind, taking a stance beyond religion and ideology. Please note that I have distributed to you a pamphlet containing messages from leaders in the spirit world. I ask that you read this carefully. Thank you for your kind attention. May God bless you and God bless America.

God's True Love and the Liberation of the Relationship of Heaven and Earth and Humankind

Reverend Sun Myung Moon Jamsil Gymnasium, Seoul Korea, February 6, 2003 Respected current and former heads of state, leaders from the religious, political and academic worlds, representatives from 189 different countries, representatives from each family, ladies and gentlemen! I would like to truly thank all of you who have gathered here to congratulate me on my 83rd birthday and my wife, President Han Hak-ja, on her 60th birthday. But above all else, I would like to return all this glory to God, who has protected and looked after me until this day. My life is such that you cannot explain it without God, and in this truly meaningful place, I would like to speak to all of you today with thanks in my heart. The title of my talk today is, "God's True Love and the Liberation of the Relationship of Heaven and Earth and Humankind." Throughout human history, all people have talked a lot about God, or the Absolute Being. They have praised and worshipped Him in many different ways, and in other ways they have felt free to evaluate Him. There have even been some people declaring that there is no God, or that God is dead. However, there has not been one instance in which God Himself appeared directly saying, "This is how I have lived." There have been many people who have prophesied that, with the development of science, the people who believe in God would disappear. However, the number of people who believe in God in modern society is not diminishing. God is the living origin of all things, the Creator, the True Parent of humankind. The God that I have been teaching about is not just some vague or obscure God. From the time I first experienced God at the age of 16, when I was worrying about the meaning of life and the universe, I have lived my whole life in communication with God. The driving force which has preserved my life of suffering, during which I have touched the boundary between life and death, is the living God's promise and my absolute faith. I searched every corner of the spiritual world. I met the five great holy men and many other saints and sages, and I received their official recognition of my mission. Ladies and Gentlemen! God is the most decent and modest being, and He is the True Parent of humankind. He is the origin of all our lives, and He is the being with whom all people must establish a relationship. Also, the one thing that you all must know clearly is that the spiritual world, the world that we must all someday go to, does exist. You must not doubt the existence of the spiritual world or have some vague belief in God. I have set a record in sponsoring many "God Conferences," something which has no parallel in history. The first three conferences I held in the 1980's, attended by representatives from each religion and each denomination, as well as by outstanding theologians and religious scholars, caused a great sensation. There were three main points that I wanted to teach through these conferences: Firstly, that although each religion has its own special and unique character, there are actually many more points in common between religions. Secondly, the conflict and disharmony that exist between religions is due to the narrow-mindedness of the believers themselves, and it is absolutely not the will of the absolute being. Thirdly, God desires the realization of true love rather than any emphasis on belief or ceremony. The papers and discussions that were presented at these conferences are still being used today as a textbook in the top theological seminaries of each denomination. From that time forward, the spirit of sincere dialogue and cooperation between each denomination was begun. Such dialogue and cooperation had hitherto been blocked by the high walls that had been erected between them. Since then I have invested a great amount of money each year to expand the Religious Federation and the Supra-religious Peace Association in each country and throughout the world. For three days, beginning on December 26 last year in Washington D.C., I held a different level of "God Conference." During that time, under the theme "God and a World of Peace", 312 participants, including not only religious leaders from all corners of the world, but also representatives from politics, academia, the media, business, culture and the arts, and from various NGOs, gathered together. God is not just the God of believers. He is the God of all people. Especially at this time, we are living in an age in which God stands before the world, not just as some vague and abstract God, but as a God with a definite purpose and will. It is an age of great change in which all people must awaken to this God. It is a time in which all people must awaken to the fact that modern people are buried within the whirlpool of individual, family, national and world-level problems, which will never be solved if God is ignored. At this conference, the 312 participants adopted a resolution that declared the following: Firstly, that they would recognize and establish the God who is the True Parent, True Teacher and True Owner, and the substantial True Parents, as the vertical axis of absolute value for the individual, the family, the nation and the world. Secondly, that they would cooperate with and follow the resolution of the five Saints and all the sages in the spiritual world to join together and help people on Earth to bring about the completion of God's will. Thirdly, that they would actively support and join together with the movement to realize true love, with the movement for the reform of the United Nations, as well as with the other plans of True Parents in order to realize the ideal of a peaceful world. The ultimate purpose of religion is to recover the original father and the original country. The word "religion" does not have humankind as its prime object. Rather, religion is the teaching in which God, the parent, is established as the head. There is a certain course through which we establish a relationship with God and mature in a life of following God. Therefore, holy men and women have to support the will of Heaven and they have to declare what has been preordained by Heaven. A true religion must teach people about God. A true religion should not have some vague ideas about God; a true religion must be able to give a clear picture of God so that people can understand Him. A religion which makes compromises concerning the relationship between God and man cannot be called a religion of a higher order. That kind of religion will finally decline. A true religion must teach people how to know God clearly, how to become one with God, and how to return to the original world of creation. The purpose of religion is to make a world without sin, the ideal world where we establish the original relationship with God. God is not seeking a religious world, but His ideal world of creation. The purpose of religion is not for the religion itself, but to realize the world of God's ideal. So we have to think about the purpose and ideal of creation. God created the world, so it is necessary to explain this ideal of creation. What do you think God's will is? It is to complete His ideal of creation. What do you think that God wanted to achieve through creating our human ancestors, Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden? God, who is the essence of love, created humankind because He needed a partner of love. Humans were created as the true sons and daughters of God so that God's ideal of true love could be realized. They were to grow as a true man and a true woman, then become husband and wife, create an ideal family, and then make an ideal country and world. To repeat once again, centering on the true love of God, they should have perfected the ideal family, expanding this to make the ideal world. But because of the Fall of our human ancestors, God's ideal of creation was destroyed at that time. Accordingly, the purpose of religion is to find a true person, a true family, a true nation, and a true world, where all people can live together in peace. This is the purpose of God's Providence for this world. Religion is seeking a "good" world. However, a good world cannot be realized before a good country is first established. And for a good country to appear, there must be first a good race, and before there is a good race, there must first be a good tribe, and before there is a good tribe, there must first be a good family. And before there is a good family, there must first be a good man and a good woman. What was the purpose of the 4,000 years of the history of Israel after the fall of Adam? Externally, it was a time in which the world developed, but internally, the sole purpose of this time period was to find one true child, to find the true Adam. The fact that, due to the Fall, there was not one son or daughter who could inherit the life and blood lineage centering on God's love, was God's deepest grief and resentment. Thus, the person who God made again as the owner of true love, life and the blood lineage and sent him to this world is the Savior. According to different points of view, this person has been called the Savior, the Messiah, and the Lord of the Second Advent. He comes as the Savior to rescue all people in this world from poverty, from suffering, from war and from evil, and, centering on the Absolute Being, God's will for salvation. He is the mediator who will connect all religious people to the way of life. He has been called the Messiah in the first and second Israel, and has been called the Lord of the Second Advent in God's Providence of Restoration. The names Savior, Messiah, or Lord of the Second Advent have all been used centering on the course of salvation and restoration. Restoring fallen men and women, who have been born and have lived in conflict and in sin through their connection to false parents and false ancestors, to the position they were in before the Fall, does not mean that everything has been accomplished. The will of God and the original hope of humankind is to become the ideal person of the original world of creation and to complete the ideal world of creation. This means that after becoming an individual who has achieved God's ideal of love, he or she should then become a husband and wife of true love and then become true parents. In order for this to happen, God absolutely needs the True Parents as the source of God's true love, true life and true lineage. So, in order to complete God's Providence of Salvation, it is not one man, the Savior, the Messiah, or the Lord of the Second Advent, who must appear, but it is the True Parents, husband and wife, who resemble God completely and who have completely realized His true love, who must appear. In the same way that God first created Adam and made Adam's eternal partner by taking a rib from him, God's son, the restored Adam, must first appear, and then restore Eve, and then, by recreating her, realize the ideal of true love, completing the role of True Parents. The source of humankind's true love and true life begins from the True Parents and in them is the true model of the ideal of true husband and wife and true parents. Humankind's sin and suffering originated in the false love of the fallen ancestors, who were born as the fruit of false parents and false ancestors. Accordingly, the only way to complete the ideal and be liberated from the connection to the Fall is through the coming of True Parents. The original ideal of humankind, which has been sought through religion, and that the world has been waiting so eagerly for, are the True Parents, who will fulfill God's ideal of love. We can say that religion is the place where humans are remodeled. If there had been no Fall, then religion would have been unnecessary. Religion is the way to remodel humans, whose mind and body are in conflict due to the Fall, into becoming peaceful people who will not fight for eternity, but who will become God's substantial objects. It is where people are changed into original people of true character, resembling God. When we look at our mind and body, the body is the base of the evil spirit Satan and the conscience is the base of God. Generally speaking, the body directs the mind. Religion is the way to attack the body which is controlling our mind, trying to weaken it. Religion teaches that the body is the thing that is to be most disliked. Religion commands us to fast, to serve, to sacrifice ourselves, to go the way of suffering and even to offer our lives for the sake of righteousness. The logic behind the seemingly paradoxical teaching of the Bible, "Those who seek to die will live, and those who seek to live will die", is that if you live according to the desires of your body, you will go the way of death into hell, but if you kill your body and enter the realm where your conscience is liberated, you will have eternal life and go to the Kingdom of Heaven. The person who is unable to unify his or her mind and body and allows this struggle to continue, will not be able to become accustomed to God's unified ideal world of love. Usually, people say that if you believe in a particular religion, you will go to Heaven or Paradise. However, Heaven is the place only for God's children, whose mind and body have become one, centered on God's love. The love of the fallen world is usually a love centered on oneself, and this is centered not on the mind, but on the body. The body is the devil's dancing hall. The original mind should take the subject position in place of God, but the body becomes another subject and plays with the original mind as with a puppet. This is what we have to change. Religion is the repair shop which God made to fix this. It is the repair shop which remodels humans into perfect people of true character, whose mind and body are one for eternity. Religion teaches us not to rest, but to pray unceasingly. The devil doesn't rest and uses the body as its horizontal stage all 24 hours. As God is in the vertical position, He can only perform His works through the vertical mind. In order for the body not to be controlled by the horizontal body, the mind itself has to stand in the vertical position through prayer and devotion and by doing this it can receive three or four times a greater power from God. If you live a life of sincere prayer and devotion for between three to five years, the mind can be liberated from the body's horizontal and habitual influence. Respected leaders, ladies and gentlemen! Leading a religious life is not something that you can choose to do or not to do. Because fallen men and women were born with a connection to the fallen love and fallen parents centered on Satan, then without exception all people must absolutely pass through the repair shop of religion, meet the True Parents, and establish a connection of True Love and True Life with them. There is one important point you have to know. You should not go to the repair shop and stay there forever, you must emerge reborn. The religious life is the required course for all humankind; however, the religious life itself is not the basic purpose or the whole purpose of life. The ultimate purpose of human life is to complete the religious life, graduating from living a model life to then living a life as a man and woman of the original world of creation. Religion came about only because of the Fall, so is it reasonable to say that the sole purpose of life is to live buried within that religion? If there had been no Fall, then how would men and women originally have lived? Humans are originally the children of God. And we should live with true love, realize a true family, and one world of freedom, peace, unity, and happiness. We are supposed to live a life in the Kingdom of Heaven. God did not create men and women to repair them into becoming His reborn children through religion. Where is there a parent who would want to see his children suffer in conflict while repenting of their sins? Do you think that it was the original will of God the Father, who is the Lord of Creation, omniscient and omnipotent, that He would want to let His children live while suffering in sin? The fallen world was not the world that God originally planned. The human ancestors' disobedience to God caused God to be unable to realize the world that He had originally planned. God is absolute and His will is also absolute. And God will realize His will again. The will is for complete recovery to the original state. This is why God's Providence of Salvation is the Providence of Restoration, the Providence of Re-creation. Religion is the tool of the Providence of Restoration. People