Establishment of a World of True Heart-Centered Culture

May 1, 1994 10:00 a.m.

Gymnastics Hall, Olympic Park, Seoul, Korea

I am standing at this podium with deep feeling today on this, the 40th anniversary of the founding of our Church. In 1954, with former President Hyo-Won Eu and several close disciples, we hung the name board of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity on a tiny house in Pukhak-Dong in Seoul. That official beginning seems like yesterday, yet forty years have already passed.

The founding of our Church was not for the realization of some personal goal of mine. It was done only to realize God's will on this earth. As I look back, I recall there was much persecution, and I walked many different thorny paths. They were paths that my parents, my brothers and sisters and my relatives could not understand, and I have vivid memories of false accusations from various societies and nations. The most painful aspect was the opposition of the people of the established churches whom God had prepared. Even today some portion of them raise totally unfounded criticisms. Truly I have surmounted many hurdles.

I am so grateful for the protection and guidance given by God's deep love during all these difficulties. What is the duty of saints who are responsible for God's providence of salvation? What is God's purpose in raising saints? The saints for whom God is searching are not saints who will be honored in history after their death. God is looking for saints who can save this evil world, and who can, in this age, transform it into the world of goodness God longs for.

God is looking for saints who will plunge headlong into the sorrowful world of sin in order to wipe clean the slate of the world's sinful history. He is looking for saints who say they will solve, and will take responsibility themselves for, the problems God is most concerned about-saints who will fulfill the providential will by firmly standing up against the evil of this world. Therefore the path of such saints cannot be smooth, and it is inevitable that persecution and misunderstanding follow them.

I pledged to God that I would accomplish His will for Him during my lifetime, and asleep or awake I concentrated only on that idea. Disciplining myself, I pledged myself countless times, renewing that pledge in the depths of prison and on the verge of death after severe torture.

God's will does not belong only to those who believe. All people and all of creation are governed by the will of God. God's will is not something vague. The will of God is the purpose of creation, that is, the ideal of creation which was in God's heart from the beginning of time. All things of the universe and mankind were created according to that purpose of creation.

Why would the eternal absolute God need to create? What does God absolutely need? Would it be material things, knowledge or power? If God wanted any of those things He could create them at any time. God can conduct Himself freely. However, the only thing that even God cannot control according to His Will is true love. True love can be found only through a mutual relationship with a partner. One cannot feel love by oneself. This is the reason God needed the material world as a counterpart. God created the world for the ideal of true love.

We can look at the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom or the animal kingdom, although they are at different levels, and see that they were all created in pairs of subject and object partners in order to be able to engage in give-and-take action, harmonize and complement each other. Furthermore, human beings, as representatives of and the center of the world of creation, were created as the closest object partners for God's true love. For this reason, God needs human beings to realize His purpose of true love.

From this perspective, we can understand how precious is the value of human beings as the object partners for God's true love. God established true love as His ideal of creation, the highest and most absolute value. Even the absolute God desires to submit absolutely in front of true love. Likewise Humankind and the rest of creation, which were created through such a principle, become absolutely obedient before true love. All of life's energies are interconnected and directed toward the higher level of true love. The order of the universe and the value of each created being are decided based on this principle. The relationship between God, who has a heart of true love, and humankind is a vertical relationship of parent and child.

Adam and Eve, who were created as God's son and daughter, were the first to receive God's parental love and experience the heart of children as they grew up. During their growth, they could also feel the heart of brother and sister for each other. Next, after being blessed in marriage by God, they were to become a couple, and by loving each other they were to experience the heart of a husband and wife. Finally, after having children and loving them as true parents, they were to feel the heart of parents and also experience the parental heart through which God loved them as children. These different experiences of the heart: the heart of children, the heart of brother and sister, the heart of husband and wife, and the heart of parents, are called the "four great realms of heart." The perfection of humankind requires a complete understanding of these four great realms of heart under the true love of God. The foundation for this is the ideal family. A family that embodies the four great realms of heart is the smallest unit of humankind that fulfills God's ideal of creation. God, who is the origin and Lord of true love, is in the position of a father who intends to bequeath unchanging true love to all people as His children. Through true love, complete harmony and unity can be achieved.

Unfortunately, the first human ancestors fell because of the false love of an archangel. Consequently, they could not become a couple of true love. They had children without God's Blessing and became false parents and false ancestors. As a result, our ancestors could not be born from true ancestors or true parents; they were born of a lineage God did not want.

When we look at the natural world, even though all things are at lower levels, they are all in harmony in the order of love. Only in the world of Men people is this order not maintained. The result has been evil, conflict and suffering. However, God cannot abandon this world even though it is the opposite of His Will.

