Belvedere, New York
Translator- Mrs. Won Pok Choi
This is the third Sunday of the New Year. My topic this morning is, "To Whom Do I Belong?" We have members here from Japan, Korea, and the European countries, together with the Americans. In the Unification Church, everyone belongs to a certain group or has a certain position. In that sense, you have many boundary lines between you. The people beyond those lines belong to other posts or other nationalities. In the physical sense too, there are boundaries; in Tarrytown for instance, there are many districts and parcels of land belonging to different people. The owners of those lands have different backgrounds, ancestries and educations. They are also different in whether they are good people or not,.
On the individual level, as you know, you have both your mind and body. Are your mind and body in complete oneness, so that you belong to a higher dimension like God, or are they the other way around? That is the question. In the Unification Church too, there could be two groups of people. Do we belong more to the godly side, or the worldly, more evil side?
In case you belong to God, do you belong to the internal side of God or the external side of God? Where would you want to belong? God is the God of wisdom, the God of power, and the God of heart. Which part of God would you want to belong to? Why do you want to belong to the heart of God?
We know that God's heart is the center point of everything that exists. All decisions are made by the heart of God, not by His power or knowledge or wisdom. In yourselves too, your heart or mind is making decisions, not your body. Whether your decision will bring happiness or something good to your side is determined by whether or not the result is linked to your heart's desire.
You are often asked whether or not a certain thing pleases your heart. When men are asked what they want to belong to, their answer might be to the opposite sex. A man wants to belong to his wife and a woman wants to belong to her husband. That is because they want to win the heart of that person, not just have his or her power or wisdom or knowledge.
I don't think there is any woman in the whole world who would say she wanted to belong to the wisdom or power of a man. She would like to belong to his heart. Some women may say, "Oh, I want to marry a millionaire," but would they want to belong to his money or power in that case? A woman may say, "I want to have the knowledge and wisdom of that man," but deep in her heart she would really want to belong to his heart. If she prefers the other, she is crazy, or there is something wrong with her.
Men and women want to belong to the hearts of the opposite sex because there is nothing else more important than that. Again, we know that when we find a central figure, for instance God, then we want to belong to His heart, instead of to His other essentialities.
In our everyday life too, parents want to win the hearts of their children and the children want to win the hearts of their parents. Their every decision is made centered upon each other's hearts. All humanity belongs to God. As a parent, would God say, "I want to have only you belong to me," or would He want to have everyone else in the world belong to Him centering on you?
If your parents are great people, they would not just want you to become the President and dominate the country. They would want you to have the respect of people around you, not only of your family members, but of the rest of the world. Then with that respect, they would like to see you advance toward the Presidency or other things. That's why your parents train you to be respectful, not only within your family and neighborhood, but in your society and nation. They want you to become the central figure in that way. How can that be so?
It is because in your position as central figure you may have many people around, but it is only through your connection with them that your position can have meaning. Unless you have harmonious relationships with those people, your position will not be stable. If you are supported by people all around, you will stand straight up, instead of leaning to one side.
Would your parents like to hear you say, "I love only my parents and nobody else"? Your parents' desire would be for you to love your brothers and sisters, and then with that relationship to love them. They would tell you to look around and love your relatives, your neighborhood and your whole nation, and then come back to love them.
They do this because if you love a broader scope of people, you gain more respect, and your situation becomes more stable. Your parents represent the center, so if you have relationships with a broad scope of people, they can reach out to all those people through you. Through a love relationship with one person, a whole group of people can reach the central point.
Let's look at the matter from the viewpoint of God. Would He want to have His people think that they need God alone and nothing else? Would God tell you, "You are wonderful to love me alone and never look at other people," or would He tell you to look around and have relationships with others and then with that love come back and love Him?
My topic this morning is "To Whom Do I Belong?" Ask yourself to whom you belong. Do you really belong to God? Can you just sit there with folded arms and say, "I belong to God"? Would God like that? The question is, whether you belong to God or God belongs to you. Which of the two? If there is complete oneness between you and God, you can say both that God belongs to you and you belong to Him.
Being in oneness with God means that you must stand in the position of God, that you must think and speak and act from God's point of view. For instance, if God said, "I want to go to Korea," but you clung to Him and said, "Stay in America," then your views would be contradictory. Then could you say you belong to God and are in oneness with Him? In that case, there would be a separation between you and God.
God is anxious to go even to hell to save the people. If you don't want that to happen and tell God, "Why don't you just stay with me? Never mind the other people," are you in oneness with Him? Then no matter how strong your confidence that you belong to Him, there is already a separation between God and yourself. Instead, why don't you go a step further and say, "God, you cannot stay here. Why don't you go to Africa to save the people," or "God, you can rest here. I will go to the end of the world to bring back the people." Would that please God or not?