are not just supposed to meet True Parents and go through the course of a religious life; they are supposed to become God's children and establish the connection of parent and child in their life, and attend God and build a world of a faith, which is shown through their daily life. There has been no one in history who has revealed this precious truth, namely, that humans must graduate from living religious lives. I, who knew God's truth from an early age, did not want to create another sect or denomination. Christianity, which was the central religion of God's Providence, did not accept my teaching of Heaven's way and that is why I had to make the organization, "The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity." It was an association, not another sect or denomination. But even though the Christian world continued to deny, to persecute, to label it as heretical, to turn its face away from us, when our movement started to become bigger, the world began to call us the Unification Church, instead of the long official title. That is how we became the Unification Church. However, from many, many years ago, I have lived in hope of seeing the day when we could take down the church sign, and I even prophesied about that day. Finally, in 1996, we took down the signs and started as "The Family Federation for World Peace." This was a very important event in the history of humankind. This event was the beginning of a new world which changed the old world, where people lived with the burden of sin inherited from false parents, in suffering and conflict, living a life of faith, in which the only way to find God was through a life of prayer and repentance. It became a world where people could be reborn by receiving the Blessing from the True Parents and by living their lives by just reporting their actions to God. There is no one who can know the course I have had to take in order to follow the command of Heaven and fulfill my mission as the True Parent, breaking down the walls, not just in this world, but also in the spiritual world, giving the grace of the Blessing freely on earth and in Heaven. Do you think it was an easy task to bring Satan, who throughout history has been acting as the false master, controlling people and disobeying God, to surrender? You cannot set up the position of True Parents without first gaining official recognition from Satan. According to the direction of the True Parents, the privilege of the Blessing could reach all the people who were in Satan's realm of death, and all the people in the spiritual world, and the people on earth could cross over into true love's realm of life. This kind of miraculous age has begun. Ladies and gentlemen, Together with Heaven's blessing that has come upon us, humankind must complete the religious life, receive the Blessing of true love, establish a true family, and live life keeping the standard of being true children. Only those who receive the Blessing on this earth and live a life of true love can enter the eternal homeland of the ideal world, namely, God's country, the Kingdom of Heaven. What do you take with you when you go to the spiritual world? Is it money? Or power? Do you take knowledge or honor with you? These things belong to this world, and you must leave all these things when you enter the higher realm. These things have absolutely no value in the eternal, original world and you cannot take them with you. The spiritual world is the world of love, and the true love that you experience on the earth, especially your life of true love, having received permission through the Blessing from the Parents of Heaven and Earth is the most precious thing and is the only thing that counts in the spiritual world. Please study more deeply about the spiritual world, and, through your life as a blessed couple, become children of God who perfect true love. What I teach is not based on any teachings of man. And I do not educate people by giving them a moral lesson or in any conventional way. I am instructing you by speaking frankly, with words of life, based on God and the Heavenly Way. If God has given the mission of True Parents to me, you should understand that the relationship you have established with me today is most precious and meaningful. Please keep my words today deep within your hearts. I would like to end by asking that God's blessing be with you and your families, that He remain with you in your public lives. Thank you very much.

Building Our Common Legacy Faith, Family, Freedom and Peace Centered on God

Filial Children of God  are Patriots Who Strive to Liberate His Heart Rev. Sun Myung Moon December 13, 2004 Washington, D.C. Distinguished present and former heads of state. Respected members of the clergy. Leaders from America and around the world, ladies and gentlemen. I come to this gathering today to deliver a message from God, a warning for the six billion people now living on the earth. I know all too well God's timetable and the direction of His Providence. In all of history, no one has understood with certainty God's circumstances or God's heart. But today, in this era of the providential Last Days, I can reveal them to you. In so doing, I hope to present a correct understanding of the responsibility we must shoulder and the direction we should take. I would like to speak to you on the topic, "Filial Children of God are Patriots Who Strive to Liberate His Heart." God's Grief and Sorrow Why did God create human beings? God is the source of true love. Yet the joy of love wells up in the heart only in the context of a relationship. A solitary being cannot experience it. Even God could not experience any stimulation as long as He existed all alone. Alone, He cannot love. For His love to blossom, God needs objects to love. For this reason, God created human beings to be His children, partners in His true love. God is the Father of all humankind, and we are God's sons and daughters. In creating us, God invested everything — the bone of His bone, the flesh of His flesh, and the marrow of His marrow. Parents raise their children hoping to reach that most exalted place where parent and child come together — that central point where their loves converge, their lives converge, and their ideals converge. In this way, the omniscient and omnipotent God created us to grow into a position on par with Him and equal to Him in rank. Then, what is required to complete God's ideal of creation? Beyond anything God can do, there is the human element. Because God's ideal is the oneness of God and human beings, God cannot be perfect until human beings reach perfection. How God must have yearned that the first human ancestors, Adam and Eve, would become beings of infinite value reflecting His image. Yet because Adam and Eve fell, God no longer had His own true sons and daughters. Tragically, God could not establish His family capable of possessing the deep bonds of true love and propagating a divine lineage. Instead, Adam and Eve were seduced by the false parent. Their family was entangled in the chains of false love, false life, and false lineage. As a consequence, we — their descendants — suffer from an incessant struggle between the mind and body. Adam and Eve fought constantly, and so did their children, resulting in murder. They did not become the exalted beings whom God could relate to as His eternal son and daughter. God could not glorify them as the true ancestors and true parents of humanity. Yet with their fall, God lost the only son and daughter He had. What happened between Adam and Eve that caused them to fall? Was it, as the Bible literally says, that they ate the "fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil"? Could merely eating a piece of fruit be the original sin? Could our ancestors by eating a piece of fruit doom thousands of generations of their descendants to be sinners? No. It is because the root of sin was planted in the lineage that it continues on forever in accordance with the laws of inheritance. The only transgression that can have such lasting impact is a mistake of love, committed between two people of the opposite sex. Eve committed adultery with the archangel Lucifer, and they became one. When Eve then joined with Adam, she bound him in that same oneness. As a result, Adam and Eve built their family on a conjugal relationship that centered not on God but on Satan, the fallen archangel. Consequently, all human beings, because we are descended from Adam and