Belvedere International Training Center
Tarrytown, New York
Translator - Bo Hi Pak
If I said that you were all very evil, you would be upset and hurt. On the other hand, if I said that you were all good people, you would feel happy. The problem lies in knowing what is a genuine definition and boundary of good and evil in the world. Everything can be divided into good and evil; for example. there can be good eyes and bad eyes, good mouths and bad mouths, good hands and bad hands. There are good homes and bad homes, good policies and bad policies, good food and bad food. There are good countries and bad countries, good men and bad men, good ideology and bad ideology.
We conclude that if you want to become a good man then you have to deal with nothing but goodness: you have to have good eyes and ears, good food and good thinking. If you deal with evil or bad things in any way. the consequences will be evil. If you have a big, beautiful, seemingly perfect apple, but it has a small rotten spot somewhere. it will still be classified as a bad apple. One rotten spot spoils the whole thing, so that the apple cannot be totally good. Anything that is not good is bad. Then what is the definition of good? Goodness is liked and aspired to by everyone.
Many people who drink a lot will ask, "what's wrong with liquor'?" But the general consensus is that hard drinking is not good. Eating food in the right amount serves a good purpose, but overeating will hurt you. From what standpoint can you evaluate which members of a family are good'? Again, we have to come up with a principle defining the boundary between good and evil.
Where do good and evil begin? There are two schools of thought in our world today, one which says that men are fundamentally good. and the other which says that men are basically evil. What, then, is the origin of goodness'? First, goodness is something perfect. In the human body, all the organs and limbs have to be perfect. Suppose you are perfect physically, except that you have a minor deficiency in the brain. Compare that to a man who has a perfect brain, but whose body is abnormal; which is perfect? In order to be perfect, your brain, limbs and appearance must all be complete.
Perfection must come both internally and externally; also, your relationships with the surroundings must be harmonious. The complementary relationships of internal and external, self and surroundings, must all be perfect. When we speak of a world of goodness, we envision that in such a world everything else also starts to turn at various angles and speeds, but they are all harmonized in working for a common purpose. That is perfection. The electric power that runs the motor will bring all the machinery into harmony.
What is the basis for differentiating between the world of good and world of evil? Does it begin with two different people or with the division of one person into two parts? There are men and there are women, but each person also has an internal part and an external part.
A central characteristic of evil is that it is changeable in quality. An evil person is always changing, and will betray you, stabbing you in the back. Even though you trusted him, he will betray you. An evil man has two tongues, speaking of something, in a favorable way one time, and another time saying the opposite, depending on which will benefit him.
It is a delicate question to say whether it is man or woman who is more likely to have a changeable character. What is the greater possibility? In evaluating all the circumstances, I have to say that women are more susceptible to being changeable in nature. Women usually never miss out when good times or good things are being pursued. Men may be content to wear one decent suit day in and day out, all year long, but women always want to wear a new fashion. Just about all the men here are wearing the same style clothing, but the women are wearing all kinds of blouses and dresses, in all kinds of colors and shapes. The men's world is just one dull color. but the women's world is like a flower garden.
It can be said that the men's world is like the soil and the women's world is something growing above the soil. Thus, women are more susceptible to the changing world of evil; that's the way things were made. When we see all these things, and then read in Genesis that the fall was initiated by a woman, it is a convincing idea. Women paint their nails, and on the street you see nails of all different colors. I know that if fashion dictated that a women have ten nails of ten different colors, it would catch on like wildfire, overnight. Women pay attention to those things.
Men, however, are not so wise that they avoid following women. In our world today do women follow men, or do men follow women? It is feminine nature to want to be colorful, in a way sending out an invitation by attracting attention. A flower is colorful and has fragrance so that it can attract insects. The nature of men and women comes out very distinctly when they go to a department store. A man will just stop by to pick out a tie, but a women wants to shop around in many places before she buys one specific item, and in the process looks at many different departments. She is looking for strategic weapons to make herself more colorful, to send out better signals.