After saving the whole nation of America, there is no other place for God to go except to Africa and other countries. By that time would you still belong to God and go wherever He goes? In that case, do you belong to God or does God belong to you? If you take the initiative and go yourself to the tip of Africa, then God is compelled to follow and would say, "My, you have done a good job." Then you could say that God belongs to you.
From this viewpoint, let's look at my situation. All the Unification Church members are always curious to know what I am doing. Just yesterday I visited Washington, D.C., and as I was leaving one of the sisters stepped out and said, "Oh, Father, you must stay with us longer. Why don't you stay here in Washington?" I answered her, "So many people are waiting for me to speak to them tomorrow morning. Would you still want me to stay here?" But she insisted upon my having to be there.
Is her way of thinking acceptable? No. Of course you want me around, but if you are wiser than she, you will go one step further and think that I am needed everywhere, and let me go according to my will. The same principle applies at your home, at your school, and in your society.
When you are asked where you belong, you can say you belong to the Unification Church. To whom does the Unification Church belong? It belongs to God, but what side of God does it belong to? You want to have our movement belong to God's heart or to be within the scope of God's heart. Do you know what I mean by that? You as an individual don't just want to belong to the heart of God so that you and God are together exclusively. God's heart is broad enough to encompass the whole world; that is why you want to belong to that part of God.
Don't ever be anxious to just be alone within God's heart. When you know how broad God is, you would rather cover the external area first and then come to the very central point. When you want to love God, would you just want to love God's heart alone, or love every cell of Him, as well as everything that belongs to Him? Would you want to have your mate just love your countenance or your limbs, or would you want to have him embrace your whole self and everything that belongs to you?
You would want to have your sweetheart love and embrace you, turning round and round with you, having the whole world spin with you. Before you can say that you love a person, you must look all around and see the scope of his heart; you must love everything and everyone he loves. When you encompass all those and then come back to that person, then you have the truest love,
If God would cry out to the whole world, "Those who love me, step forward," you would want to run to God full speed, making a straight line, not a zig zag, or detour. If you were the one to reach God first, would God look at you and say, "You seem to love me more than those other people do." Would He say that simply because you reached Him first? Instead, He would tell you, "I am bigger than Africa, or America, or South America. Why don't you turn around and love those people and bring them back to me; then I will know that you really love me."
God would ask you, "Have you loved America? Have you loved Africa? Have you loved Asia?" If you can answer yes, then God will be pleased. Instead of reaching Him earlier than the others, He would like you to win their hearts and then come back and report, "I am here with all the people." What would God say to you then? If you were in that position, would you admire those who reached you earlier than the others, coming straight to you? If God were to give His love to the people who came straight forward without minding others, then His love would just be wasted. But if He loves the other kind of people who can embrace all His children, then His love will be multiplied.
Would you want to be loved by God? Do you want to possess God's heart for eternity, or have your heart possessed by God for eternity? If you really want to be possessed by God, don't ever think of going straight to Him, to claim Him for yourself alone. That doesn't make any sense.
In the Christian churches we hear people praying fervently, but they pray for their denominations, for their families and for themselves; not too many people pray for the whole world. There are vast numbers of people praying for themselves, fewer people praying for the nation and still fewer people praying for the world.
But what is God's thinking? God is always thinking of the whole world, not just you as individuals. God is always with the whole world, so when you pray for yourself, that prayer cannot be accepted by God. You must pray, "God, I know that you are looking for all men and for the whole world, so I must look for a nation through which we can save the whole world. I must look for a church which can save the whole nation, I must locate a family which can save the church and an individual which can save the family."
We must realize that if God wants to encompass the whole world, then it is not God's will for us to pray for things on a smaller scale. Your prayer will not be realized in that way. To what scope of God's heart do we want to belong as a movement? Would we want to belong to God's heart by ourselves, or as a family, or a nation, or as the whole world centered on God? It is a serious question.
God would tell you to come to Him after loving your family, society, nation and the whole world, but there is an even greater way. You can forget about yourself and your family and reach to the end of the world; love the whole world first, and then your nation, your society, your church, your family and yourself. Which of the two ways would God prefer for you? Because God loves the whole world, He would gladly sacrifice His own son, or the church formed around His son to save the world. All through human history God's loved ones were sacrificed or martyred for the sake of the whole world.
