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Era of the Settlement of the Cosmic Parent, Parents of Heaven and Earth and Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind
February 22, 2004, Seoul, Korea
1. Prayer
Dearest beloved Heavenly Father, today is February 22, the 4th year of Cheon Il Guk (Kingdom of Heaven on Earth), the 4th Sabbath day of this month. We are here today, this morning, with all the blessed families on earth, from the 36 couples and those connected centering on the five great saints in the spirit world. Adam and Eve--who were created in an absolute manner centering on absolute faith, absolute love, [by the] absolute, devoted father with focused dedication of heart, body, mindset, and action--have themselves devoted their heart, body, and action. Thus, along with the historical transition point of restoration through indemnity for the completion of the harmonized, unified world under purity, pure lineage and the pure sexual relations, I proclaim victory on this day of February 22 and humbly ask that you remember this day.
We pray that the bones, skin and flesh of all things in the universe may unite in one stroke and settle down on this day centering on the love of True Parents. We pray that all Creation's sovereignty of love can be led towards the king of kings on the absolute family foundation of your victory. We pray that you will accept with joy our bows that we offer you this morning on this day worthy of praise. We pray that the bitter pain of True Parents can be resolved and liberated along with this morning's prayer, and that this day can be recorded as a day of transition. We pray that China and the USSR centering on North Korea, and the democratic world centering on South Korea, and all the things centering on communism can be united before you and become your eternal foundation of victory--the absolute, unique, unchanging, and eternal family foundation of victory for the victorious sovereignty of love. All these things we report to you, and we pray you may accept this with joy. This I proclaim in the name of True Parents. Amen. Amen. Amen.
2. Meaning
The meaning of this day, February 22, in the 4th year of Cheon Il Guk, can be found in the number 6 centering on the number 4. From this day on, the era of safe settlement of the Cosmic Parent, the Parents of Heaven and Earth and the Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind shall begin.
Thus, the invisible God in the spirit world has appeared in the substantial True Parents, and centering on this, the foundation for all things of the entire spirit world to freely engage in activities on earth has been made. Since this day falls on the numbers 4 and 6, the numbers for indemnity and liberation, the True Parents who have appeared on earth as the substantial embodiment of God on the foundation of the safe settlement and liberation of the Comic Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind, can through indemnity, make level all the walls created in the era of the individual, family, tribe, and cosmos from the Garden of Eden. As we designate this day to indemnify the number 6 on the foundation of the family, the four-position foundation, we pray for the complete settlement of the Cosmic Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind. Thus we must know that the gates of the liberated heaven on earth and in heaven have been opened along with the spirit world and the family of the safe settlement of the Cosmic Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind.
Repeat after me…, “God's desire was to perfect the Cosmic Parent, the Parents of Heaven and Earth, and the Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind.” This could be realized when the entire universe becomes God's universe by having Adam's family inherit God's love, life and lineage, thus bringing about the start of the blessed family which is God's ideal of creation. As we designate this day on this foundation, on this day I proclaim this after the establishment of the liberated realm of the number 10, which is a combination of the numbers 4 and 6 of the physical world and world of heaven.
In joy we pray that you become the eternal owner of the family kingdom of heaven, greater than the king of kings who reigns for eternity with the sovereignty of the Cosmic Parents of Heaven and Earth, the Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind who can reign over the entire universe after inheriting the position of the liberated owner on the foundation of True Parents' hard work. In the name of True Parents, I proclaim that the central kingdom, and liberation of all nations and the complete settlement of the Cosmic Parent, the Parents of Heaven and Earth, the Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind will advance to the infinite world of peace and eternity. We pray you accept this with joy and reign over all things on this foundation. This I report with joy in the name of True Parents. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you.
3. Explanation about the declaration
It is the beginning of the era of transcending the family, centering on the family related with the unified realm of the Heavenly Parent and Earthly Parents. Now is springtime. It is the first spring that God has seen, and is the era that is for love and blessing on earth. The number six is based on the number four (four-position foundation). Today is the fourth Sunday (Sabbath) of this month and from now on it is the era of the absolute family, in which the Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind can settle completely. Therefore you must become the owner of the family and you have to inherit heaven and earth from the Parents, pray and live for establishing the four-position foundation and clan on the family level. Please absolutely keep the Family Pledge.
Because the Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind have proclaimed this in the realm of heaven and earth, nobody can escape this heavenly fortune. Even though the satanic world has tried to oppose this, it is the time to enter into God's Realm, Parents of Heaven; automatically God's nation has began. Therefore the Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind can work freely on the basis liberation of heaven and earth and cosmos. On this base we are entering the era of liberated Cheon Il Guk by unifying three generations of our families.
Because it is the family which is perfected centering on the perfection of the Family Pledge, from now on, God is not the owner; you who have families of heaven, earth and humankind, are the owners. Because Adam who lives on earth has the authority of the spirit world, he is the teacher at the same time as being installed as king. This time is therefore for moving toward a developed world, and thus it will be a peaceful region centering on God's kingdom.
