Belvedere, New York
Translator - Bo Hi Pak
When we speak of glory let us think for a moment; can glory come by itself, or does it imply two or more parts? Each one of us wants to have a day of glory. The literal translation of the title of this message means "prosperity," and "light or beam," or the light of prosperity which is continually shining. An individual can have joy, but using the word glory gives a much more collective feeling and a broader image.
Happiness doesn't dwell in just one place but shines out to all people. Glory implies prosperity and happiness for everyone, like a light shining out on a new morning where all nature is in harmony and rejoicing together. When the birds on the trees and the animals have been shivering all night, how do they feel when they finally see the dawn breaking? Even though there was heavy snow, as soon as they see the morning light their joy is abundant. All of nature awakes from the darkness and rejoices over that shining light, celebrating the greatness of the morning.
Which day can be called a day of glory for the United States? Certainly the day when this nation was finally born would be the most momentous. If a patient lying in a hospital heard the news on that morning, how would he feel? At that moment he might forget his own sickness and welcome the glory. Even though people suffering in jail might have some miserable past, when the morning of great glory finally dawns they will try to forget their own past and rejoice. From the palace down to the grass roots, each person would celebrate the moment of glory.
For the individual, the day of glory is his birthday. Do you remember what you did at the moment of your birth? You cried first. If it was a day of joy then why did you cry? We interpret that to mean that because you were so ecstatic your joy could not be contained. Birth is really the moment of liberation for a baby after being imprisoned inside his mother's womb, not seeing anything or interacting with the rest of the world for nine months.
In the womb you were fed through an umbilical cord, but as soon as you came out you began to eat through your mouth. A drastic change took place at the-moment of your birth, opening up a new world and new hope. Since that revolution is so shocking and gigantic, you cannot welcome it quietly; you have to cry out and let the world hear. When you meet someone you have been missing for a long time, your ecstatic joy may be shown by your tears. At the moment of meeting that person you may cry more than you cried at your birth, and certainly at that dramatic moment of joy you have that new morning of glory. At the moment their new baby cries out do the father and mother also cry together? No, the baby's crying is a sign of joy to the parents and instead of crying in sadness they really rejoice over their child.
If a prince is born to a kingdom then the whole nation wants to hear the news of that one birth. When the prince cries out as he is born, the news spreads throughout the entire kingdom and all the people shout with joy. Do you think that when the first children were born, first Adam and then Eve, that all heaven and earth responded or not? All things knew that their masters were finally born. The entire universe focused its attention on the new masters, not only the physical world but God and the entire spirit world as well. Their creation was actually the birth of one prince and princess of the entire universe, and that day was truly a day of celebration.
The growth of man is the growth of God as well
What change came to the life of God with that event? At that particular moment, God experienced parental love because for the first time He had a child. Even though He already had the concept of parental love, God had no way to experience it until Adam and Eve were born. Does a mother with a baby still inside her womb experience stimulating joy and love for her child? The difference in experience between the few moments prior to the birth and then afterward is miles apart. God created all things with the ability to perceive His joy, but man was the first thing which God created to receive joy from by a response to His love. God wanted to manifest His love in creation, but response to that love can come only from man.
We conclude that God created all things as His objects to stimulate His joy. Joy was the purpose of God's creation. Just like any parent prepares beforehand for the birth of a child, God prepared for Adam and Eve. He created all nature merely as preparation for the sake of His child. Once those children were born and could appreciate all things, God could also appreciate them. In other words, by seeing His own children really appreciating the things He made, God could receive added joy. Have you ever thought about who fed Adam and Eve and how they grew? Were they strong enough to pick fruit and feed themselves as soon as they were born? There must have been someone to nurse them. Today the great question in the religious world concerns the role of angels. In the chapter on the fall of man we teach that there was a realistic relationship between angels and human beings. God need not remain invisible; He can manifest Himself in a father and mother's role to nurture His children.
Even when you go to spirit world you cannot see God so how can God show Himself? God can manifest Himself in any manner if He wishes because He is almighty. God was thinking about how to show Himself to the world and He finally made the decision with the birth of Adam. God is the father of Adam, and when He shows Himself He must have some resemblance to Adam. It was a moment of great revolution for God Himself when He finally made up His mind what He should look like. Naturally it was a romantic, exciting moment when God saw Adam!
The morning of glory for God in the creation of the entire universe was the moment of Adam's birth. When you ask what God looks like, the answer is that God is like Adam and Eve. Before Adam and Eve fell they were the walking, physical God here on earth. As the visible form of God, Adam and Eve were to take over kingship of the physical world, whereas God remained the invisible king of the entire spirit world.
You may ask an important question: Why did God create man? God wanted to assume tangible form and the day man was born was almost like the day of God's own birth. As Adam and Eve grew to perfection, God spiritually grew into perfection together with them. That's very logical too. God and Adam were one and the same person actually, and therefore when Adam laughed, God laughed. When Adam was moody then God was also moody. When Adam worked, God worked.
Why should it be like that? Everything is geared toward perfection, both here on earth and in heaven, with God and man growing together. The growth of man is the growth of God Himself as well. In religion we talk about perfection, but what is it? If a person who always walked can now run, has he reached perfection? Perfection means the perfection of love, with no lack of any kind, a perfectly round love. Do you know there is love because you have seen it? We do not see love but we know it is there, even though we don't know where it comes from.
You are not loved because you are great;
it is the power of love which is great
Everyone actually knows little about love. How could love be yours unless you know its source? Do you handle love or does it handle and embrace you? Love can say, "You are mine," but you cannot say, "Love is mine," because you have not quite understood everything about love. Love doesn't belong to anyone; love belongs to all. Suppose there were a terrible dictator who wanted to conquer love all for himself. No matter what that dictator might say, love would laugh at him because it will never come under the control of one person.