You can say, "From the beginning of the New Year Father has been telling us to love the world at the sacrifice of ourselves. But I am the most important. Only after loving myself can I love my own family, and only after loving them can I love my church and only after that can I love the nation. I cannot afford to love all humanity unless I love the nation." You may have been saying that in your mind, and if that is so, then you are the unhappiest person in the whole world.
Looking around, you see many opposing parents kidnapping members and you are agonized. Are those parents right or are their children right, even though they are being kidnapped? If the children are thinking in a higher dimension, the parents should follow But what is God's thinking? God is always them, instead of them following the way of their thinking of the whole world, not just you as individual- parents. In God's sight the greatest patriot would be the one who loved other nations even more than his own, even though those nations might be his enemies. It is logical for God to say, "Love your enemy." If there were a fight between the Unification Church and the established churches, which side would you take? If you were in God's position, would you like only those who are standing on the side of the Unification Church, or would you like those who stand on the side of the established church members, doing things to win their hearts?
In the latter case, those in the established churches will say, "That man can love his enemy. We have been opposed to his church, and have done vicious things against it, but he still loves us and is doing things for us." Then they will admire you and bow their heads. Otherwise, even though you may win with your fists and take power over other people, if you are not able to love them, then in your heart you are already defeated. That is God's way of thinking.
Who are you in the Unification Church? Who am I? I am the person responsible for the group. As the leader of the Unification Church, should I teach you to love Unification Church members alone, or to turn around and love the whole world and then come back to me? Even though you may fight among yourselves in your zeal to win the hearts of other people, if you go out to bring those people back, I will be pleased. Even though you fight among yourselves, that can be forgiven if you go out and love other people and bring them back.
Even though you are naughty in your family, if you can go out into society and be respected, and you can love other people and win their hearts, your parents will like you. In our church some members may look helpless, or tax and irresponsible, but once they step out of the center they are full of enthusiasm and zeal to win the hearts of the people. I like that kind of person.
That kind of person will prosper in our movement. Maybe you are the kind who says big things and looks more capable than anyone else in the movement, but you are loathe to witness to the people and scared to approach them. I don't like that kind of person, and neither will God. You must remember that God is always saying, "If you really love me, you must love people outside more than you do your own brothers and sisters in this movement." Would you rather try and do that? If you love the people of the whole world more than you love Americans, the people of your own nation, then the scope of God's embrace will be greater.
If you can love the vast number of people living in the spirit world more than you do humanity, God's love for you will be greater. If God loves only His immediate children, or those who are closest to Him, then He is not God. What is God doing at this moment? Whatever God is doing, He is not doing it for Himself, but for the whole world and humanity. You must know that. If God is high up on a throne, just wanting to do everything for Himself, then He is not God at all. God is the one who loves all humanity, the whole world. That is the kind of God mankind is searching for. Even without being conscious of it, all of humanity knows deep in their hearts that God is that kind of person, and when you become one with Him, you become the center of love too. You want to be loved by God in this sense don't you?
Then which way would you choose, to go straight to God faster than other people, or to go around the whole world to encompass all humanity and then come back to love Him? We are in need of such persons, such families, and such nations. An individual with that kind of thinking would not sit still just loving his family even though he is told to. He would just run out and try to love the whole world. Suppose there is a family of such people; even though they are told to stay to themselves and be happy, the whole family would run out to reach their society and nation and the world.
That is the way of God, and the truest church will discipline and teach you in that way. Then what is the definition of the true nation? From this formula, a true nation must be one which sacrifices itself for the sake of the communities and families in the nation, and externally reaches out to the other nations of the world. That must be the true nation.
What is the true Kingdom of Heaven on earth that we talk about? The Kingdom of Heaven on earth in its truest sense must have citizens who can love God, the spirit world, and all humanity. We must always have that picture in mind. Starting in the center is the individual, then the family, clan, society, nation and the whole world. If you as an individual want to sacrifice yourself for things that cover the whole world, then what kind of person are you? You will be loved and protected by your family, by your tribe, by your community, by your nation and the whole world. Even God will respect and protect you.
Being protected like that, you are not exposed to danger. Wherever you are, even though you are separated, away somewhere at the end of the world, the whole world will come to encompass and protect you; the whole world will always be with you. I am not quite that kind of man yet, but wherever I go, for instance if I go to Korea, the whole nation is concerned about my actions and my whereabouts.
