Belvedere
Translator - Sang Kil Han
How have you felt while I was away? Do you think America needs me? You said that you missed me and have been feeling lonely while I was gone. If you felt that way about me, is there Someone greater that you miss even more, that you just cannot get along without? Even if you don't know for sure, certainly you want to have that Someone, don't you?
When we say we like someone, does that mean we always liked him, or that we have come to like him through a certain process? It is a process. A lot of rumors and slanderous things have been said about Reverend Moon, so my name does not necessarily bring good /images to people's minds. Unless people have some means of knowing me, they can't like me. The vehicle which helps people develop love for me is the Principle. When people hear the Principle, their hearts can open to me even without seeing me. Also, the Unification Church is a vehicle to bring people closer to me.
You may feel that it was the Principle and the Church that brought you closer to me and inspired you to love me. When I go to the spirit world after my lifetime on earth, I have to leave behind some bond, some relationship, some deep love which people can cherish. If your love for me is very intense, you will extend that same love toward the other members of my family-my wife, my children.
What makes such feelings of closeness, unselfishness and love possible? Is it me? Is it the work of the Unification Church or the Principle? It is actually none of these, but rather some universal force at work. The main current of the universe draws us together and maintains that closeness. It cannot be something which everyone hates, but rather something beloved by people in the past, the present and the future. Everyone likes that main current. When God sees it, He rejoices. Our ancestors are glad to see us experiencing this, and the generations of people to come will admire this main current in the same way we do.
If you trace that main current way back, where do you think it originated? Whether you use the term God, happiness, or blessing does not matter. We can call the wellspring of that current God, for shoe, but what is He actually like? Deep down inside, is He angry, or does He have a deep heart expressed with a smiling face? Is He very self-disciplined? Does He impose His opinions on others? What kinds of feelings does He project in this main current? If He were to speak, what would He say? What words would He choose to express His thoughts and feelings?
Suppose you were present at the beginning of the world- how would you have felt? What would have been the first words you uttered? You would have had eyes, but without a mirror you could not have seen yourself very well. Certainly you must have had a nose, ears and lips which you could feel protruding. To the extent that you could see yourself, you must have wondered why you were the way you were, why your hands and toes were like this, and so forth.
One thing you must have felt was hunger and thirst. As you explored the earth, you would have found many kinds of strange and wonderful things. Of course, the plant and animal kingdoms developed before people appeared, so you would have found grass, birds and many animals. You would have been completely lonely without plants and animals. As you looked at nature, you would see that they were all in pairs. Bees, birds and butterflies were all in pairs- wherever they were, they seemed so happy in pairs. But you looked around and you didn't see any creation of your kind.
Small children do not realize what they will be like when they grow up, or what it means to be a man or a woman. Still, they can tell the difference between bodily features. The boy has something the girl doesn't have. Later, girls develop a big bosom, and a boy doesn't. During childhood, however, they don't need each other as intensely as they will later on. If you had been the first man or woman, after growing to a certain age, your happiness and wonder would develop into a kind of loneliness and yearning for something which was missing. Don't you think you would have felt that way?
As you grew, you would notice that the mature deer lived in pairs, and that the little ones were accompanied by their parents. Chickens, pheasants, and everything around you lived as families. You would see father, mother and offspring, but you were all alone. So you would have experienced a sense of loneliness. You would see parents and children and wish you had the same. Wouldn't you have felt that? If we imagine ourselves in God's position, that's what we would have felt.
Actually, we are not the origin but we are definitely a result. Someone else was the origin. You have already said that God was the origin, but since you haven't seen Him, do you think He more closely resembles human beings or the animal kingdom? Since He is almighty, He must be very strong. Would you say He is like a man? "Man" can mean male or female. Would He look more like a man or a woman? If you say man, women would disagree with your answer! This debate could go on for millions of years and still be unresolved. At least God would more closely resemble human beings than animals, yet not exactly a man or a woman. He is a combination of both natures in one being. Therefore, God is unique and not like any one of us.
There are two kinds of people-men and women. Women tend to go around a circle in one direction, and men in another. So when they meet, they cannot go on further, and only revolve around and around each other. Women head toward men, and men toward women. They meet and embrace, and revolve round and round, Jumping up and down in their Joy.