Love is universal and ubiquitous. What is love's power'? A distant thing can be made either farther away or closer by the power of love. Love is important because there is no distance in love. Could Eastern and Western people be brought into unity by military power, or the power of culture and religion'? One unique power can unite them-love. Nothing like diamonds or gold could bring everybody into oneness; they would just dash toward an extraordinary diamond and each try to grab it so someone else wouldn't have it. Things bring people to destruction, not togetherness. However, when you dash together in the power of love, no matter what kind of prior relationship you might have had, love melts you all together. Love is precious because through it all things can be brought into oneness.
Men and women are extremely different. Two women can certainly have fellowship, but can they become totally one in love? Two women holding hands and declaring their passionate love is rather ugly, isn't it? In the Orient, women who have reached the age of marriage meet men through formal introduction, unlike the Western world, where you meet to go out on dates. At this introduction the woman is usually shy and can only lift her eyes up a little bit and peek slowly at the gentleman. I overheard one woman telling about one such introduction. As she looked up, the first thing she saw was the man's hands. She was a beautiful woman with beautiful hands, but when she discovered that the masculine man she was expecting in her dreams had hands like another woman, her disappointment at that moment was overwhelming. She couldn't imagine a man having hands like a woman's and she didn't even want to see his face.
Love brings both extremes into one, and the greater the extremes the greater the joy of love. Women are looking for masculine men and men are looking for feminine women. There the miracle and the power of love can be manifest. Could high level people and common people possibly be united in love or not? When you are really loved by someone, do not ever think it is because you are great; the power of love is great and because of it you can be loved.
What other power besides love could possibly unite Almighty God in heaven and man down here on earth? Can you say, "God, You must like me because my eyes are beautiful"? Are you the one pulling God? How beautiful you are doesn't make too much difference to God because He can make someone even more beautiful. It doesn't make sense to be proud or to show off in front of God. Many women are arrogant about their beauty, but parading around and expecting that everyone is admiring you doesn't work with God. The person who is seeking real love doesn't pay attention to external appearances.
What does God pay attention to then? You say He is interested in heart, but "heart" is another chunk of material; without love even heart is nothing. God pays attention only to love and the answer to why God created man is obvious. Unless you have the loving heart of God you all look peculiar, and no matter how much makeup you put on, none of you could be beautiful in front of God. When love is dwelling within, everything becomes beautiful, even a tearful face. Your laughing face and crying face are actually quite similar, and in love both are beautiful.
Because love is always in circular motion,
eternity is also manifested in circular motion
It is not important to say these things for my sake, but for you. Love can bring any extremes together into one and there is no problem with anything in between. Tall and short can become one and from the ends of the earth two can become one. Love is even faster than the famous Concorde. If one Concorde leaves from New York and one leaves from London and two hours later they crash in the middle of the Atlantic then the world is shocked, isn't it? When God created the world and man, He wanted to see love travel so fast that when two crashed into one, the world would be shocked, but happily so. God designed love such that even He would receive this shock.
Why is there no destruction in a collision of love? Instead of coming to a standstill love turns around. Therefore, love is round and two loves turn together in perfect circular motion. There is nothing rounder than love. Since this is the concept of love, eternity is also manifested in circular motion. Look at the creation where the sun is burning but is not stationary; the sun also turns.
From this logic we can learn that our way of life is meant to be a turning way of life. Men and women are not supposed to live together standing back to back. When your face is turned outward you are showing resistance and you cannot turn so well. However, when two people face each other God can turn them and everything moves. God put all your important organs in front so you can face each other but turn without resistance in the meantime. The important things are united in the center and then the external things will naturally be united into one.
Love starts from the eyes, and next smell becomes one, followed by words and hearing. If you have parallel unity of sight, smell, speaking and hearing, then everything else is already one. When you look at a new person or your future spouse, what would you look at first? His hip or foot? No, you look first at the eyes of the other person. When you want to analyze a person you look at his eyes and then his nose. Why do you look at the mouth first instead of the ears? This derives from the heavenly principle of creation, in which the vertical things come first.
The whole creation has one vertical axis and then everything else harmonizes with that. All the plants grow up toward a higher position because they are ultimately heading toward the sun but if the sun were always on the horizon then all things would lean sideways. All creatures use four legs to walk except man, who has two legs. Man is the only example of a vertical creature; all the rest are horizontal creatures. God made only man to be able to understand God and the spirit world.
Human beings are part of the animal kingdom of course, but you must not lose the dignity of being human, of being the only creature that God made vertically. All of the plants head toward the sun as their source of light and life and in the same way we stand upright because we are heading toward the source of love, which is God. Everybody wants to be taller in order to be closer to God.
Pride in knowledge is not permanent, and while many people have pride in their money, can one billionaire really be proud that no one is richer and more important than he is? President Carter has great power, but how long will that last? For four or eight years. The Presidency is only a passing thing in the sight of God and all ambition without love is temporal. More than power or knowledge or money, the most precious thing to achieve is love, which is the only permanent thing. If people really knew the principle of love then how could black and white fight each other? Their conflict indicates that they really do not know the true love which brings all these into one.
Reverend Moon seems to be a very greedy man, but the important thing is, greedy for what? Can you love someone who doesn't want love? That person doesn't deserve love. Don't you want to see a person appreciate the gift you give them? Without receiving appreciation, a giver hasn't much joy in giving. God wants to distribute love, but He wants to see that man is eager to win His love because it is so permanent and precious. When two lovers are expressing their love to each other then their feeling truly sparkles, but when one isn't paying attention, it is just a lukewarm experience. Are you more enchanted when the intensity of love is such that the other person is trembling and his eyes even roll upside down, or would you rather talk to someone who is lukewarm, who doesn't even care?