So He has been working to restore this evil, fallen world to the ideal world of creation. That is the providence of salvation. The providence of salvation is the providence to restore the purpose of creation. It is the providence of re- creation. Following the Will of Heaven, religions have played the major role in the providence of restoration. Religions were established for the purpose of restoring the original ideal family and the ideal world, based on God's true love and the ideology we call "True Parentism."

The Messiah is the one who comes as the True Parent, with the crucial responsibility to get rid of everything which sprouted from the false root that originated from the false parents, and to restore the original ideal world of creation. In order for this world to be restored through true love and true family, first the internal position of True Parents needs to be established. God called me for the sake of the accomplishment of this mission. Because of the fall, the original ideal was not realized. In order to accomplish the providence of recovering that which had been lost, God brought religion into being and also sent the Messiah.

God's unchanging purpose is the realization of the ideal world of true love. The fulfillment of the purpose of religion is the appearance of true love and the ideal family. Conversely, if a religion exists for a purpose other than this, or only for itself, even though that religion may talk about God, it does not have anything to do with God. God and the world do not exist because of religion. Religion was established for the sake of accomplishing God's will to restore true love and the world of true families. My efforts of 40 years in developing interfaith, academic, educational, ideological, cultural, artistic, media-related, scientific, technological and business projects worldwide, are all directed towards this purpose.

I have devoted and invested my life for the accomplishment of all this. I have lived with the heart of the heavenly parent and loved the different peoples of the world more than my brothers and more than my parents who gave birth to me, by surmounting imprisonment and miserable persecution, and transcending the fear of death.

The way of true love is the shortest way. In the realization of true love, there can be no conditions or excuses, and nothing can stand in its way. The only direct way is to sacrifice oneself and give to others.

I am grateful to the many people who are showing their appreciation for my worldwide achievements. However, more important than the external results are the motives and processes by which they are achieved. None of this work has been accomplished under pleasant conditions or in a favorable environment. All these achievements were built on the foundation stones that I laid with the single-minded conviction to accomplish the Will of God on earth, for which I mobilized all my enthusiasm and sincerity, and invested everything. Throughout my struggles, I continuously invested for the growth and protection of this righteous work by standing firm against all the winds of evil.

Ladies and Gentlemen!

The religion God wants to have to govern this age is a religion which stands in the parent position. God wants a religion whose followers live with the heart of parents. I myself have been teaching "True Parentism," educating each person to become a true parent who embodies this tradition. I guide people to first become true parents in the family, then to fulfill their mission as tribal messiahs-the true parents of their tribe. We have to become the religion which embodies and practices the heart of true parents in order to realize God's will in this world of conflict, hatred and evil. Those religions which despise and have contempt for other religions and denominations are a hindrance to the accomplishment of world peace and God's providence.

A peaceful world of harmony is destined to emerge. However, what about the reality of the world around us? Even though we say that the Cold War is over, there are so many tensions and conflicts to resolve. Our task to establish the age of the harmonious one-world family by fundamentally solving the conflicts between races and the struggles between religions can only be accomplished through True Parentism.

We who stand on the foundation of forty years pioneering by the Unification Church, and who have welcomed the True Parents and the Completed Testament Age, must build a new world of true heart-centered culture. Man becomes a substantiation of that ideal and of happiness in the harmony of love that is created when he becomes one with God in a true father-son relationship.

Although this realm of heart, built with true love, is small, it is connected to the universe. The vibrations of everything happening within it are transmitted to all of the creation and the spirit world. This is because the entire cosmos, including the spirit world, exists under the same principle of the true love of God. The vertical true love relationship between God and human beings is the source of ideal true love in human relationships. The perfection of that love is attained in the ideal family that manifests the four great realms of heart.

A true heart-centered culture blooms in the realm of an ideal family, in which the heart of peace, happiness, freedom and ideals can be felt and experienced in life.

In such a world, religion would not be needed. We would not require the special consciousness of faith, because our whole life would be one of attending God and living together with Him with one heart in the realm of true love. That would be the reality of living in the kingdom of heaven with God's blessings to "be fruitful, multiply, and have dominion over all things." This is the fulfillment of God's ideal and His purpose of creation.

In order to establish a world of true heart-centered culture, we need to develop our personality through education in true love and True Parentism, and we need to expand the movement that creates families of true love that have received God's Blessing. Under that Blessing, we can become ideal couples and families by continuously training ourselves through a life of faith in which we practice true love by living and investing for the sake of others. The only way the world and all humanity can expect to have a bright future is by surmounting the habits of extreme self-centeredness, individualism and materialism. This is the only way we can protect people from immorality, the corruption of youth and the breakdown of families.