God is a plus and He needs someone in the minus position. When that is established, everything works out. Mankind is in the minus position to God. When a man and a woman are together, they reflect the image of God. The reason for man and woman uniting is to be able to resemble God and return to Him.
Many long years ago, as the first woman observed God she could see male features she didn't possess, so she would say, "God, why don't You give me the parts which I lack and You have?" Certainly, the woman wondered why she didn't have what God did. The same was true for the man. He had every masculine feature, but still he lacked the feminine features which God had. Both man and woman must have asked God to supplement them. When they found something in God which they lacked, first they would wish for it, and then they would ask God for it.
Suppose we didn't have a mouth, but God did. Don't you think you would ask God for a mouth? If He loved you and you loved Him, wouldn't you have said, "Father, can You give it to me?" How could you smile without a mouth? Or, how would you look if you smiled? It would be a very ugly sight, because that part of your face would have to expand and then shrink! If you didn't have a nose, but God did and everyone thought it was attractive, you would certainly have asked God for one. It is the same with ears. If God had something good which you lacked, you would plead with God to give it to you.
God is all-powerful and He created everything on earth. Don't you think you would have asked God to give you a part of everything? On the invisible side, God has high ideals, peace, and original love. Wouldn't you have asked God to share those with you? If God has a lot, you want a lot. If He doesn't have a lot, you still want a lot! Well, God is smart and He knew that the people He created would want things and be greedy.
We can conclude that it would not be very good for either God or man to be completely satisfied by themselves. We should resemble God, but in what way? The only way we resemble God is through love. People today partly follow Principle, for when a man and a woman become close, they want to love each other to the highest degree. But by themselves, they are limited. God has male and female features but are they temporary and changeable, or are they eternal?
Why is God in the plus position? In Principle terminology, God is in the subject position, not the object position. Why not, if they are the same? Women might object to God being in the subject position and ask why He couldn't be in the object position at times and put man or woman in the subject position. As human beings, when we look at God we put Him in the subject position; it is we, not God, who place Him in the subject position. Also, when a man in the subject position and a woman in the object position form a perfect image of God, they place themselves in the object position to God. So, you see, it is people who put God in this position.
When plus and minus meet, sparks of love fly in all directions. Those sparks can be seen from a great distance Their light is so brilliant that it attracts people and fills them with a desire to be a part of it. Wherever goodness and love exist, they attract all people and all things. Where ever the sparks go, all things will want to follow. Men and women desire a perfect union because when they achieve it, they can have everything, like God. All good things are included in that union.
Will a man send a woman away if he knows that? No, he would beg and plead with her and do anything to keep her. If the only way a woman can keep a man is to cook for him, she is bound to do it. Even if it is painful to her and she makes a mess, still if it is the only way to hold her husband, she will do it! Every day you have to work on ways to hook your husband or your wife. I'm not talking about painful hooks, but even if they were, he or she wouldn't mind; they will enjoy it! Hook him or her in the eyes, the ears, the mouth, and everywhere! Use a double hook. Make sure there is no chance for escape.
What kind of hook do you need? Will knowledge or power bring a husband or wife close to you? No, you need a love hook. Once he is hooked, a man is so happy and feels he has everything! Would God be joyful in similar circumstances? If His object-mankind-were hooked through the ears and everywhere, never separated from Him for even a moment, God would be happy. God longs for that kind of faithful, loving object and will feel great joy in the relationship, just as you do with your loving husband or wife.
Once man and woman are perfectly united, they seek God as their subject since they are then His perfect objects. God is an absolute being, so once we are united we can never be separated from Him. God can only be happy when He finds such a perfect man and woman in perfect union, placing themselves in the object position to Him. Can God be happy now? Have people already achieved the full relationship with Him? Have you achieved that connection with Him? You have to say no, since you know clearly that you haven't. Thus, it is obvious that God is a lonely God. For whom is He lonely? For man and woman-for one man and one woman. What is the meaning and purpose of blessed couples? What are you supposed to achieve? Actually, we have been blessed in order to eliminate God's loneliness. When this condition is met, all other problems in the universe will disappear.