In English you have the word "electrifying." Would you prefer love that electrifies a person when you touch them, or do you like love that has no feeling at all'? When electricity touches your body it doesn't take two seconds for your body to be totally shocked. God wants love to stimulate the whole body the same way. The only difference is that an electric shock comes and goes, but the shock of love remains and the person is so drunk in love that he is in a dream world. Even just hearing about it feels good.
What is the greatest, most precious thing? The power of love is always turning instead of going in a straight line and this circling motion includes both vertical and horizontal, but which one should come first? When you split a man up and down the middle you have two identical halves, with even his hair being evenly distributed. A person's central vertical reference point is his nose. The photographer who recently took pictures at East Garden would ask me to move my head in certain directions, and all the time he was using my nose as a point of reference. If bodily shapes and contours are abruptly different or just scattered then they don't produce beauty. Clearly the vertical must come first.
The West and the Orient are complementary in every way
Western people write left to right horizontally, and if Oriental people also wrote horizontally, it would be a catastrophic situation for the universe. I don't know who started these things, but it turned out to be in perfect harmony. An Oriental writes from top to bottom. If the Orientals write vertically and the vertical alignment of the creation is primary, then you should be able to figure out where solutions for the world will come from. The time will come when the Oriental philosophy and way of life will give certain answers to universal problems. The answers will come from the East first. not the West.
It is a logical deduction that the man who will unite all the five races into one will come from the Orient, not the West. This is the first such occurrence in history. The Western cultures have been abundantly blessed and thought they could stay that way forever, but now you can see that the sundown must be coming. You need that sundown. The West must make one grand turn and taste the night while the Orient experiences the sensations of daytime.
In a beautiful painting there must be harmony of black and white and color. That harmony is the basis of art. When you deny either the black or white then you can no longer appreciate beauty. God is designing one masterpiece, one world culture, but would He want to have blacks and whites isolating themselves and killing each other? You white people are like the white space on the paper and you cannot become great art all by yourselves. You need black, yellow and red together. In most masterpieces the white background doesn't show; it should be mostly a mixture of colors.
Put yourself in God's position. After matching two high-nosed Westerners, He sees that their noses will interfere when they kiss each other. What about having one nose high and one nose low then? Even in a movie scene, when two white people kiss each other they have to turn their faces. God feels there is a great deal of inconvenience there! God must be wise because He gave Oriental people a low profile so their noses don't bother them too much in that situation. Wouldn't you encourage international marriage, therefore? The power of love can bring the two extremes together and that is most dramatic, no question about it. No other power except love can bring East and West together with their extremely different cultural backgrounds and ways of life.
Do you like flat, plain ground the most or mountains the most? The plains can get boring day after day, but in the mountains there are always new views and activity. Western culture is equivalent to the plains because it is based on the horizontal. Americans treasure antique things, and even when they make brand-new furniture they make it to imitate antiques. On the other hand, Oriental culture embraces the peaks and the valleys, and no matter how much you study it you will never know all of it fully.
Even in action the cultures differ-for example, when two Westerners meet and disagree they decide to duel or joust. Orientals don't do that, however. They meditate for years and years and just wait and see. Modern war has occurred primarily in the Western culture. Western culture is short-tempered in a sense, always resorting to showdowns with weapons. It originated in the cold North with hunters who killed to eat and then moved on. The tradition of Vikings and pirates is strong in Western culture, and when Western culture moves into a new territory it is accompanied by rifles and guns. You don't like to hear this because you are Westerners, but someone must wake you up.
America would rather hear praise instead of criticism. Westerners have a deep-seated feeling of supremacy, and when an Oriental man like Reverend Moon comes in to say that white people have been wrong, they don't like it. The feeling in America today is that Americans have a cure-all for everything; they have a scale to measure everything in other countries, but all of a sudden they find that their scale can't measure Reverend Moon! You too are trying to size me up, and some areas seem understandable, but some are still a mystery. That's why no one else can take over my job.
When the highest and lowest things unite in the center,
a circling motion will begin
To make a long story short, the vertical line is the skeleton on which everything is built. A navigator always has a compass, which measures every other direction by comparing it to due north, and from there it measures 90 degrees, 180 degrees, etc. There is no actual object at due north, but it is the indisputable beginning point; it is both zero degrees and 360 degrees at the same time. One full circle begins and ends at the same point. The same point is both void and full. Due north is the center of everything and at the same time it is the center of nothing. That is God's position. God is like zero because He exists in a void, but He wants everything to fill Him. "G" is like zero with an opening for everything to come in. Even the letters G-o-d are all round. The entire universe is turning and turning but unless that motion comes back to this zero point it will not be perfected. The lowest and highest will become united as one point. From due north we can draw a central, vertical line, and once it is drawn then a true horizontal line is easily drawn because all you have to do is measure a 90 degree angle.
This also illustrates the principle that wherever there is a perfect plus, a perfect minus automatically comes into being; if this vertical line is not perfect to begin with, however, then you cannot have a perfect horizontal. When you have a perfect vertical and perfect horizontal then you can have a perfect circle. The Unification principle, therefore, teaches that wherever the highest possible thing is united with the lowest possible thing, the presence of God is always there. When the highest and lowest things come together into the center then a circling motion will begin, surrounding the central axis. Then all kinds of circles can come into being.
Once you are dwelling in the highest possible position, therefore, you can cover the widest possible horizontal positions. Those who are self-centered look like one single, skinny line that doesn't have any horizontal broadness, which is very dangerous. In contrast, the unselfish person of total giving has a sturdy vertical line as well as unlimited width. That person can encompass the whole area of the universe, and wherever he goes he makes himself the focal point. That person will not be limited in his activity. When you shoot a ball on a pool table it bounces around everywhere, and even though it hits another ball it doesn't disappear, but stays and makes things happen. Normally when an object strikes something it breaks or falls down, but the person with roundness always has another way to go because circular motion has no end.