Eve, have inherited Satan's lineage. According to the Principle of Creation, love determines the right of ownership. In a relationship of love the partners possess a right of ownership with respect to each other. By this principle, Satan used his ties of illicit love to claim ownership over fallen human beings. Satan took over the role of the "father" of humanity, even though the true Father of humanity is God. This is why Jesus, in the Gospel of John Chapter 8 verse 44, chastised the people as children of Satan, saying: "You belong to your father the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire." Christians today may think that almighty Jehovah sits on His royal throne, and because He is omniscient and omnipotent, He can give orders as He pleases and have everything go exactly as He wants. In reality, God sits in a place of wretchedness and harbors tremendous grief. God had intended Adam and Eve to become the ideal counterparts for His pure, essential love. Can you imagine the sorrow in God's heart when they fell? It was infinitely worse than the sorrow that Adam and Eve experienced; indeed, no one in this world has experienced anything nearly so painful. The most tragic loss is to lose what is most precious. Carrying this grieving heart, God has to this day pursued the path of restoration in order to recover His lost children. There is nothing vague or ambiguous about God. He possesses a definite character. He desires to form a relationship of the highest true love with human beings. He desires to share with each of us the most exalted love and joy eternally. But God lost the starting point for this, due to the mistake of the first human ancestors. The fall of Adam and Eve caused such damage. God is the original True Parent, yet He was robbed of His rightful parental position. How heartbroken He is over this! God looks upon His fallen children, who inherited the lineage of the enemy Satan and refuse even to recognize that He exists. How excruciating must God's heart be each and every moment, as He observes humanity's wretched condition! For God, nothing was more precious than to have flesh and blood counterparts who could share His true love. God would not have traded His beloved children for the entire universe. His sorrow upon losing them was as if He had lost the entire creation. He felt that His entire purpose for creating the universe had collapsed. He became a God whose enemy unjustly robbed Him of His cosmic throne. The fact that God invested His love so completely, in keeping with the principles of absolute faith, absolute love, and absolute obedience, only made the results of the fall even more devastating. God was plundered of His ideal, plundered of His beloved son and daughter, and plundered of His sovereignty over the cosmos. And yet, forbearing all these years, the innocent God has had to endure Satan's false accusations. Seeing the history of lamentation that befell the world following the fall, the Book of Genesis says that God grieved in His heart. The Apostle Paul said, "Creation groans, our ancestors groan, and all humanity groans, waiting in eager anticipation for the appearance of the sons and daughters of God." All creatures desire to escape this realm of lamentation. God's inmost heart is broken as He surveys human beings struggling, leading lives of no value, having lost the glorious value with which they were originally created. God cries out in grief and agony, saying, "You are supposed to be my direct lineal children, possessing My love, My life, and My lineage. You should be enjoying all the glory of the Kingdom of Heaven. My heart is grieved to see you wearing the mask of the defeated, struggling in pain, lamentation, and despair until the end of your meaningless lives." Do you think that God, omniscient and omnipotent and seated on His glorious throne, would say to His children: "Come on up here. I'm not going to leave this seat"? Or is it more likely that He would kick His throne out of the way and come down to where we are? It is important for you to know that for tens of thousands of years, even millions of years, God has been wailing tearfully, crying out, "Oh, My son. Oh My daughter." You may ask how the omniscient and omnipotent God could be in such a pitiful state, but God cannot get over the shock of losing His beloved sons and daughters. If there were a way for God to solve this problem on His own, He would not have had to suffer as He traveled the long, lonely path of the providence of restoration. Why God Doesn't Punish Satan Directly No caring parent would stand by idly while her child suffers. Hence, it must be impossible for the all-loving God to abandon humanity, His beloved children, to perish eternally. God is absolutely committed to recovering us and the world that He originally envisioned. This is the reason that God has ceaselessly worked His providence of restoration to save humanity. Know how intensely God has labored to make progress in the providence of restoration! God is our True Parent. As He carried out the providence, God's heart felt the pain of human beings as His own pain. Yet it was excruciatingly difficult for God to carry out the providence of salvation, because the original human ancestors who committed the fall received Satan's false love and false life. Ever since, Satan has acted as humanity's false parent and false lord. You may raise the question: "God is omniscient and omnipotent. How could He stand by, seemingly impotent, while humanity went down the path of destruction?" It is because human beings committed sin in a realm where they are totally responsible; therefore, they are required to fulfill the conditions needed to resolve that sin. God cannot liberate us from sin unconditionally. If He could, He would have liberated the first human ancestors in the Garden of Eden instead of casting them out. Furthermore, restoration has been even more difficult because Satan uses his ties of lineage to enslave human beings as their master. The fall was something that should never have happened under the original standard of the ideal of creation. Therefore, God was not in a position to intervene, even though He was the Creator. Having been robbed of His position as the original Parent, He could not cover for His children's mistake. On the other hand, neither can the omniscient and omnipotent God simply solve the problem by sending judgment on the fallen human world and Satan. Since God created human beings to be His eternal partners in true love, He cannot just annihilate them. Instead, with true love God has labored to carry out the providence of restoration. Though all the while enduring Satan's contempt and accusations, His response is always to sacrifice and give unendingly. Satan mocks God, saying, "How can you hold fast to your principles, now that the lineage of true love, which was supposed to be the foundation of the ideal world, has been utterly degraded? Your ideal of creation — the absolute realm of love where true people live together as one — that is something You will never see." In this situation, how can God reply? It is an impossible situation. Why does God carry on with His restoration providence while enduring such suffering? Is it because He is omniscient and omnipotent? No, it is not. The ideal of true love is the reason that He seeks to recover His beloved sons and daughters. With true love, God ignores His own circumstances and works to understand the circumstances of human beings. If people are sad, God approaches them by comprehending their sadness. If people are angry because they have been treated unjustly, God approaches them by first understanding the reasons for their anger. We Need to Know God's Circumstances and Heart Respected leaders, in your communion with God, have you fathomed His suffering heart? Have you shed tears for God? Have you ever attempted to take on a task that would lighten God's load, even a little? Would you struggle to do it, even if it meant that each of your limbs might be torn from your body? You haven't. On the other hand, God ever draws near to comfort us in our difficulties. Through the long ages, He has sought out the children who betrayed Him with an unchanging parental heart. God, our Parent, remains in the realm of lamentation until every last human being has been freed from lamentation. Because He is in this position, we must comfort God and bring Him true liberation. How are we to liberate God? God lost His beloved children. God