In the beginning of my speech, I asked if you felt lonely while I was away and many of you said yes. How many of you genuinely, honestly felt that? Why? Why would your mind be drawn to me like that? Why did you miss me? We don't always dwell in the original realm of heart, but since that was the position we were supposed to have, we long for it and miss it. When a man and a woman join and create a perfect union, they feel they should have a certain position towards me. This is the main current which connects us.
In the indirect dominion, people live according to the Principle; but as children near the line of perfection, the point of maturity, boys and girls think of nothing else than trying to meet each other. Not only your eyes, nose, mouth, arms and body, but also your minds must meet in a perfect way in order to become one and inseparable. This is what gives love the quality of unifying all things. When true love moves, all people will follow it, whatever the cost. Whether they live or die is of secondary importance; the main thing is to follow love and be connected with it. Once we are linked with this true love, even if we wish to get away, it pulls us and jerks us back. That is the kind of power it exerts. In such a position, nothing really bothers you; you feel no sense of shame or embarrassment because there are no unprincipled feelings.
Two middle-aged Korean men of high social position have been in 120-day training. Recently they went out and fundraised with buckets of flowers. To their surprise, they never felt any embarrassment. They wondered why. Once people are in the realm of true love, they care about nothing else. That is what we call happiness. When someone truly loves another, he does not think about himself. True love is eternal and exerts tremendous control. Why does it have so much power? Precisely because it resembles God.
Without understanding this, some beautiful woman might come and complain to me, "Father, I think I am so beautiful, but the husband you selected for me isn't very handsome. Why?" Such a person takes one quality and blows it out of proportion. She forgets that a good match needs to consider all 360 degrees, and she sees only one degree that doesn't seem to fit. However, the full scope of 360 degrees is more important than the one single degree.
If you consider only one, two, three, or four aspects, you may say your match could never work. But take all the other angles and start from there. Anyway, first you have to get together. If you do your best and can only achieve a limited unity, God will have to fill in the rest! You may complain that you have some abnormal difficulties, but God knows whether you have a good match or a bad match. Since He knows, don't you think He will figure out a solution? You may not be able to, but He will.
So within this eternal, real Principle, what right do we have for complaint in the Unification Church? None. Whoever complains in the Unification Church should be clobbered! Those who agree to that, raise your hands. Thank you for being such good students! If you put it this way, there is nothing wrong with America except this point.
If you live this way as man and woman, you will eventually meet God. Who were the first to meet God? One man and one woman. Two people approach God at the same time. Then whom will God smile on first, the man or the woman or both at the same time?
When God asks you where you come from, He means you as a couple, not you as a man or woman. If He greets the woman or the man first, the other will wonder why. But once He greets you, He will ask one of you the first question, since both cannot speak at the same time. If God asks the man the first question, the woman might wonder why He asked him first. But then she would think, "Oh, well, I love him so much, I don't mind" If she didn't love him, it would bother her but because of love, it doesn't.
We have to understand that we live for someone else. Do we live first and love afterwards, or do we love so that we can live for the other? Centering on love, we are meant to serve others. If your wife serves you out of love, she will not mind but if you force her to serve you without love, she will definitely resent it. Love operates when we serve another willingly. When a couple in a subject-object relationship practice this way of true love wherever they go and whatever they do, things turn out smoothly; they have a free pass everywhere and they meet no resistance.
We should serve others in the spirit of God's love-husband to wife, wife to husband. We should even serve strangers with that spirit. When we do that, all the universe-even God-will welcome us; others will try to follow that pattern. God Himself will come down to meet you. But if you try to serve others out of greed, or for some personal purpose, Satan will come and confront you. Do you understand? That is what separates heaven from hell. That is the dividing point.
Here in the Unification Church, each individual is running a marathon centering on true love. You go and serve others to the end of the world and then return to start your family life. Those whom you served will welcome you and your family back. That is the legitimate start of the family which can lead right to heaven. This is a simple but important point. It is a rule or yardstick by which you should constantly measure yourself. How do you know whether you are on the right track? Get out the measuring stick and see if you comply with it. When love between a man and woman is established and fixed, when love between brothers and sisters is fixed, you have created the habit of love. Once you are accustomed to living that way, you will be unable to live without love.