There is always a certain circular motion to every action in the universe. Even a bullet, which you may think is flying in a straight line, is actually on a curving path. Nothing really moves in a straight line in the universe. Do you want to be a vertical or horizontal person? The vertical person communicates with God, while the horizontal person communicates with the world; however, the horizontal person has nothing to do with God. When you link yourself with the vertical line coming from God then you automatically have horizontal communication. Why is that? The center of God is love and therefore, love is round. When you are united vertically with God you already are turning with God and there is nothing to stop you.
God anticipated seeing greater beauty
once the extremes He created were united
The day of glory for God was the day He, wanting to put Himself into physical form, created man. Why would God want to give Himself physical form? Since God had already created the world of physical form He wanted to put Himself into it so He could be the center of everything. God incarnated Himself in Adam and Eve, who were supposed to be the visible form of God. The theological world will call me a heretic because I am saying that each one of you is supposed to be the visible form of God. For that, some people call us blasphemers. God needs a physical form so that He can have His object for give and take of love. In that way God can perfect His love.
The day God created man here on earth was the morning of glory, but that was on the horizontal level. The real morning of glory is the day God will manifest that love and perfect it. The real new morning of glory dawns with the fulfillment of God's love in perfection and roundness. You should think deeply about this, for it is most profound.
When God sees that day of fulfillment of glory in love, He will start dancing in His delight. When God starts to dance I think all of Belvedere will shake and maybe even disappear, and the entire world will be electrified! The sun will respond and dance along with God. When the wind blows, the trees shake back and forth, but this is only dress rehearsal for the day of the fulfillment of God's love. Trees don't just blow in one direction; they blow back and forth, like every manifestation of God's joy and universal truth. The air currents make rhythms too, with high peaks and low peaks.
Dancing also follows some rhythm. Just holding your hands up high wouldn't constitute a dance; in a beautiful dance there should be graceful movement, both high and low. I analyzed the dances of the East and West and saw that Western dance usually concentrates on the lower part of the body or on the legs. Oriental dance, however, normally utilizes movement of the upper body, with the legs merely used to move the body from place to place. Westerners were fascinated by the Little Angels, and in ten years they rose to the top of the cultural world. Why? There was some Oriental mystery in their dance and their art was in total contrast to beauty in the West. They didn't represent just Korean dance, but all Oriental culture.
I urge you to study Korean so that you can write vertically as well as horizontally. In Oriental tradition we always use the right hand and practically never the left, and if someone finds that the person he married is left-handed, a certain reservation comes with it. Nobody knows who decided this age-old philosophy. The Orient represents the right, while the West represents the left. You left-handed people shouldn't worry because both are destined to come together and meet in the center. Among the acclaimed scholars in the Western world there are many left handed people because they represent the Western world. Orientals sleep on their backs because they are looking up to heaven and welcoming God coming into them, but Westerners sleep mostly on their stomachs because they want to receive the blessing coming from the Orient, which is on the other side of the earth!
When you know the central truth about the universe then all these characteristics of East and West are beautifully complementary. Another difference is that in the Orient children usually are taught to be silent at meals, and much talking in general doesn't agree with the Oriental culture. But in the West mealtime is a time for socializing. In the Western world everything is exposed, particularly the women, who are half-naked at functions like formal parties. The Orientals hide everything with long clothes, however.
I am not saying that one is superior to the other. God's desire is to create two extremes so that some day the power of love would unite them together to create an even greater beauty. God is looking for one harmony between the two some day. At Sunday morning service the Western habit is to provide chairs or pews to sit on, but the Oriental way is to sit on the floor after taking the shoes off before entering the room. When God looks at these differences He would like to swap and see things the other way around. That is what you are doing right now.
I imagine the ideal of beauty in women to be black hair, white skin and blue eyes, but the nose shouldn't be too high and the eyes should not be too deep. Sometimes when I look at a Westerner it takes awhile to find his eyes, they are so deep.
Orientals have deficiencies too, however; they are not all perfect either. God put too much distance between their eyebrows and eyes. My nose is relatively high, as Oriental noses go, and this indicates a religious tendency. Many Jewish people have similar noses. A high, sharp nose represents intelligence, but an artistic person might have that kind of nose also. Some people have one eyebrow higher than the other and their noses are not truly vertical and their mouths slant in another direction. I prefer to see thickness in the bridge of the nose because a person with a sharp upper portion will struggle in life.
The eyes represent God and the nose represents man, while the mouth represents all things. In the limited space of your face the most territory is occupied by the eyes, making God's area the widest. The center of the universe is man, so the nose was placed below the eyes and above the mouth. The forehead represents heaven. When you draw vertical and horizontal lines, representing the cosmos, man then comes in the center, and when a circle is drawn forming a round face, that will be an ideal person.
I am speaking off the subject like this because everything, including the human face, is all linked to the universal principle. A high forehead is good and indicates good ancestors. The eyes have three different contour lines and the nose can also be divided into three. The mouth has a top line, middle line and bottom line, paralleling formation, growth and perfection. Also internally our organs are divided into three parts. It is universal law that three stages represent perfection.
Everyone should feel the dignity of being
like God and walking with God
You are actually a microcosm of the universe, and sharing with another person in fellowship is far better than mingling with nature because in that person you can find all of nature and God and the universe. Therefore, we are each ultimately looking for another person; a man is looking for a woman and a woman for one ultimate man. Once you find him or her you think, "I need nothing else. I have found the universe." Man is a microcosm of the universe and one person can represent the characteristics of the entire cosmos, including God. If one man finds one woman and loves her from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet, that person is loving the entire universe, and vice versa.
When you look at the eyes of the person you love, you see the bloom of universal flowers, and when you look at that person's nose you think it is an award-winning nose. To other people a certain mouth may look very ugly, but for the person who loves its owner, that mouth is a masterpiece of the universe. Ultimately everyone is looking forward to the one love in which he can be totally intoxicated, and no other power can do that except the power of love.