is confined in a place where He cannot love humanity with the original love that parents give their children. Therefore, our task is to establish a realm of true liberation for God where He can freely give love to all humankind. God's confinement was brought about by the human fall, so human beings must become victorious sons and daughters who transcend the limits of the fall. This is what will bring God true liberation. Human beings have lived ignorant of the tremendous pain in God's heart. When I first understood the pain of God, I wept for weeks. Please know that such profound circumstances lie behind the founding of the Unification Church. Longing for those who betrayed Him, those who were embraced in the bosom of the enemy, God has been calling out, "My son! My daughter!" But have you even once cried out, "My Father!" so loudly that it made you hoarse? Have you ever passionately called for your Father until it made your tongue dry and you began to choke? As fallen people, what do we have that would enable us to relate with God? Our emotions and the perceptions of our five senses are entirely profane. Nothing in us is acceptable. Under the laws of justice, we have nothing that will let us relate to God, but under the law of love there is a way. God's True Liberation and Complete Freedom Because human beings fell, God could not be free. Hence the first human ancestors also were imprisoned and lost their original freedom. Following this, the angelic world, all religious people, and ultimately all humanity came to be imprisoned. God lives in prison. How can we free Him? We must become filial sons and daughters of God, more so than the original children whom He lost. We must do better even than the original children were supposed to do had they been filial and not fallen. Even if we were to accumulate ten times as much merit in every aspect and relate to God with great filial piety, it would not be easy to bring God back to His original heart, in order that He might dwell in true freedom. Yet at an early age, I made a determination "to truly liberate God with my own hands," and I have lived accordingly throughout my life. What is the true mission of religion? It is, with a heart of love, to truly liberate God, truly liberate humanity on earth and in the spirit world, and truly liberate the planet earth. Many people think that God will liberate us. But now that we recognize that God's heart is under confinement, we understand that we should liberate God and bring Him into complete freedom. God has long been searching for people burning with zeal for true love, having the faith that says, "I see now that God is in prison because of me. I see now that God is receiving Satan's accusations because of me. I see now that Jesus suffered because of me. Oh, Father, I will carry You to the place of true liberation. I will carry Jesus and the Holy Spirit, too, to the place of true liberation." To this day, there has not been any sovereign country on earth where people of true love have established God's dominion. Despite this, people are singing praises to the Almighty. In such circumstances, how can God's heart be free? There have been no filial children before God. There have been no social and political structures founded upon true love that would enable people to fulfill the way of the patriot, the way of the saint, and the way of divine sons and daughters in Heaven and earth. Hence there has been no way to establish and protect the heavenly kingdom. These circumstances left God with no place to stand. Consequently, God has remained until now imprisoned — in a state of virtual captivity. How are we to resolve this grievous situation? The only way is to carry out a movement practicing the love that is God's original essence. The final stage of religion must teach in detail about God's pitiful suffering and the injustice He has endured, and it must connect human beings to the world of His original heart. Let us join in a true love movement to bring God true liberation and complete freedom. If we do not set this standard of love, the heavenly way cannot be set right and the ideal world cannot come on this earth. This true love movement is bringing an end to the history of division between Cain and Abel. To that end, we are bringing together the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace and the Peace U.N. (World Peace Council) in the Abel position, and the Mongolian Peoples' Federation for World Peace in the Cain position, (all organizations I founded) into a single unity. I call on America to take on the role of the elder brother, representing the free world, and lead all nations toward the fulfillment of God's will. To do this, America needs to put aside selfish and individualistic thinking. When political parties and ethnic groups place priority on their self-interest, they divide and mislead the people. America must build a true nation, blossoming with true freedom and peace. Then God will want to reside in your families and in your communities. For this noble goal, let us all stand hand in hand and establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, the Peace Kingdom, where God's ideal of creation is fulfilled. There, God will enjoy true liberation and complete freedom. I pray that God's blessings may be with you forever.

God’s Homeland and the Peace Kingdom Are Built on the Foundation of the Realm of His Liberation and Release

The Reverend True Father Sun Myung Moon Address on the 50th Anniversary of the Founding of the  Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity May 1, 2004 Seoul, Korea  Respected present and former heads of state, distinguished guests from around the world, leaders of all fields of Korean society: I am sincerely grateful that such a large number of you have taken time from your busy schedules to attend today’s event. It seems like yesterday that on May 1, 1954, in a humble dwelling known as the “House of Three Gates” in Seoul’s Buk-hak Dong, I and a few disciples who were with me raised a signboard that read “Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity” and offered a most serious prayer to Heaven. Today, this has become the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, which continues its steady development and has mission headquarters in 191 countries. How could anyone say that this is anything other than a miracle of Heaven? I received God’s call when I was a vibrant youth of 16 years, and started out on this path of Heaven with unbending determination. It has been a path of indescribable pain and suffering. At each climax of indemnity, sacrifices were made that led to pools of blood, sweat and tears. It was the path of a lonely man. I swallowed desperate tears of blood and hid them within myself to comfort the heart of God, who was grieving over the tragic situation of the son He had sent forth. My life of over 80 years has been lived to teach the truth that I received from Heaven. As a way of summing up what I have taught, I would like to speak today on the topic of “God’s Homeland and the Peace Kingdom Are Built on the Foundation of the Realm of His Liberation and Release.” Distinguished guests, everything I have ever taught is permeated with one point above all else. That is that we must know God and spirit world with certainty. It is not enough to have God vaguely in our head, like a mathematical formula that we once memorized. Instead, we must carve His existence onto our hearts, even into our bones. We must know the relationship that God has with us, and the attributes He possesses. We must know about the ideal world that He desired in the beginning, and when that world will be brought about. We must have the same degree of knowledge of spirit world. The world after death definitely exists independent of human beings’ will, and we must know it accurately, if we are to use our time in this world to prepare thoroughly for the next. Ladies and gentlemen, please quietly place your hand on your heart and think seriously. If everyone truly knew that God exists and always lived in attendance to Him, what would keep us from solving the problems in today’s world? I declare to you very bluntly today: God exists and He is our Parent. He lives and carries out His work within each person’s life. He exists without form. If you think of Him as large, He is infinitely large, but if you think of Him as small, he is also infinitely small. Every human being possesses a mind, but can anyone