A subject partner hopes that his second self, as the inheritor, will be better than he is. Please keep in mind that our families are the owners of Cheon Il Guk. Up to now, God could not say "We". Because He has not welcomed spring, He has not been able to use the word "We." Therefore you have to be families, which as owners sprout, blossom and bear fruits, and you have to be filial sons and daughters, and loyal citizens (patriots) as it was to have been 6000 years ago. If you do not follow this, you will perish. All of you who are participating in this special declaration should be grateful. Today is the foundation stone of tremendous blessing.
Spring is important. Please think that Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind are settling. Up to now we cannot use the word "we". You have to know that the words "My family", "Our family", are tremendously important. You have to be newly aware of yourselves. You have to understand that from now on, if you fall, you will fall into a more dreadful realm than where Adam went. All of you must not have cause to be ashamed of yourselves. Please welcome the spring, when we can shout mansei. Please be grateful for this fortune that can bear fruit eternally.
Don't speak casually. On such a spring day it is not good to say bad words. Make a new resolution! Because God's resolution is my resolution, we should say it in a very dignified manner. You have to know the amazing truth that from today, the starting base, in the spiritual and physical worlds, of the complete settlement of the Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind in our family has been established. You have to live at that standard.
To whom does spring belong? It is "my" spring. It is to bequeath the position of Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind to the blessed families. God is the being of dual characteristics with masculine nature. He needs a body. He has to be the Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind through the Parents of Heaven and Earth on earth. As a Parent, He could not appear as the Mother. From today, True Mother has the glory of appearing as His hyongsang (external form).
Because True Parents restored through indemnity the history and proclaimed the spring, parents can settle on the earth and appear freely.
Absolute plus can create absolute minus. The families representing the 1st, 2nd and 3rd God, bearing and sons and daughters, have begun [to take] the position of Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind. Thanks to the settlement of the Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind, we can bear fruit. Now we are the family of Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind
On February 22 of year 4 of Cheon Il Guk, the numbers 4 and 6 are the keys which Satan used to close up heaven. Today, therefore, the Cosmic Parent, the Parents of Heaven and Earth, and the Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind have appeared and these numbers have been completed. These add up to 10, which is the number of returning.
Now Yeosu-Suncheon is the city representing the Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind. I have more concern about Yeosu-Suncheon than about the U.S.A. and Korea. We can only achieve things by concentrating our thoughts on it. Please be a pioneer in welcoming the new spring. If you bear fruits you have to bring all of them in front of the owner. The sphere of the sovereignty of the Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind belongs to the sons and daughters who are the complete representatives of the Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind.
Ambassadors for peace can stand in a position higher than Koreans if they have more patriotic hearts than Koreans. Now is the time to see the spiritual world. Please do your best in witnessing
Please live according to standard of the spiritual world.
Declaring the Era of the Peace Kingdom
Address to the United States Congress, March 23, 2004
The United States Capitol, Washington, DC
Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon
Respected members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives, religious leaders from around the world, distinguished guests:
I would like to express my sincere gratitude for your presence here this evening in such a large number, in spite of your busy schedules.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The starting point to unravel the problems humanity faces today is the certain knowledge of God, the Father of all creation and, on that foundation, the building of true families that live in attendance to God. This calls us to establish and attend God in our families, not as a concept but as the substantial Parent of us all. To do this, we first must clarify the relationship between God and humanity. God is the original entity of true love, true life and true lineage, and He is the True Parent of all people.
If human beings had not fallen, we would have reached perfection in God's true love as His true children and lived in attendance to Him as our Parent. God's plan was for perfected human beings to bond as true husbands and wives, bear and raise true children so that they would live in a Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, and then live together eternally in the heavenly world as families in the Kingdom of Heaven. Think about it for a moment. If your father went to hell and only your mother went to Heaven, what kind of Heaven would that be? If your parents were to go to hell and only you children went to Heaven, how could that be called Heaven? The Kingdom of Heaven is where the whole family lives together in an eternal peace kingdom. On earth as well, God will reside where a whole family has established a kingdom of heaven. In such a family, the world of God's original ideal, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, takes root. How, then, are we to bring about this family heaven on earth?
First, each member of the family needs to complete his or her individual character. Each person has to shed the fallen nature that has passed from the fall down through the generations, and achieve the perfection of his or her character. In other words, each person must be victorious in the struggle between mind and body. Then the world of harmony will bear fruit in each individual's perfected character, a state of one heart, one mind and one thought. Fallen nature, which causes jealousy, envy, greed, hatred and all other evils, will never again take root in the person who has achieved this state.
Shedding the fallen nature is not easy. The reality of fallen human beings is that we vacillate even when trying to break habits formed over the relatively short span of a few years or decades, like smoking or drinking alcohol. We cannot expect, then, that it will be easy to cast off fallen nature, which we inherit through lineages going back thousands, even tens of thousands of years.
It is impossible by human effort alone. We need to stand on the foundation of absolute faith, establish God as our vertical axis, and struggle our entire life. Even then, it is a difficult fight. We cannot even think we will gain victory unless we enter a state of absolute love for God, loving Him even more than we love our own parents and children, and attending Him as our True Parent. We cannot hope to win this fight without a foundation of absolute obedience to God, following Him even at the cost of laying down our life.