I said that the new morning of glory for God was the birth of Adam and Eve, and that the ultimate morning of glory is the fulfillment of love. Then what is next? Ultimately God is looking forward to loving His grandchildren. God felt ecstatic joy with the creation of Adam and Eve and He wanted to teach them how to have the same experience. Only by being in God's position to feel the same parental love toward their own children could they learn this lesson. I feel parental love toward Hyo Jin, for example, but how can I teach him parental love? By letting him get married and have his own children. It brings joy to parents when their own children become parents. That is a day of glory.
Does your whole face laugh when you are happy, or just a certain portion of your face? A person may laugh sometimes with his eyes and nose, but if his mouth doesn't move, that person lacks food. When a person's eyes and mouth are wide open in laughter but his nose is not moving, that person lacks children, because the nose represents man. If everything else laughs but the eyes, that person doesn't have heart. Everything should move when you laugh.
This represents the entire relationship of God and man and the whole universe. Therefore, for all things to link their joy to God they have to go through man. In order to relay His joy to all things of the earth, God has to go through man. Man is like a bridge in the middle, needed by all things and also by God. Man is the center of the universe so when man moves, God moves. When man sits, God will sit. When men get up, God will get up.
When you walk you can feel that God is walking with you and the entire universe is walking with you. When you turn around you can feel the entire world turning with you. That means you will become due north as far as the universe is concerned. Wherever you are will be the beginning point of movement in the universe, and wherever you are you can relate with the rest of the universe. You will never be separated. Everyone can have the dignity somewhere in his heart to feel on top of the world. Those who think they are just trash should be rebuked because there is no such person. Everyone should feel the dignity of being like God and walking with God.
How would you satisfy such an ambition? Love is the only power which can fill it. Love alone has the power of unity to conquer the breadth and height and depth of the universe and bring all extremes into oneness. Regardless of your race, you are controlled by this law. If I become a servant I don't want to be a servant to money or power or knowledge; I want to be a servant of love. If you want to be a son to someone, then you don't want to be a son of power or money or knowledge; you want to become a son of love. If you want to become a king then what kind of empire would you like to rule?
Throughout history the one person who lived this philosophy was Jesus. He was known as the king of kings, but what did he rule? He never won a political battle and he didn't do much fund raising and he never went after a Ph.D. However, he was king of kings in the kingdom of love. Jesus is indeed a hero and he has the dignity of being the first one to discover this philosophy, but somehow circumstances were such that he could not fulfill it 2,000 years ago. Now I will do it. That is my dignity.
Love reaches fulfillment in three generations
To come back to this morning's sermon, the first morning of glory for God was when He created Adam and manifested Himself in visible form. The second morning of glory was to have been fulfilled with the blessing of Adam and Eve, and the third morning of glory was the day God would enjoy His grandchildren. Then what is your morning of glory? First is the day you make yourself into the visible form of God. Then God will be in you and your body will become God's temple. God will become manifest in you and you become manifest in God in complete oneness.
Jesus said in John 14, "In that day you will know that I am in the Father and you are in me and I in you." How could Jesus say he was in the Father? By making an empty announcement? Only by love. Love reaches fulfillment in three generations. In the Unification Church we explain this theory in the heavenly four positions, with God, Adam and Eve and their children. The day of glory will be seen when the parents are perfected in the image of God and the children are in the image of their parents, making everyone in one image. That's the morning that God will start to dance and sing to the world.
The partners in that dance will be His sons and daughters and their children, all embracing God and dancing around. That's the morning of glory. That image was broken by the fall, however. Adam and Eve were never perfected in God's image and their children never even knew God's image. God's love flows wherever He sees a resemblance and today the Unification Church is trying to restore this image, meaning that you must restore yourself in the image of God. Then you will be like unfallen Adam and Eve, resembling their perfection. That's why there is true parenthood in our Church, fulfilling that position of true Adam and Eve.
Again, three generations are needed to perfect love. God and Adam and Eve alone cannot be perfected, but God, and Adam and Eve with their children will make one big circle. God constructed man's span of life in such a way that he could enjoy his children and grandchildren during his earthly life, and the person who can see his grandchildren has seen his morning of glory.
While you are living here on earth you can experience being in the children's position to God and then His position as parent, and ultimately God's position before you die. God and Adam form the vertical line and the horizontal line will be children. Man should experience all three levels before ending his physical life on earth. Consummating the three levels of love will be your asset in heaven. When you look at this ideal and compare it to American families today it is clear that many homes are breaking down. Would the ideal family naturally put all its senior citizens in nursing homes? Would you like to stay in such a place when you get old, or stay with your own sons and daughters and grandchildren? Naturally you want to live with your own children and grandchildren, and so would your grandparents.
Many senior citizens in this country live by themselves or in institutions, waiting day after day to see their grandchildren. That is real torture. America has lost a God-centered way of life and become so horizontal that there is no vertical line at all. One good may come out of it, however. All the senior citizens will truly have a chance to feel the agony of God, who has been waiting 6,000 years for the coming of His own children. That is exactly God's position, and perhaps feeling that deep sorrow will expedite their own repentance.
Is society in despair, or looking forward to the morning of glory? How can you turn this tragic situation into a hopeful situation? That can only be done by manifesting the love of God. Each of you must feel the pain of those lonely senior citizens, the pain of a devoted father and mother missing their children. Without really experiencing that pain you will have no way to comfort them. The only person who really knows this loneliness and painful agony is God and He is the real teacher.