The function of a flower is to attract the attention of insects. Men are always replying to the signals that women send out, and men are always duplicating the changing nature of women by responding to those signals. This nature is apparent in the Bible, which says that the first woman committed sin, and then tempted Adam. He, in turn, just took the apple and ate. Do women usually do that to men, or do men usually do it to women'? Eve sent out artificial smiles and messages; that is most obvious. You may be wondering why I always give the women a hard time, but think about this and then say whether it was a man or woman who sent out the false signal first. It was a woman.
When we observe a nation and say it is very colorful, what we mean is that its women are colorful. Men would say that a house only needs painting every few years, but women would like to see it a different color for every season! When you first enter Germany, your impression is that it is a sober, dark country, with little that is colorful. Even the women wear dark, uncolorful clothes. When you come to America, however, the feeling is entirely different. America is always running after a new fad. and women are always at the head of the line.
I am not saying that the women's world is bad, while the man's world is good. Within the world of women there are both good and evil. Some women are always on the lookout for something new, exciting and fun, while the other group might be trying to preserve tradition. Which side would be closer to good or evil? Certainly tradition has a more unchanging quality, so it represents the good side. There are all kinds of national traditions, but which should be in the center?
Again, there are two worlds in tradition, one good and the other evil. What tradition should a person pursue? Do you want to preserve internal things, or follow external things? Without question, you want to pursue an internal tradition. We commonly speak of a "man of conscience." Men of conscience have life, and also love. Tradition should be based on the qualities of conscience, life and love. Is life or love to be preferred? Each person preserves his own life, but you cannot perfect love within yourself alone. You need a circuit, so in order to perfect love you must associate. Do you think the power of love could unite society and the world, or would it have to be the power of love? It must be love, but love should be added to life because love needs energy.
Where should the root of life be, then? Your life is the fruit of the love of your mother and father, coming vertically down to you. Thus, the energy of your life should be directed toward love, becoming a seedbed of love. Your parents' love is consummated in your life, so your life is spent searching after that origin. Also, you must associate with people in the society to consummate your love. You are pursuing the tradition in which your parents' love created your life, so your life is directed toward fulfilling love which will bear fruit.
It is not the energy of life which will make society ideal. Only the power of love can allow man's ideal to blossom. Love is the common goal of every person. Everyone loves love. Do you need food more than love? You eat food to preserve your life, needing the power of life in order to give energy to your love. From food you get energy for life, and it will be directed toward the blossoming of love.
Not only man, but also all things of creation are pursuing love. What would be the ideal for men of conscience? Men of conscience always value tradition highly. Where do they base that tradition? They thrust the power of their lives into culminating and perfecting themselves in love. If that tradition is erected, it should continue for eternity with everyone recognizing the value of it. Do you think God would spend much time pondering whether it should be approved, or would He give His approval right away? Without question, God will always give His stamp of approval to the tradition that bears the fruit of love.
What is an example of the unchanging quality of love? A good man is one who upholds the unchanging quality of the tradition of love. The tradition of love can be utilized on the individual level, family level, on earth, in spirit world-everywhere. It is valued universally. A man of love is accepted as a good man on every level, including spirit world.
What kind of person is God? Certainly He is a God of conscience. Have you seen God's conscience? We say that God has a conscience because we are men of conscience. We are only resultant beings, so certainly God, the Creator, must also be a God of conscience. We feel that the energy of life will blossom and bum into love, and our ambition is to fulfill love. If we think so, then our first cause, God, must think so, too. Do you think you can meet every criterion of the universe with love? You need love.
How much money do you think should be paid for love? I understand that there is a 517 carat diamond in the British Crown. Would you swap love for it? If the most expensive diamond in the world told you to come to it, you should reply, "You are only my ornament. You come to me instead." The power of life and love is priceless. When your eye is shining in the power of love, that eye is priceless. If you have eyes of love. all visible things of creation will want to be perceived by your eyes, saying, "Look at me first!"
If you have the power of love, all sounds will want to be heard by you, competing with each other to enter your ears. All smells and fragrances of the world will compete to enter your nose. If you have the power of love, all food will want to be chewed by your mouth. Even though the food will be crushed by your teeth, it still wants to be connected to the power of love through you. Food would rather enter the mouth that represents the power of love than continue as it is. All the fish in the oceans would rather leave the water to enter the mouth that represents love.