It is more so with you people. If I go to Korea, your heart is with me there. If I go to London, your heart will be in England with me. That's what happens if you have a broader scope of things in mind, trying to love them. If you are that kind of person, are you unhappy? Wherever you are, you are not alone; the people of the whole world will protect you. You are important enough to be protected by their warmth of heart. If you try all through your life to love yourself and do things only for yourself, your greediness will make you ugly and unhappy. Whatever you do, wherever you are placed, there will be no protection around you. Instead you will be accused by Satan and taken away.
Would you rather be an individual who is protected by a wall of love, layer by layer, including the whole world, or a person exposed to satanic invasion all the time? It is not easy. When things are not easy it means they are important or valuable. Loving the world is something that even God would think very difficult, but we are more than sure that He wants that and that He is trying to have us do this kind of thing. In the Unification Church our whole effort is to live this philosophy.
Do you really love the Unification Church? Honestly speaking, when I am centered on my physical side, I don't like the Unification Church. This is my confession: You must know that if there were no God at all, I would have gone an easier way. But because I know that there is a God who wants me to love the world, I have tried to live this way all through my life. Wherever I have gone I have faced opposition and people have reviled and abused me, but I have withstood all of that. What am I doing here in the United States to make the people oppose me to the extent of hating me? Have I been wronging them in some way so that they have to persecute me?
I am doing things the other way around. I am disciplining and training the drug-oriented, immoral young people of this nation who have been leading decadent lives. I am bringing them back to a normal way of life; even more than that, I am bringing them back to God's way of life. Yet Americans have opposed me. Usually people coming to America are seeking to take money from this country of abundance, but on the contrary, I brought my own money to be used for the young people of this nation, and through this nation for the world. Am I doing something wrong?
People know that Koreans are struggling in poverty and that the Japanese too have more difficulties than most people in America. When I bring money and manpower from those countries to this nation of abundance, why do people here oppose me? Do people here really love God? People in America and elsewhere too, usually say they love God only because they profit by doing that.
I am surprised to know that in America they say "Jesus Christ" when they are disappointed or disgusted. Does that mean that they are pleased or grateful? That phrase is being used in the wrong way. If people are asked whether or not they really do love God, if they are honest their answer must be, "No." If they have different ideas than God has, they are separated from God. Americans are enjoying free sex and drugs, and I know that God doesn't like that. While doing that, can they still say they love God?
Since we love God in the truest sense, it is natural for us to be disliked in a world where people do not really love God. If you were God, would you say that only whites should marry whites, or blacks marry blacks, or yellow people marry yellow people? Should the races be mixed together in beautiful harmony? In the outside world, do people like the idea of all those races being mixed together?
God would like to say, "You Americans have had abundance and prosperity long enough. Why don't you sell all your property and go to Africa and all the underdeveloped lands and care for those people?" God does not like the idea of just you being cozy in decent homes. If you sold all your things and went to the underprivileged people, He would like you better. Let's say you love your home. You clean and decorate it and create a warmth of love and happiness there. Then if someone suddenly shows up and tells you to sell all those things and to go help underprivileged people, would you really like that? You may say yes because you are crazy people, but average people would say, "What do you mean, telling me to sell everything I own and go to Africa to love those people? What do you mean?"
I am taking children away from decent homes and teaching them to do things contrary to what normal people do in the outside world. That's why I always think it is natural for outside people to dislike me. I don't mind that. As I said before, from the physical point of view I don't like the Unification Church either. That is true. Honestly, aren't you like that, too? If I were alone in the world I could go my own way, but because I know there is a God, I cannot do that. Never a moment in my life have I ever wished that God did not exist. By living this way, I know I can occupy the heart of God. I think I have found the most precious thing in the whole world.
Looking at me you know that I am just a humble man, but I am sure that God is loving me. What do I have that He loves? I have gone through many experiences which no other person can imitate, and God knows that I have done all this for His sake and for the world. When I was hungry in prison, God would provide something for me to eat. When I was a stranger in a remote village, witnessing to the people, I always found that God had prepared all the necessities for me.
Sometimes I was out in the country with no money for travel expenses, but a miracle would happen and money would be brought to me, or a ticket. I am just a small man, but I think about things that are important to God. Therefore my thoughts reach Him and make a triangular circuit with someone else. Then unexpectedly that person connects with me and provides the things I need. There's no need for a telephone to connect us.
Many people in the United States would like to see me dead and my movement scattered, but has that happened? As time goes by I become more and more famous; in three years I have stirred up the whole nation of America. When people really look closely at you, they know that our movement will prosper because your faces are shining and your eyes are glowing. People who are really discerning will say that this movement will prosper.