Only God's experience in history can comfort the universe and show people the way to restore themselves into wholesome unity. The Unification Church, therefore, is here to truly champion God and His agonized heart and after truly understanding this heart we will have the power to comfort the world. We are here to experience the pain and brokenheartedness of God when He saw Adam and Eve depart from Him. When we feel that pain of seeing Adam and Eve unite with Satan and fall, of Adam losing his bride when she united with Satan, the pain of God seeing only satanic children here on earth, then we can have hope for restoration.
Marriage is a day of inheritance of love from God
Let me ask, did you change by joining the Unification Church? Did you find a new you? Your values of life have become different since joining. In the everyday world parents worry if their teenagers don't go out on dates, but the Unification Church is different. We are not worried about that at all because we are busy dating God instead. The entire world is inclined more and more toward free sex and sensual desire, but here in the Church we are absolutely living up to a God-centered moral standard.
When you heard the Divine Principle did you find new vision, new hope and new value? At that moment you experience repentance and think, "I wish I could have been a much cleaner person, more genuine, and now have more offering to make to God." Many people have lots of regrets. We are going to fulfill the heavenly four positions and to do that we need three generations. You have found God and you also must find children, and until then each of you must preserve yourselves in genuine purity and loyalty. I do not think only of my family when I talk about my own children; I am seeing you. God is the first generation and True Parents the second generation, and you are the third generation, but here we find all races and all kinds of people. Because I see all of you as my children I bless you in marriage.
In the garden of Eden God created Adam and Eve and would have blessed them as a couple but when they had children, who would have blessed them? Adam and Eve in the position of God would have given them the blessing. The marriage ceremony is absolutely for the giving or inheritance of love, and in it love is flowing from God through the parents to you. In the world outside our Church, people go to a pastor or minister to get married, or sometimes in the Orient they look for some celebrity. That's what they feel is a great honor, but that is wrong. Marriage is a day of inheritance of love from God, and in the Unification Church marriage is truly the coming of love from God to parents and from parents to their own children.
Unification Church members are primarily young, mostly in their twenties and thirties. Many of you left some other church a long time ago and wandered around seeking some other solution, but you couldn't find any until you found the Unification Church. When you settled here it became controversial in both the satanic world as well as the heavenly world. To Satan it was an event of despair because he lost, but on God's side it was an event of joy because God won you to His side.
Restoration starts with grandchildren, who assist in the restoration of their parents and then go up toward God. The mainstream of the Unification Church is you young people, and out of everyone, whom do we need most? Eves. Adam was first in the garden of Eden, but in restoration Eve must go first. Adam was not able to fulfill his responsibility in the garden of Eden and permitted the fall of man, and in the restoration process, therefore, we start out with Eve. When you make a mistake at home, you must make some reconciliation with your parents, but which side would you go to, your father or your mother? It's easy for women to fall and easy for them to be restored; women cannot uphold the permanent responsibility, but they are handy for temporary responsibility. I'm sorry ladies!
Women are easy talkers and they accent their mouths with lipstick, but men are silent and reserved, even growing beards which hide their mouths. Man should be more dignified. A man who chirps like a sparrow doesn't measure up to the dignity of men.
In Japan two thirds of the Unification Church members are women, but in America there are more Adams. God had to get busy because when I ask what kind of bride the American men want, they all answer, "I want an Oriental wife.'' God hears the answer and so He has to get to work and find lots of Oriental women! Oriental women have the virtue of absolute loyalty, just like Mother. Women must preserve the feminine character which God gave. In Korea we have an old saying that when a hen has a claw like the rooster does, it is a bad omen for the household.
Women today are really the ruining factor of American culture. I am warning American women that they should be more feminine and learn from the pattern of the Oriental way of life. Precious things are usually hidden away, and if your body is precious then you have to cover it. The fall of man resulted from sensual desire and the fallen act is going on everywhere. In order to reverse the fall we have to go in the opposite direction.
I would never like to see anyone, particularly the women, exposing themselves. What would you men say? If you are married and your wife is dressed so that other men laugh at her or tease her, would you feel good? Your wife is precious so her body is precious. A precious diamond is usually wrapped up with a humble cloth and hidden away. Displaying it in a spectacular manner only invites temptation.
In the Unification Church you must win the heart of God in order to get the best husband. Putting on humble clothes and working hard is the best way to get God's attention and get the best husband, not wearing make-up.
God's new morning of glory
What is the day God celebrates as the new morning of glory and the day we celebrate our new morning of glory? When will God proclaim it to the world? The day of glory for God, which is the morning of glory for you, is the day of the fulfillment of the heavenly four positions. Then God will say, "Indeed I have fulfilled my love, and I have no more aspiration. My job now is to enjoy it."
God wants to see families which He can freely visit, so that wherever He goes He can feel completely at home and without any hesitation embrace all the members of the family. When the father is riding on the back of the grandfather and the children riding on the father, that's their expression of love. Then on the grandmother's back there is the mother, and on her back is her daughter, with all three rejoicing and dancing around together. Then they could swap horses and the daughter ride on the grandfather, and so forth. This is the kind of ecstatic expression that might happen in a heavenly home. In such a home there is loneliness if one person is missing for
one evening. This family always hopes to be united every night and truly enjoy their oneness and harmony and love. Has God seen the fulfillment of His dream in your home? How about in the home of Jesus?
God's dream still remains unfulfilled. It was not fulfilled 2,000 years ago, or in the home of any religious leader or any American home, and today the Unification Church is here to pledge to fulfill that dream. We don't want to confine that fulfillment to our Church, but to expand it all over the world. Wouldn't that be the Kingdom of God on earth?
Here on earth there will be cries of joy resounding all over the world, and when that sound reaches the spirit world would everyone there say, "Why are you so noisy?" or would they rejoice together? The Unification Church is making a prototype of love so we can expand it into your home with your parents and grandparents. You can learn about loving your own children from seeing how True Parents love their children.