Everything wants to be a prisoner of love. The ultimate satisfaction of everything in creation is to be caught by true love. Mankind is part of the creation of God, so we too find ultimate satisfaction in becoming a prisoner of God's love. We want to enter the mouth and ears and eyes of God. We want to be tools of God by becoming prisoners of His hands. Why is that the ultimate satisfaction'? There is nothing greater than God's love, and by becoming His prisoner you are becoming part of His love.
What is the tradition of value that will last for eternity? That tradition must be based on love. Do you think God needs law? The primary purpose of law is to protect. Do you think the Kingdom of Heaven should have a constitution? It will be based on the life power of love. The most fundamental center of value is the life power of love, so all heavenly law is designed to protect that tradition forever.
The fundamental unchanging characteristics come from God, and He values the life power of love. Thus, these are the foundation of the creation. The whole universe is designed to promote or perpetuate these qualities. Love is never self-centered. but is always for others. The purpose of God's creation was selfish in a sense, for God wanted to have joy. but essentially God's sweat and labor went into making His object perfect and comfortable. God needed an object. because the law says that love is for others. God needed some "other" on which He could exercise the power of His love. Even God needs an object to fulfill love, and man was created in that position.
The whole universe was built to give joy to man. Do you have a deep, poignant realization that God created this whole universe as a gift to you? He created it for you because He wants you to be a subject of love, with the creation as your object.
Suppose you have created some objects which you enjoy, but someone else passes by and is so charmed and intrigued by what you have made that he wants it. When you see how that person feels, you feel the impulse to give it to him so that he can keep loving it. If someone loves your creation more than you do, you want to give it to him. That means God takes after you!
This analogy applies perfectly to this universe. If you see a cute little mouse that God made, or a soft kitten or puppy, God would say. "Please take it home with you and enjoy it." All creation is here to be your object and give you stimulation of love. Everything is a masterpiece of God's, and when He sees that you love what He made more than He does, He will love you for that as well. God can't help but love you in that case.
When you are loving the things God made, He will be following behind you. Don't you think He will want to hug you then? When you feel something behind you and you turn around. God will be there to embrace you tighter and tighter. When He squeezes you so that you plunge into His heart of love, you will feel deeper and deeper joy. When you get a heavy dose of God's love, you will be completely intoxicated, and when you come out you will stagger around! Then God will say, "You see how powerful my love is?" When God sees His son stretched out in heavenly joy, He will say, "Amen! This is just what I wanted," and He also will be stretched out in joy. He will feel perfectly satisfied to see His child enjoying His love. The more there is intoxication in the love of God, the more perfection will increase. This universe should be the world of people drunk in God's love. Then even if people are kicking around or Lying in the streets, it won't make any difference. That is the ultimate state which God, man, and all things of creation have been looking forward to.
Now we dig down to the very origin of good and evil. Anything contrary to this principle is evil. Once we know what God is really looking for, we know the definition of the worst Satan; that is any power or person which is designed to destroy the life power of love. Even though good and evil are not clearly defined in today's world, people generally know that the family and nation are good, for they are the stage where love can blossom. In the family the virtue is filial piety; in the nation the virtue is patriotism, for instance. On the world level, the life of a holy man is a good thing to achieve. Even if people don't know specifically what is good and evil, they still have a general idea.
Your life came into being through your parents' love, but your life doesn't know whether it has love, so while you are growing you must listen to your parents. It is through them that you will learn what love is. When you are fond of your father and mother, ultimately your love will go up higher, returning to God. the origin. A frequent question is whether the chicken or egg came first; actually they are the same thing, for everything returns. The seed goes back to the fruit, which goes back to flowers, and returns ultimately to its origin.
Why should you love your parents'? Because they are a rung on your ladder to God. You are a center of the circle of love which begins with God and continues through your parents. Together you are one team. As the center you will learn the pattern of love, and then create your own circle by finding Your mate and having children of your own.
Love brings unity. Why do you love your brothers? Because by loving them you are bringing God into your circle. It is in the family that you experience, practice and perfect love; it is your workshop of love. When you coordinate your family unit with others, you are creating a society, which is an even greater workshop of love. This principle works just the same in the nation. Thus, love in the family expands, becoming a nation, world, cosmos, and finally becoming one with God.