Only though the family-centered movement of true love, established through International Holy Weddings, can we solve the conflicts between peoples and races. The miracle of establishing ideal families of true love according to the will of Heaven, by overcoming the barriers of religion, has been achieved. Next year, many more religions will participate in the 360,000 Couples International Holy Wedding.

Also, I am educating the image of "mother of true love" through the activities of the Women's Federation for World Peace. When all women conceive and educate their children with the heart of a true mother, ideal families will be realized. Now the time has come for the women who understand God's will to educate fallen men. This movement will spread all over the world.

Religion carries great responsibility in the process to establish a world of true heart-centered culture. World peace cannot be realized without harmony and cooperation amongst religions. I have been investing all my energy to accomplish this. In the future, too, I will take the lead in breaking down the barriers between religious people, and organize a concerted effort to realize God's will on earth. I will endeavor to help religions see the good in each other by actively supporting the Inter-Religious Federation for World Peace, by distributing World Scripture, and educating people. In future, religious people will realize God's will through practice, cooperating and setting an example.

Many different organizations which I established and have run will become more active. There are many different organizations which have been laying the foundation to solve the substantial and real problems of the world. The Federation for World Peace, composed of former and present heads of state, will continue to endeavor to mediate in conflicts of this world and the tensions amongst nations, as well as to maintain peace. The International Federation for Victory Over Communism and the Citizens Federation for the Unification of the Fatherland will continue to be active to digest, with "Godism" and "Headwing Ideology," the philosophies and ideologies which are hostile to nations and the world.

We can foresee that, with advanced scientific and technological development and the communications technology revolution, the future lifestyle of mankind will transcend and reformulate ideology. From another point of view, environmental problems and global atmospheric problems, brought about by man's boundless desire and self-centeredness in all he pursues, have a direct bearing on either the well-being or destruction of all humanity. Is there a future for mankind if we leave the leaders of the next generation to think only in a self-centered way and to satisfy carnal desire?

Absolute values centered upon True Parentism and the practice of true love must be established. When man is safely settled on the foundation of a family based on unchanging love, vertically and horizontally connected in the Four Great Realms of the Heart, then the modern conveniences of civilization can truly become a means to happiness.

Therefore, the devotion, educational and practical efforts of conscientious academics expressed through the activities of the Professors World Peace Academy and the International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences, affiliates of the International Cultural Foundation, are greatly needed and valued. I also have a plan to publish an encyclopedia in an effort to educate the new generation. My work to maintain various educational organizations and to support academic activities also have the same goal.

Through cultivating Sun Moon University in Korea and Bridgeport University in the United States, I have plans to develop a world university federation. This is an educational foundation for the coming world of true heart-centered culture. Greeting the Age of Communications, by supporting the mass communications industry-newspapers and broadcasting-worldwide, we are, through well-directed media work, offering social education on a vast scale.

No one knows the heartbreak of God over the situation of starvation in the world. Up until now I have been developing industrial technology and transferring it to the developing nations. Through this, I have made continuous efforts towards the equal distribution of technology in all countries. Just this year I founded the World Peace Institute of Technology so that it can contribute, along with other existing institutes, to redress the worldwide technological imbalance. For the past twenty years I have been investing in marine business ventures in order to develop a policy of safeguarding the food supply through the efficient use of marine resources. We have seen some substantial achievements through the activities of the International Relief Friendship Foundation, and the providing of education in agriculture and light industry in Africa and other places. We have also established two foundations for social welfare in Korea this year.

Let us become inheritors of the Will

Honored Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, and Beloved Unification Members!

Before ending my speech this morning, I would like to offer my gratitude to God once more. Throughout my life I have had a pure motivation to live for the sake of God's will. God, who watched over and guided me at all times, has endured difficulties and suffering thousands of times greater than my own.

I offer all glory to God. Furthermore, how could the achievements of the past 40 years be only my own? I am deeply grateful to the Church members who worked so hard, and to the many who lent their support. God's will, which I began to realize, is actually the original will for all mankind. I therefore ask all of you to become my representatives, and representatives of the True Parents. Please become the inheritors of God's will and multiply the fruits of righteousness and goodness.

So let us make effort to realize quickly the original world of true heart-centered culture that God yearns to see on the earth. Finally, I would like to express my appreciation to all honored guests from overseas and from Korea for the blessing of your presence on this occasion.

May your families and your work continue to be blessed by the presence of God.

Thank you.