Teaching that kind of love is my mission. Are there people from all races here in this room because they came for money or new knowledge? You are here for love; here we find love which historically we could not find before. Most importantly it exists vertically, not just horizontally. Not only can you rationalize it logically, but you can make it a way of life. True love starts out vertically, but ends up together with the horizontal. This is why we have both spiritual and physical phenomena in the Unification Church. You not only hear me physically, but those who are spiritually strong can hear me in dreams and revelations.
Where true love moves there is no day or night, and no physical world or spirit world. It can travel all day and all night because there is no barrier. When a person comes to the Unification Church and experiences this love then no matter what kind of power tries to take him out, nothing can do it. There is such a strong tie that he is pulled right back in.
People normally go back home on two occasions, when they are successful and they want to show off, or when they have failed miserably and have no place else to go. This life is your home, whether you succeed or fail. If there were an easier way to reach heaven then I would be the first one to escape, but whether you like it or not, this is home. Here we can have the love which embraces and cleanses and forgives. Wherever you go you'll find only one place like this.
We are not just talking about love; we are showing love and learning love and living love, and this love is connected to God and the universe. If you remove yourself from this place then you are trying to separate yourself from the universe. That is impossible and therefore, it is impossible to separate yourself from the dwelling place of this love. God not only wants blessed couples to make homes which He can visit, but God wants to go on to your parents' homes as well. Furthermore, He wants to go to your grandparents' homes. God wants to create three generations of homes in which He can pay a visit without any hesitation.
When God comes to visit your home He will say, "I don't want to go back to heaven. This is better." God is smart! When you go up in heaven there is no one else to communicate with, but in your home He can see you and your children and He will want to stay. Our ultimate goal is to have heavenly families where children and parents and grandparents are all together, rejoicing over the love of God and really praising the glory of God. That is the morning which was longed for not only by God, your own parents and grandparents and all generations, but all things of creation as well. Not just one generation but three will complete it. When God sees that family realized here on earth then He will declare the morning of glory. There is no greater morning of glory.
The young people are responsible to bring perfection to the world today, and if the old generation remains wicked then God might strike them. The new generation is the hope of the world, to become the remnant which will eventually fulfill God's will here on earth. When you look at the spirit of today's young people it is more wicked than constructive. The only hope is the youth in the Unification Church, because you are moving in a direction 180 degrees opposite theirs. We don't have much money or power or knowledge, but we do have love and that will prevail. That is the almighty power, the greatest of all you could wish for. You don't need anything else because with this love you can unite all the continents and all races. There is nothing you cannot unite with it.
Anyone who would only marry within their race has a satanic idea. I never thought of myself as a Korean man but as a citizen of the world. You too must become color-blind in that respect. Imagine a black grandmother and white grandfather, with brown children who then marry Orientals or Indians. In that one family God could see all different colors.
Soon I want to send you to your homes as missionaries
My own parents and grandparents are in spirit world and in this respect you are superior to me. Because your parents and possibly your grandparents are here on earth, you have a chance to go back and restore them. If for some reason your father and mother were separated, I hope you will become a moving force to bring them together so you can bring them into heaven in spirit world. You must also bring your own brothers and sisters and your grandparents into the Kingdom of Heaven. You are messiah to your clan.
Jacob moved with three generations of his family from one place to another and you must bring three generations with you to the Kingdom of God. By doing it you can certainly look forward to the day of glory, and invite the morning of glory for God. We have now come to the age for doing these things. By writing letters to your own parents and by visiting or calling you can bring them closer to God. God sees you as the messiah to your own family. When you have the power to unite three generations then you have encompassed all mankind. The Kingdom of God must blossom here on earth, expanding from you to your clan so that both you and God can declare the morning of glory.
Who has written their parents like I asked? Letters are important, the next best thing to being there yourself. Write your testimony, showing your love for them and telling about what you found here. You have a lot to write about. " I am becoming a very righteous person. My parents, you look at me as your child, but I have matured and become different. You know that I troubled you so much, but now after receiving the Divine Principle I have a new vision. Reverend Moon is criticized by people who never even heard him, but it is what Reverend Moon is teaching that brought me to new life." In time your parents' opposition will subside.
At first America opposed me, but the time will come when America's heart will change because the spiritual atmosphere has changed. Until now Unification Church members feared their own parents and worried about kidnapping, but now I am telling you to approach your parents because in time they will welcome and embrace you instead of criticizing. Before your blessing you must be able to receive the support of your parents and grandparents, so that you have three generations ready to speak for you.
Vertically speaking, God, True Parents and all of you are three generations, while horizontally speaking, you, your parents and grandparents make three generations. When 1980 comes I would like to let you go to your own homes as missionaries instead of going out to work on the street corners to evangelize. Public opinion will change by then and people will see hope in the Unification Church. The rest of the world is crumbling so quickly that soon it will have only this way of life to rest upon. When you go back home you can quickly restore hundreds of people surrounding your clan, but you must prepare now, by writing letters for example.
I sacrificed myself for your sake and for America. Can you also demonstrate sacrificial spirit on behalf of your own parents and clan? Even though I have come to the moment of restoring my own family, they have already gone to spirit world and there is not much for me to do. But for you that day is here. The fulfillment of my mission is complete but I cannot go back to my own home. I could not go back before I achieved universal victory, and while I was struggling to be victorious my family all went to spirit world. It is different for you; instead of returning that glory to my own clan, I want to return it to all mankind.
After the fall of man took place in the garden of Eden, Cain slew Abel, his own brother. That really consummated the fallen act. Now you are in the Abel position and Cain will be your own brothers and physical father. Your father could be in the position of the most difficult Cain, but if you unite with him then your brothers will come in very easily. Having your father in that position is far better than Abel's situation in the garden of Eden. A brother may kill his own brother, but normally a father will not kill his child.