A heavenly man is living this virtue and tradition, in the life power of love on the individual level, to the family level, society, nation and world. There are no boundaries or resistance to hinder you in running this way to the love of God. When you have this heavenly quality within you, you can make yourself at home wherever you go, for your God is the God of every nation. It is the life power of love which will thrust you all the way to the top.
You already have life power within you, but to spur you on further, love must strike a spark within you. Love power is like the electricity which turns the motor. When it starts to turn in the power of love, all kinds of love and beauty are created in our universe, through the harmony of many things turning in many directions.
This is a hypothesis, which you have not seen in action, but hearing it makes you feel good, doesn't it? Still you want to try it because you have heard nothing better. If you knew it was a proven truth, would you bet your life on it?
There are many national Church leaders here this morning, and they may tell their members that everything should be done through the national leader. But the real question is whether those leaders are becoming powerful in love. If you are powerful without love, you are only a tyrant. But if a person of love is on top, he can dig all the way down to the absolute bottom. That person has total freedom and nothing will stop him, so he can go all the way up and down with absolute liberty. Even if he goes all the way down to the bottom of hell, everyone there will love him. He can go all the way up to the throne of God, and he will be perfectly acceptable there.
Perhaps a leader will tell his members that they should report everything only to him, so that he can tell me the good things, but keep the bad things from me. Maybe he thinks he can do anything he wants and the members should obey him. Energy and power are fine, but if they are exercised without love, you create nothing but hell. You should be listening to God and listening to me. Maybe the national leaders think they are infallible and their power is sacred, but that is no good. They should be totally obedient to higher authority, and only then can they have the authority to guide their members. The Divine Principle and God are trying to lead the Unification Church to a certain goal, but even within the Church there are influences trying to lead people in the other direction. A national leader should be like a sacrificial parent who works harder and suffers more than the children. If you become a personification of the love of God then even though you go down, people will lift you up high and the universe will lift you up.
Always shed tears of love. There are two kinds of tears- tears of sadness shed in tragedy, and tears of love and joy. If you are really crying out in the joy of love, so loud that you even wake up the world, that is good. Sometime it is love to hit or bite a person. If, when you are centered on love, you become controversial, it will be a dramatic, heroic thing, not an evil thing.
We have been talking about tradition here. In many ways people today follow only external traditions whose internal meanings have been almost forgotten, so young people aren't very attracted to them. Young people couldn't care less in many cases. If they heard about the tradition of love and conscience this morning, however, they would want to follow it. In religious history there has always been emphasis on service and sacrifice; they are the methods of living the tradition of love. In addition, we have certain external traditions, such as fund raising and witnessing.
Do you just like the internal traditions but not the external ones'? How can you prove that you have the internal traditions, but not the external ones? How can you prove that you have the internal tradition if you don't have a diploma to show'? To become a Ph.D. you have to start in elementary school and get good grades all along the way. Once you get your Ph.D. will anyone want to see your elementary school certificate? No, they will take it for granted. In the same way, in the Unification Church you must be certified. You need a fund raising certificate, which testifies that you have loved all things of creation. Your witnessing certificate testifies that you have loved people.
You must be a PhD in loving men and all things, and with that certificate you are eligible to have your mate. No one would want to marry you until then! Does any woman want to marry a man who has no certificate or qualification? It is in the home that you actually practice love of all things and of people. If you don't already have experience in that area then you don't know how to build a real family.
When you fund raise, you work with unselfish dedication for others. When you create your family. you will do things for your family, your clan, society and nation. Fund raising is basic training for this, for that same spirit is extended in loving your society, nation and world. Then that tradition will be built into society. MFT is the best place to practice this. so all members must go fund raising. You don't love all things for your own sake, but for others. This is the beautiful tradition you must learn.
In fund raising you bring money from the secular world. Here in the Church we spend the money to save people in the fallen world; thus, the money is actually going back to those who gave it, creating a circle which will get bigger and bigger. The money you earn goes back to the nation, to the world, to the universe, and to God. Each time the material will serve a greater purpose.