You like cheese and butter, don't you? Cheese is very smelly, but once your mouth becomes used to the taste of cheese, you find it hard to live without it. Your eyes have become conditioned to looking at things which are not righteous or virtuous, and once you are accustomed to them, you like them. Your ears also have become used to hearing certain things, and you want to keep listening to them. You are prisoners of such habits! How do you hope to be free from them? How can you eradicate them? You have to erase some things from your deep memory so that better memories can move in. But this is difficult and almost impossible to accomplish by ordinary means.
Did you form the habit of loving others from early life? If not, you are not living in the original way; therefore you are bound for hell. If someone tells you that, you cannot deny it. First we have to uncondition ourselves, cut off certain relationships, change our habits of speaking, seeing, etc. Unless you can change how your senses react, there is no way to go to heaven. You have to reconnect yourself to the original pattern. Those of you who want to go to heaven, raise your hands. Even if I were to tell you not to try to go to heaven, still you would raise your hands! You are determined to get there, whether I encourage you or not-is that what you are saying?
Are you really going to go to heaven, no matter what it involves? You say yes in such a loud voice, but it is so difficult to do-it is almost beyond us. Suppose, for example, that as a condition for reaching heaven you had to go to a surgeon who would cut off your nose and reposition it on your face upside-down, and then you had to walk in the rain all day long. It would be so difficult that you would come back and say, "Father, I will do anything as long as I have my nose. I don't mind loving others, serving others, giving up cheese, jumping on one foot for the rest of my life, or whatever! I'll do anything without complaining"
Many of you are so hopelessly Americanized! Although you dislike changing, you know you must try. Can you say, "Father, show me how to get away from all these habits. I won't complain anymore about how difficult or embarrassing it may be. I want to know the fastest way to uncondition myself. I will do it, no matter what!" This is the kind of attitude you need.
For the sake of God and mankind, for the sake of our original position, what we need to do is unwind ourselves from the habits of the past. What is the best way to cut them off? It is to go through difficult positions-the more difficult the better! We must deny everything and focus on the things which tie us with original love in order to acquire new habits. Our way of life is to deny our family, our society, and our environment, just as Jesus said, and to focus on the one original love. This is what the Unification Church is most faithful in practicing.
You see, there is no way around it; there is no easier course. This is the only road to heaven. We have to return to the original state in which Adam, Eve and God would have formed a perfect trinity and union of love. They would have formed the perfect heaven which would have expanded throughout the earth and continued into the spirit world. That was the original ideal. With that attitude of true love for all things, all mankind, the spirit world and God, Adam and Eve would have fulfilled the original position.
Instead, our world is upside-down and we have to surmount many difficulties along the way. Even though we are tempted, we should pay no heed and continue along the one, original way. Then as a family we continue this course. We have to go against the tide of the present world; we have to go against that tide to reach the original point. This is what we are here for.
More and more, I notice you singing the holy songs in their original Korean and trying to read my words in the original language. Why do you do that? If God used language to speak to Adam and Eve, what language would He have used? When He spoke with original love it was in the original language. That original language would have extended throughout the earth, and heavenly tradition would have been communicated through that language. When True Parents appear where none had been before, the language that True Parents happen to use becomes the language through which God's original love and original tradition find expression. So we call that language the original language.
How close would you feel to me if you could listen to my sermon directly, without going through an interpreter? Think how clear the meaning would be! In the future, if you want to listen directly to my words or study the transcripts, would you study the translated version or the original Korean text?
Everyone has his own opinion. You may claim the American way is best, and that my way is an example of the Korean way but if that were true, the Korean people would have agreed with me all along. Considering how the Korean people have opposed me, it is obvious that my way is different from the Korean way. Are mass weddings of hundreds or thousands of couples the Korean way? What about white people marrying black people, or people from enemy countries getting married? Is that the African, German, or Korean way? Such things are the heavenly way- nothing else.