locate the mind with confidence and certainty? Energy clearly exists and sustains life, but energy is invisible. In the same way, God absolutely exists with attributes of eternality, changelessness and uniqueness, but He cannot be seen with the human eye, which is one part of the human physical body. Because God is the original body of energy, we will not be able to see Him even in spirit world. This is why we say that God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. Because He has no form, there is nothing to keep Him from going anywhere He pleases in the world of existence. He could pass right through your body without you feeling anything. He could step on you as He passes by while you doze off, and you would not know it. Think how convenient that is. What would you do if God were to appear and involve Himself in every little thing you do? If you had to live with God visible to your eyes, what would you do? Probably you would not last a day before having a nervous breakdown. You cannot see the incredible amount of air that is passing through your body even as you sit here. So how could you possibly know how God, who exists without form, passes through you as He carries on His work? Rather than foolishly saying, “Show me God and I’ll believe,” you should be grateful that God is invisible to our eyes. Leaders from around the world, do you have love? Do you have life? Do you have a lineage and a conscience? Then, have you ever seen love? Can you say that you have seen life, lineage or conscience? You clearly know these exist, but you must acknowledge that you cannot feel or see them. You only know them because you sense them with your mind. A similar logic applies to the question of whether God exists, or whether a person has or has not seen God. No one can say that they have not seen God or that He does not exist. When God enters into the mind, the mind knows it. When the omniscient and almighty God is with you, you can call for saints who died thousands of years ago to come to you and you can clearly see who is sitting on the other side of a thick wall. When the eternal God enters your heart, such things are possible. Eternity cannot be grasped in the context of time, but time exists within eternity. The universe in which we live is wrapped in mystery. The size of the vast universe is as great as 21 billion light years across. If a light year is the distance light travels in a year at a speed so fast that it can go around the Earth seven and a half times in a second, then try to imagine what God, who created the universe and manages it, must be like. How large would He have to be, and how heavy? God is the great king of wisdom, so He made it so that He would exist without form, enabling Him to go anywhere in the universe instantaneously or enter even into the eye of a needle. When we search within for the best place to receive God, our greatest treasure, the natural conclusion is, “The heart is the only appropriate place.” No place can be safer or more comfortable for Him. The heart is able to stand in the position of God’s object partner and exist for eternity by engaging in spherical motion, and this is the reason that human beings can have eternal life. If humanity had not committed the fall but had been born through parents possessing an original nature of goodness, then it would not have been necessary to argue with each other about whether God exists. We would have known this naturally from the time we were born. Just as an infant does not learn how to suckle its mother’s breast while it is in the womb, but naturally learns how to do so as soon as it is born, so also people born into a world where the fall of the human ancestors had not occurred would have naturally attended God as their Father throughout their lives. When God created Adam and Eve as the first human ancestors, He wanted to establish them as substantiations of Himself. So He arranged for His masculine nature to be placed within the mind of Adam and His feminine nature to be placed within the mind of Eve and remain there for eternity. This did not mean that God would be divided in two. Instead, while residing in the minds of Adam and Eve, He would exist as a harmonized being of dual characteristics and as a unified being centering on love. As a result of the fall, humanity lost everything. We fell into a false world. We appear to have sight but in fact are blind, not even knowing whether God exists. What could be more tragic in the history of humankind? If Adam and Eve, created in the image of God, had grown to maturity without falling, achieved perfection, and acquired the position of the parents of humankind, all human beings would have been able to recognize the reality of God’s existence through Adam and Eve. It would have been impossible even to imagine people arguing with each other, saying, “God exists,” and “No, He doesn’t.” God would have lived with us and shared our emotions for eternity as the Parent of humankind. He would have been the center of our life and the root of our existence. We truly know God only when we feel Him in our heart and understand the reality of His existence in the course of daily life. We know God’s existence only through experience. When we understand the reality of God’s existence directly through experience in our daily life, we will be able to sense God’s will from moment to moment naturally. We will be able to act in accordance with His will without being told. We will become people who cannot sin even if we try. It was intended that the formless God would take on substantial form as human beings and exercise dominion with the character and appearance of an owner, not only over all of creation in this world, a world of form, but even over the sprit world. This is why our highest priority in life is to know God with certainty. Ladies and gentlemen, let us think for a moment about human life. We spend our first lifetime in the womb of our mother. The ten months that we spend there as a fetus is a period of water-borne life, because we are bathed in the amniotic fluid. We cannot speak or move about freely, but this does not mean that our term in the womb is not life. During this period, we clearly possess a life given to us by Heaven, and it is a period for us to prepare for life on the earth, which is the next phase. The fact that we don’t breathe through our nose during this period doesn’t mean there is no life. The human being as a fetus in the womb cannot imagine what life will be like in the next phase, on the earth. It cannot imagine a world outside its mother’s womb. It cannot imagine not receiving all nourishment from its mother through the umbilical cord. Human beings, though, are created so that when the time comes we bring our life in the womb to a close and begin life on the earth. Irrespective of our wishes, this happens in accordance with the laws of the universe. A new, vast world that we could never have imagined appears before us. Our water-borne life ends, and our new life on earth begins. The ten months of life in the womb transitions into an earthly life of 100 years. Human beings then live in a wide variety of unique ways and prepare for the final phase of our existence, in the spirit world, that is, the world after death. A world that is eternal and endless awaits us, but human beings living in a physical body are no more capable of imagining the spirit world that we were of imagining life on Earth while we lived in the womb. Our lives of some 100 years on Earth will transfer into an eternal world that transcends time and space. In the womb, we received nourishment from our mother through the umbilical cord, and during our time on earth we receive the three basic elements, the universe’s water, air and light. Once we enter the spirit world, however, we will no longer have need of physical nourishment. We instead will breathe love as we live eternally. So human beings, without exception, live through three stages: ten months in the womb, 100 years on earth, and an eternity in the spirit world. This is not something that we do by our own choice. It is a blessing and grace given by Heaven. What could be a blessing and grace greater than this? So when I say you need to know the spirit world well, it is not enough to live with a vague faith in the existence of the spirit world. On Earth we must know how to prepare for life in the spirit world, where we will live eternally, and then prepare ourselves thoroughly. Just as a child