How would God look at these things? I have been struggling so hard, never wasting a moment of my life, and without asking for help I have finished many tasks, always worrying for fear that I would pass away without realizing the Kingdom of God on earth. When I go to spirit world will God relax and say, "When you were on earth I always worried about you, but now I can relax"? Would God be glad that He can stop worrying because I have already passed away? No. Instead He would say, "You did your very best throughout your life. I will at all cost have your ideal realized on earth, even though you are in the spirit world." Because of this the Unification Church can never perish.
Look at yourselves as individual members of the Unification Church. Are you going to be a plus in this movement or a minus? We know how to reach God's heart. We have to encompass the whole world and bring it back to God and reach His heart. I want you to put a world map on the wall of your room, and I want you to look at it from the viewpoint of God. If you were in God's position, would you concentrate on America, a land of abundance, or would you concentrate on India where people are starving to death, and the other underprivileged countries where people are living in misery? God would rather have you concentrate on India than America.
Would God focus His attention on college campuses in America where people do things like streaking, or would he think instead about Africa, where young people cannot even go to primary school? He is concerned with the underprivileged people in the land of Africa. If there were people who wanted to snatch away the wealth overflowing in America to help those people, God would love them most. What we are doing here is just that. We want to fund-raise here and use the money to establish universities, hospitals, and many other facilities for underprivileged people who have already gone through difficulties.
Those who oppose our movement would hate that idea, but what do you think? Our way of thinking is not ordinary. I am teaching young people from the best universities here to go to Africa and India and help the people there, rather than only do things for this country. I want the young people from advanced nations to experience the lives of the people in underdeveloped nations. Is this kind of idea bad or good in God's sight? If I put this kind of thing into practice and you follow me, what would the world look like in several years? This is the only way to erect the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. There is no other way to save the world.
How are we going to do it? The wider the scope of things you embrace, the more you are going to be loved by God. In the Unification Church you must go to at least three countries in your lifetime and help the people there. Why is this so? The ideal number is three; there were three sons in Adam's family, in Noah's family and also Abraham, Isaac and Jacob indicate the number three. You have to go through at least three nations bringing God's message.
The same thing applies to me. Starting from Korea I had my mission in Japan, and now I am working in the United States. Excluding Korea, I have to restore Japan, America and finally the Soviet Union. Only by doing that can I cover the whole world. We must save the communist world too. Would God want to just demolish the communist world? If there is unity and harmony in the democratic world tinder the will of God, then God will use it to save the communist world. What nationality of members should I send to Soviet Russia? Would it be easier to send people from America or Africa to do the job? I would rather send Americans to do the job.
You will be miniature Reverend Moons there and duplicate what I have been doing here. You must realize that without going through three nations, you cannot go to the heavenly kingdom. If you just live and work for your nation, you cannot go to heaven. If you really want to belong to the heart of God, you will always think of the world and all humanity first. You must think of working for the whole cosmos, including the spirit world, and then for God. You say you want to save the whole world. Then you must find yourself loving all three races as you would your own brothers and sisters or yourself.
In our ideology there is no such thing as a national boundary because all the people of the world are the children of God. If there were no boundary between Canada and America, America and Mexico, what would happen? Have you ever stopped to think of that? National boundaries are man's invention. Birds are free, flying from country to country. Do they need passports to cross the boundary between Canada and the United States? Even poisonous snakes can freely cross over the boundary between America and Canada. We too should be free to go anywhere. In the sight of God there are no such things as passports. Once there are people all over the world whom God loves, then we will not need passports to go from place to place.
When that happens in the future, if I am in Africa, you would rather be there. What must there be in me that attracts you so? Isn't it strange that your mind is drawn to me like that? You are drawn to the divine love in me, like sunflowers are drawn to the shining sun. Though I was born in Korea, I have never thought of myself as a Korean because I know that God loves every nation and every man. My job is to love and to save the whole world so I have tried to love at least three nations. You also are in the position of having to love and to save the people of at least three nations. In the future, I am going to marry black, yellow, and white people together, and I will even provide their homes.
My desire is to see all three races mixed together, living happy lives in one world. It is possible only for those who love God and want to belong to God's heart, which encompasses the whole world. I've got to do this in my lifetime. I want you to follow this way to reach God; only by loving humanity can you do that. If you really want to belong to God's heart, you must leave where you are and go out into the streets of New York to witness. If you leave New York, your mind must be always with the people in every nation. After loving all the people in the whole nation and winning their hearts, then you can come back to love your church, your family and yourself. That is the only way you can belong to God's heart.
If you realize this and put it into practice, you will never perish, but prosper. I will protect you, and our movement, this society, this nation, and God will protect you, ever being with you. Then you are going to be the happiest person in the whole world.