I can easily imagine how difficult this way of life is for Americans. Americanism is, in a word, individualism. People want to do as they wish and not follow advice from someone else. They have become conditioned to free sex. Even though someone's advice may be right, most people feel that no one is entitled to tell them anything. All these are aspects of Americanism.
For instance, an American may smile with his eyes while his heart is filled with anger; you might call it diplomatic smiling. Let's compare how a typical Oriental laughs with how a Westerner laughs. The typical Westerner will have a stylish, refined laugh. The Oriental often has a bland expression, but on the occasions when he does laugh it tends to be more genuine. Americans may laugh frequently but their laughter is more theatrical and often for the purpose of showing off. They laugh even when they feel the opposite inside, so when their mouths laugh, their eyes may be cruel.
It is difficult to deal with Americans, but if you were me, would you accommodate yourself to them? Would you meet them halfway? No. I have done lots of pounding; I have called you lots of names; I have denounced many of the things you do. Do you mind terribly, or can you say, "Father, it's all right; we want to overcome. We don't mind you doing that to us; in fact, we love you all the more for it"? But why do I criticize you? Why would I tell you that you are good for nothing? It is only in order to bring you close to the original way. In order for you to find the way to heaven, we have to become one. The destiny of all &lien people is to reconnect with the origin. There is no alternative. There is no more direct method, no other way to handle the problem. You may be thinking there must be some easier way, but if there were, I would have taken it since I am a pretty smart person. But all my life I have searched for it, and there is no other way. So it's best for you just to accept what I am telling you.
Remember that God wants to give us the best He has; He wants to give us what we most need and what will make us the happiest. He would not be happy withholding anything from us. That is also the way I feel. I know what you most desire and at the same time, I know what is best for you. I am as eager to give as you are to receive. As a result, the Unification Church has undertaken certain activities which are ideal for connecting you to the root. At every opportunity I try to convince you that you must endure suffering and hardship. Your mind always follows mine. If my concern goes to Korea, you share that concern. If my thoughts are in America, your concern is here, too.
You want to learn the Principle, apply it, transform yourselves by it, and get one step closer to God and True Parents. Hearing this sermon is like attending a university lecture, but just studying it is not enough. While you study, you may understand the lesson but afterwards you may forget. When exam time comes, you need to put down in words what you have learned; you try hard not to fail. Likewise, I am teaching you and I put you through tests. If you pass the test, you can confidently apply this understanding wherever you may go in the world.
Go out to the world and win over Satan and Cain then return home and start a real family which will connect to the True Family. Eventually your family will be a true family. That is the course you must take. You cannot jump up to the true family in one miraculous step; you must follow this path of first unconditioning and then reconditioning yourself. Why do we do all these seemingly complicated things? It is in order to link up with the mainstream and become one with the original being. If we don't accomplish it here on earth, we will still have to do it, but it will be more difficult. Do you understand?
Please resolve that, with or without me, you will go through this course. Whether I am close by or far away, you should continue to persevere. What if I were not available to meet with you and advise and tutor you? Can you imagine what would happen? You simply would not do it. Therefore, you should be grateful to me for pounding on you, scolding you, and pushing you. It's very difficult to accomplish everything by yourself, so you need somebody else to push you to do it.
This lifetime is such a precious period. I won't live here forever. Time is passing on. You are living at the same time as I and in the same physical environment. I am guiding you directly and as long as I am here on earth, I will be after you constantly! When I have finished on earth, I will go to the spirit world. You too will go there, but what kind of spirit world will you be in? You may call out to me in spirit world, but there may be a tremendous gap between us. On earth, you can surmount that difference by resembling me, but once we get to the spirit world, you can no longer be with me. Thus you need to pass the examination. If you flunk, you will have to start from scratch.
Please take this opportunity to reunite with me after so many days, weeks and months of separation. As you look at me this morning can you say, "I understand that I must return to the original self. To do so I will completely cut off all my past habits. I know that it is very difficult and that only through enduring many hardships, as Father has done, can I accomplish it. But I will take this opportunity to pledge once more to make the change"
Those who will make this pledge, please raise your hands. Thank you.