that develops a problem while in the womb may spend his entire life after birth in poor health, so too if we fail to recognize Heaven’s will during our short life on Earth and commit sin or carry out evil deeds, we will eventually pay the price in the spirit world according to the principle of cause and effect. It means that our spirit self will have to suffer indescribable pain and indemnity in spirit world. Once the physical body has been shed, it will be too late. When the physical body dies, it returns to the earth as a handful of dirt, but do you think that our life, our mind, our heart, and our hopes are also buried? It is absolutely not so. Our 100-year-long life is recorded, photographed and automatically evaluated without fail in our personal computer, built by God, called the spirit self. This is why all of us, during life on earth, will stop and check ourselves again and again, and ask our unsteady mind and heart: “Where are you going?” The saints, sages and spiritual masters are those who spent their entire lives wrestling with such issues. None of them, however, were able to present clear answers. It is true that their teachings have remained with us, allowing religions to be formed and sacred texts to be published, guiding the mass of people for their lives. It is also true, though, that humanity still lacks even the ability to have dominion over our own mind. I have toured the world hundreds of times to declare Heaven’s truth and educate people. No matter where I go in the world or what kind of audience I face, I always ask one question. I issue a challenge, saying, “If there is anyone here whose mind and body are not in conflict, please raise your hand.” So far no one anywhere has dared to raise a hand. What does this tell us? It means that human beings are still slaves to the fallen nature that we inherited from our first ancestors, Adam and Eve. We have not yet escaped that yoke. This is evidenced by the confessions of saints and sages who spent their lives in fasting and abstinence and consistently pursued paths of incredible suffering. Their confessions that they could not root out the desires of the flesh before they had to leave this world remain as pitiful cries to their disciples who still insist on following in their footsteps. Those who are counted among the saints and sages are now declaring with one voice that I, Sun Myung Moon, have brought for the first time from Heaven the truth of true love that they could not grasp, and that their followers and descendents on Earth should follow my teachings absolutely and practice them. People in spirit world who regret that they could not meet Rev. Moon while they were on earth and attend him as Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord, and True Parent during their lives here are sending a flood of messages. The resolutions that these people adopted in the spirit world now echo around the world. In the near future, all religious people will begin to receive revelations directly from the founders of their own religion, and there will be a great migration of people being guided to attend Rev. Moon as the True Parent. They will gather as the clouds to learn from Rev. Moon the truth of true love that enables them to unite their mind and body. They will learn the way of the true family, leading to their singing together the praises of eternal happiness as parents and children on Earth and in Heaven. Communists of the world who insisted there is no God and passed away as sacrifices to materialism, intellectuals of the world who as journalists commanded an entire generation, and even dictators and emperors who brandished the sword of absolute power and sacrificed countless lives, have shed tears of repentance before me and begged for forgiveness through their messages and resolutions from spirit world. Any among you who still cannot believe with certainty the reality of the spirit world may still not be sure whether to believe these messages. To you my advice is this: “You will see for yourself when you pass on to spirit world!” But once you go down that path you can never return, no matter how much you may strike the ground in lamentation. Once in the spirit world, a person cannot do anything on his own about the sins he committed while on earth. So your ancestors now are observing your life in tears, waiting for an opportunity to help you in a way that indemnifies their sins. I am telling you clearly that thousands, even tens of thousands, of your ancestors’ eyes are watching your every step and every action, sometimes with tears of heartbreak and other times with joy. Is there still anyone who cannot believe the reality of spirit world? Distinguished guests, once we come to know God with certainty and know not just the concept of the spirit world but also its reality, our life can move forward as smoothly as a car on an expressway. Just as the car will reach its destination safely if the driver follows the rules of the road, keeps his hands on the steering wheel and doesn’t fall asleep, so too we only need to live in line with the direction from our conscience, which is given by Heaven. This is where our mind and body become one and where the blossom of human perfection blooms and bears fruit. Going deep into the mountains will not perfect one’s character, and extensive reading of sacred texts and philosophy books that line library shelves will not unite the mind and body. God is the great King of wisdom. He did not place the path to perfection in some far off place. Instead, He placed it in the place that is nearest to us, the place that is most private and safe. He prepared and placed that path inside your conscience. Ladies and gentlemen, your conscience is your master. It is your teacher. It stands in the place of your parents. Your conscience is the first to know everything about you. Your conscience knows all your thoughts. It knows before your teacher, before your parents and before even God knows. Think how much advice your conscience gives you over your lifetime. Day and night, every time you have an evil thought, it scolds you, saying, “Hey you!” It never grows tired as it works constantly to pull you over rivers and mountains. The conscience always stands as the true master, protecting you and trying to help you. Yet, how often have you gone against your own conscience? What should be done about your body, which has thoroughly mistreated this precious irreplaceable teacher that the universe bequeathed to you? Your conscience was given to represent the Parent who makes it possible for you to inherit the original love. Do you intend to idle your life away, embracing only your physical body and enslaved by its desires, allowing it mercilessly to trample the conscience? That is why I, too, as I began to pioneer the way of truth, set as my slogan, “Before seeking dominion over the universe, perfect dominion over yourself.” I discovered that there is only one way to resolve the conflict between mind and body, and that is “the way of true love.” Unity between mind and body can be achieved only when the mind sacrifices itself for the sake of the body time and again, thus practicing “true love that lives for the sake of others.” When you follow the path set out by your conscience, your mind will come to embrace the universe. When this happens, you will be able to communicate with your heart. Whenever you start to do something, your conscience will immediately show you the effects of that action. This experience proves that God resides within your heart. The person who attains this position will enter the state of being of one mind, one body and one thought with God. He or she will live in a world of one circle and one harmony. This is the ideal world, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth that God desired in the beginning when He created Adam and Eve. Respected guests, it is now more than 80 years since I began my search for such incredible secrets of Heaven and began to walk the path to lead humanity. It has been the path of a lonely and pitiful man pushing my way through suffering and difficulties that are unprecedented in the past and unrepeatable in the future. It has been a path that has proven and taught the reality of an omnipresent God. Every one of the six billion people in the world are blind. Though they appear normal, they cannot see even an inch in front of themselves. But this has not kept people from pretending to be philosophers and theologians with