Because of the new spiritual trend there will be no more bloodshed in religious history in the future, even though we are undertaking a religious revolution. When I came to this unfamiliar country of America there were all kinds of threats to my life, and I was prepared to die. You don't have that same danger, however, particularly when you go back to your own clan.
The time will come when you can go back to your own father and brothers to resolve everything, saying, "Here I am and here is my record of accomplishment. What did I do wrong? What is selfish?" If they recognize that your record is a God-centered one then you can say, "Won't you follow me then and respect my judgment?" In your home you can be straightforward, unlike with strangers. Once you sway your physical father then your brothers will also follow. It won't be that difficult.
I have done the ultimate task. Since I cannot go back home to disseminate the blessing I would rather give it to you so you can expand that blessing to your own clan. I regret that it took so much time for worldwide restoration that I cannot return home for that time of glory. If my grandparents and father and mother were waiting to see me again, would they be grateful and bursting with joy? I can imagine that scene and I feel empty inside because I will not see it here on earth. By loving you more and disseminating that blessing more to you I want to vindicate and heal that feeling.
Since we started restoration from far away, shedding tears and working to restore perfect strangers, the time has now come when we can shed tears and sweat for our own clans. God always sacrificed His own son and gave him up to restore sinners, but now the time has changed and God can love His own children and enjoy them. At the same time God will tell the Cain world that it must pay indemnity by toiling, that Abel has done his job.
This is the year to be bold and strong
As we go in this direction you will see that the rest of the world will fall into more confusion and uncontrollable chaos. Soon the Unification Church way of life will shine like a tower of strength, and even though they don't want to, everyone will have to see it. When there is unity between God, Adam and Eve and children, three generations united in the Unification Church, then all the angelic world will defend and preserve it. The closing battle of good versus evil will begin but the angelic world will do the fighting, not us.
With that shield around us God can dwell inside and enjoy peace and tranquility with us. You won't even have to make an effort to feel God inside that kingdom because you will already be in God. Adam and Eve before the fall did not have to make conscious effort to understand God because He was already real to them. In ancient times the Cain world forcibly brought the Abel world down to hell, but now the time is reversed and Abel can bring Cain out of hell into heaven.
I have done my job and even if I died today it would not upset the dispensation; I will be accepted in spirit world as the person who fulfilled the mission. However, I want to make sure that you will be in that position and fulfill the mission in your own homes, that your home can stand with God. Restoration involves your ancestors and parents, and when you fulfill the external conditions you can go home to restore your family. God cannot use Adam and Eve to restore history because they brought the fall to this earth, so God uses you, the children, for the providence of restoration.
Abel is always the central figure and always Abel was the sacrificial offering on the altar of God. Sacrifice is the road to heaven and today that Cain and Abel pattern is expanded all the way from the individual to the world. The communist world represents Cain's world, whereas the free world represents the Abel world. In the free world the Unification Church is in the position of Abel, opposed by the rest. We have been beaten and persecuted and we were silent about it, but now the time has come for good to go forward with the offensive.
Restoration is done and upon that conditional victory the elder brother has the restored birthright, meaning that the elder brother has become the younger brother and the younger brother has become the elder brother. We have been in the younger brother's position all this time but now the time has come for us to act like the elder brother to the world.
With God and restored Abel united totally into one, there is no other power which can dominate us. When God and Adam become totally one then certainly the archangel must come down to his respective place. I proclaim that this year we must be bold and strong. If anyone speaks ill of Reverend Moon without any reason, you just stand up, saying, "I am a follower of Reverend Moon. What did he do wrong'? This is what he taught and this is what I am. Without hearing him how can you say these things?"
This testimony will become the greatest of all: "I used to be like you and I opposed him when I didn't know him too well, but after knowing him I changed. I used to have no vision and only pursued carnal pleasure, but today I'm working for God and the world. 11 you say that this is wrong then you are indeed an enemy of God and mankind." When you talk to your own parents you can speak very openly. "This is what I am. More than anyone you know what I used to be like, so which one would you take? If you approve my goals and way of life now, then you must be sympathetic and supportive." Be bold and strong. Don't hesitate.
I am intensely anticipating 1980. You will be like someone with wings. You won't have to have seven years to restore eighty-four people when you truly go and fulfill the role of messiah to your own clan. After restoring the clan we talk about the nation, then the world. This will parallel the three stages formed by Jesus, his twelve disciples and seventy-two disciples.
Don't talk about the Kingdom of Heaven without doing this. When you actually fulfill this then you qualify to receive the blessing. Eighty-four seems to be a gigantic figure because you know how difficult it is to bring in one person, but when you are taking care of your three generations at home-you, your parents and brothers and sisters, and grandparents-there will definitely be more than eighty-four fulfilled. If you can restore your own parents then the impact will go deep into spirit world and all your ancestors will be able to come and assist you. You will never be alone.
The day of victory of religion has come and this is the day of victory in the spirit world. As you know, after the victory at Washington Monument in 1976 I declared October 4 to be the Day of the Victory of Heaven. Last year on True Parents' birthday I declared the year one of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. On January 10, 1978 I declared a special 40-day condition, which will end February 20, and three days later will be the first anniversary of that New Age. Those forty-three days are very meaningful. The sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt was over after 430 years, and the year 4300 on the Korean
calendar coincided with the consummation of dispensational history in 1968. This is why I blessed 430 couples in that year. After these forty-three days we will celebrate the one year anniversary and start year two, so if you have made any mistakes, don't worry. If you fulfill this condition well in these forty-three days then you will restore 1977 and be given great hope.
Your day of glory has not come yet, but you are going to fight for it and obtain it. You are looking forward to celebrating your own day of glory, and these forty-three days are going to be crucial in that. You are pledged to do it and you are now renewing that pledge. Those who will do it, raise your hands and pledge again. Thank you. Let us pray.