In witnessing, you are loving people instead of material. The countryman who opposes you is still better for you than the foreigner who welcomes you. There are many obstacles to working in other countries. Even if your own people oppose you, at least here you have complete freedom, and you speak the same language and can talk to them. You have the same customs and background, so you can be grateful to be working with your own countrymen. Eventually, however. our mission will expand to include other countries. In the witnessing process you are seasoned by experiencing love difficulties. Then when you become a family man, you automatically know how to overcome family difficulties and you won't give up. Compared to what you experienced, your family will look like heaven!
You will have only one savings account with your spouse, not one for the wife and another for the husband. It is a good tradition when the father can ask his children to contribute their own savings to help in a family emergency, but it cannot happen if the husband and wife have separate accounts and can't touch each other's money. If parents fight, can they show their children how to love each other? When the parents are in love and are totally united, the children won't know what someone is talking about if he asks whether their parents fight.
In fund raising and witnessing you are getting the basic training you will need to build your home later. Maybe our white brothers are having a new experience here in sharing rooms with their black brothers. But through having that experience it seems natural later on if they have black wives. Once you find mutual respect among white and black, finding harmony between white and white seems more than natural. When you live in harmony with great extremes, it is easy to find harmony between things that are similar. I keep encouraging you to think about marrying someone of another race, so you are adjusted in your thinking by the time blessing comes and you can accept anything gratefully.
In every facet of life there are two contrasting worlds, but only one power can harmonize them both-the power of love. With that power you can willingly sacrifice yourself for your fellow man. You might think you will lose everything by living this principle, but the universal law is such that when you live this principle, the power of love will replenish everything.
In living this principle, instead of always losing energy because there is so much opposition, I am richly rewarded by young people who love me. When foolish people come against me, wise people will support me. When rich people oppose me, poor people will unite with me, and so on. If white people hate me, ethnic groups will love me. I am always amply rewarded.
What do you like about me? You like the life power of love. When you hear me, you feel some power coming to you, and you want to be grafted to me. We have come now to understand a real definition of good and evil. My ultimate declaration is that wherever the life power of love works, the power of God's love is always dwelling. When you go away from the power of that love, it is as though a vacuum is created which Satan will come to fill.
The Cain-and-Abel principle in restoration is based on this understanding of good and evil. Abel brought an offering to God, where the life power of love was contained. Abel's road is to link up with the power of God's love. Being the subject of the Abel world, my effort is to bring all good things to the altar of God through the life power of love, making a genuine offering that can be accepted by God.
On every level, Abel is continually offering to God both material and people. These two things should be connected to the life power of love, for otherwise they cannot be accepted by God. When you truly represent the life power of love, you cannot be self-centered, but are always living for others. If you are truly balancing the whole, you are naturally in the center. In every facet of our lives we are dealing with the world of material and the world of people; our way of dealing with them is in the life power of love, whether in religion, culture, economics, education, and so forth.
My activities are not just religious; this is why people say I am an industrialist, a scholar, a movie maker. I deal with every facet of life in this same principle of love. Even if I go fishing, it is never to enjoy myself. I am never apart from my fundamental mission. That is why even tuna are attracted to me!
The leaders are the first group of people who should practice loving the members more than they love their own families, so in this 120 day training they can practice this principle by loving each other. There are all kinds of members in this workshop, so I told the workshop director to mix up all types of people in the teams. I may make it a rule that they change rooms every day. If they know they will only be living in their room for one day, maybe they won't care so much about keeping it clean as if they knew they would be there 120 days. I want to find out. Do you leaders think you need training, or are you already perfected?
When this workshop was announced, I heard about all kinds of reactions. Some of the leaders thought their Church family would fall apart without them, but I think that without them their Church family may have a chance to survive!
I am always living most naturally in two worlds, both high and low, moving back and forth between them. When Col. Pak was in South America last summer, he met and was entertained by presidents of seven nations. He was given a great deal of honor because he was my aide, and told me that he felt at that time how great I was. But when he came to report to me in Morning Garden, he couldn't find me in the house. Finally he found me at the bottom of the back yard, working with several members to fix a rope for fishing. In my life I have embraced both extremes of high and low. God's will is to bring these two extremes into harmony, and only God's power can do this. A true Moonie is the personification of the life power of love, so we can bring the two worlds together.
Those who can say, "I really know who I am. I will be living the life power of love to bring the two worlds together," raise your hands. Thank you.