respect to Heaven’s truth, bringing grief to God throughout history. The providence of restoration that sought to live for the sake of God and take pity on God never even had a chance to begin. I cannot count the days I spent in tears and lamentation after I came to know this world of God’s inner heart. Who could even dare to imagine the grief-stricken God? He has carried out His providence for thousands, even tens of thousands of years after the first human ancestors, whom He created as His children and tried to place in the eternal position of His object partners in true love, fell into the path of the human fall. God was sorrowful and mortified. Anger exploded within Him, and His heart overflowed with grief as He walked this course. He came as the Father and King of glory, but the enemy Satan stole His throne and His position as Parent. Though He was clearly alive and carrying out His providence, people said “He’s dead,” and they mocked and mistreated Him. Still, He persevered on the path with patient endurance, waiting for the day when human beings would themselves understand the truth. Please understand that it is because God conducts His providence on a foundation of true love, which lives for the sake of others, and on the basis of eternity, that He did not just annihilate the universe and begin again after witnessing His children descend into the bottomless pit of the human fall. With the power of His omniscience and omnipotence, He could have judged the world and Satan at once, smashing them to pieces. Though He has this power, He has chosen until now to absorb all the contempt and accusation into Himself. He has placed Himself in a prison-like environment, because He is our Father. Ladies and gentlemen, have you spent even one day before our Father God, shedding tears of sincere sympathy and repentance? Can you stand before God and close your eyes as if to block out how He bites His tongue and endures humankind that inherited the lineage of the devil and became the tool of Satan, and how He waits impatiently for the day of His liberation and release? This is the reason that my life has been more serious than any other in history. As I walked this fateful course of restoration through indemnity, I had to go the way of the perfection of character in order to stand as the Lord of judgment and determine the sin of the devil Satan and judge him. I had to send as many as four of my young children, whom I loved deeply, to the spirit world, and I have had to cast even my remaining children out into the wilderness. I stand before you as one who has received Heaven’s appointment as Savior and True Parent for the sake of liberating and releasing God and, on that foundation, liberating and releasing humankind. I do not come out of a need for money and power, or honor and fame. For more than 80 years, I have lived oblivious to morning or evening, day or night, even weathering the coldest winters and harshest snow and rain, in order to move as quickly as I could along the heavenly path. Even in the torture chamber, where my flesh was torn from my body and I was made to vomit blood, I never prayed for God to save me. Instead, my life has been that of a filial son, patriot, saint, and divine son of Heaven and Earth who sheds tears to comfort God’s heart as He weeps to look upon the tragic state of His children. I left my parents and homeland behind to follow the straight and narrow path to human salvation, that is, the path of true love that lives for the sake of others. My life of never compromising and never acting in a cowardly manner may seem incredibly pitiful and bleak from a worldly point of view. No torture or punishment could make me compromise from the heavenly path. Neither could six imprisonments stand in the way of the True Parent’s search for his children. As I sat in a cold prison cell and watched drops of water fall from an eave, I pledged to myself, “Just as those droplets will eventually bore a hole through a boulder, the day will certainly come when these hot tears that fall from my eyes will melt the heart of God frozen in grief and liberate and release Him.” That is how I have lived. It has been a sacrificial course of practicing a love that loves the enemy more than my own children and of offering everything to teach all six billion people in the world. In line with this, I went to America in the early 1970s, and announced, “I have come as a fire fighter to extinguish a fire and as a physician to cure a disease.” It is important that we understand that, more than 30 years later, humanity has entered a new age. Finally, heavenly fortune is settling on the planet Earth. The blood, sweat, and tears I have shed on the course of restoration through indemnity for the sake of human salvation are now beginning to bear fruit. In 2001, at the opening of the 21st century, I dedicated the “Coronation Ceremony of God’s Kingship,” offering to Him the day of His liberation and release. This marked the beginning of the opening of the age of God’s direct dominion. On that foundation, the “Coronation Ceremony of the King of World Peace” was held this year on March 23 in a Senate building of the United States Congress. World leaders of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and members of the United States Congress gathered to crown me as the king of world peace. How can this possibly be a human work? Just as the French prophet Nostradamus prophesied, and as is clearly recorded in the Orient’s greatest book of prophesies, “Kyeok-Am-Yu-Rok,” Rev. Moon has come as the one who has received Heaven’s appointment and fulfilled the responsibilities of humanity’s True Parent and the king of peace. So now, leaders from all walks of life and from all over the world are surging forward in a giant wave to join the ranks of people working to build the Peace Kingdom on this earth. They are acknowledging that peace cannot be achieved without my help. This is true not only on the Korean peninsula, the only place in the world where the conflict between democracy and Communism still divides an innocent people and land, but also in the Middle East, which has become the most serious and bloody conflict threatening world peace. On April 10 this year, I declared the “release of the angelic world,” the “release of Cain and Abel,” and the “release of the Parents of Cheon-ju, Cheon-ji, Cheon-ji-in.” [Parents of the Cosmos, of Heaven and Earth, and of Heaven, Earth and Humankind.] By marking May 1 with the declaration, “God’s Homeland and the Peace Kingdom Are Built on the Foundation of the Realm of His Liberation and Release,” I am completing the spiritual conditions on many levels that are needed for God to exercise His authority of all-immanence, all-authority, all-power and all-transcendence. Together with God’s liberation and release, a world of freedom, peace, unity and happiness is spreading across this land. In this respect, there is a special meaning to today’s commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, which I established. Heavenly fortune is with each of you present here today. Though our time together is short, you can become people of the Kingdom of Heaven simply by living according to what I have taught you today. That is, first live in the certainty of God’s existence to the point that you can feel His presence against your skin. Second, be certain of the reality of the spirit world and use your life on Earth to prepare for your eternal life in the spirit world. Third, live in attendance to your conscience as you would your teacher, your God, or your parents. The flames of true love, now fanned by the spring breezes of the 21st century, are spreading like a wildfire across the Earth. Exchange marriages are becoming accepted among young people belonging to traditionally enemy countries as a matter of faith. Just as water, air and light will flow to fill even the smallest space, the movement of true love is flowing and covering the Earth. Young people of intellect who will inherit God’s love, God’s life and God’s lineage and settle the Peace Kingdom on the Earth are now waking from their sleep. Eminent world leaders, I hope that you, too, will join the ranks of the owners of Cheon Il Guk [the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth] who are to “establish His Kingdom and His righteousness,” and become a revolutionary army of true love, putting into practice the truth of true love that grows larger the more that it is given. Thank you.