Herein lies the reason that religions place fasting, sexual abstinence, sacrifice and penance in the uppermost position. We must be born again, recast as new persons in whom Heaven can reside and with whom the spirit world can cooperate.
We cannot betray an iota of shame even if our entire life and being is exposed before all God's creation. Our character should be like a "high noon settlement," on the straight vertical line of God's grace without the slightest shadow, so that Satan will flee from our presence for eternity.
Second, individuals who achieve such completion of character come together to form true families, and the members of these families work together to establish what I call the "four great realms of heart." Such families resemble, in form, an individual who has accomplished the complete oneness of mind and body.
I have said that the Kingdom of Heaven is a place we enter family by family. Not every family, however, is qualified to enter Heaven automatically. You need a foundation to be a true family
and to complete the four great realms of heart. A true family that can enter the Kingdom of Heaven is composed of true individuals who have completed the four great realms of heart in themselves and who are of a lineage centering on God.
What do I mean, then, by the "four great realms of heart"? I refer to the perfection of the heart of parents, the heart between a husband and wife, the heart of children, and the heart of siblings. This is found in a true family bound by God's original true love, true life and true lineage through a chaste three-generational lineage of grandparents, parents, and (grand) children. Here, the love between parents and children establishes the vertical relationship between upper and lower; the love between the husband and wife establishes the horizontal relationship that brings left and right into definitive oneness, and the love between siblings establishes the relationship between front and back. In this way, God's ideal of creation is no longer a mere concept or dream. It is perfected in reality through the completion of the four great realms of heart centered on true lineages, family by family.
The realm of parental heart is acquired naturally as parents go through the process of bearing children and then raising and educating them with true love. In other words, it is the heart that enables the parents to own true love with respect to the children. Without children, no one can own love as a parent.
Next, the realm of conjugal heart is the love relationship that extends true lineage. In this, husband and wife each are grateful for the other having established them as an owner of love, and each learns true love through giving and receiving with the other. They enjoy learning of true love when the husband lives for the sake of his wife, even if it means sacrificing his own life, and the wife attends her husband with the heart of attending God. The perfection of the husband-wife relationship is possible only on this basis.
The moment a bride and groom share love on their wedding night with God's blessing, they inherit the palace of true love, the palace of true life, and the palace of true lineage. The wife, through her husband, receives God's ideal son, who is also Heaven's older brother, Heaven's husband, and Heaven's parent. The husband stands in the corresponding position in receiving his wife. When the realm of conjugal heart is perfected, the relationship between the husband and wife also becomes absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal, because God is absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal. So the term "divorce" cannot even exist. Theirs will be a life of happiness, filled only with the blossoms of mutual respect and love.
Next, how can we describe the heart of children, and how is it obtained? The parents are the center, in God's position in the family, and it is impossible for a child to be born without parents. For these reasons, the relationship between parent and child is established not by human morality but by a heavenly morality. Thus the parent-child relationship is a vertical relationship, not horizontal. It is not a relationship of destiny, which means that human effort can change it, but it is a relationship of absolute and eternal fate.
Children experience and learn the heart of true love as they attend their parents in daily life, placing their parents in a position higher than themselves. Through a natural process, they come to understand that the love, life and lineage that they inherit from their parents originate in God. Children who watch and learn from their parents in this way will grow up to become husbands and wives who have no fallen nature, and ultimately they will obtain the position of true parents themselves. The spherical motion of the family unit that continually repeats the three-generational pattern in this way is the basic model for building the Kingdom of Heaven.
Lastly, the realm of the heart of siblings arises through brothers and sisters who live as a family in attendance to the same true parents. I said earlier that the heart between brothers and sisters establishes the relationship between front and back. True parents are a husband and wife living in truth, and children who attend such parents will naturally learn the discipline of heavenly morality and ethics among siblings.
It will be a beautiful sight, where a younger brother attends and reveres his older brother as he would his father, and the older brother looks after his younger brother with a loving heart. The older brother represents "front" and the younger brother represents "back." The older brother represents the father, while the younger brother represents the mother. The perfection of the realm of heart between siblings is the foundation for all people to live for the sake of others through love and service.
Respected guests, as the number of "true peace family kingdoms" perfecting the four great realms of heart increases, "true peace tribe kingdoms," "true peace nation kingdoms," and ultimately the "true peace world kingdom" will appear. In this way this will become the original world of God's ideal, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, the eternal Kingdom of Peace on Earth. I am declaring this here today. Humanity has lived without the certain knowledge that establishing true families is the most serious, foundational commandment of Heaven.
A new era has arrived today. The number of people around the world who have received my teaching and are standing resolutely for the sake of building the Kingdom of Peace is growing by leaps and bounds. Heaven and earth are shaking with the cries of bright young people who are determined to build true families even if they must offer their lives in order to protect their purity. Already, we find hundreds of millions of blessed families around the world. These families are shoring up a world in which ethics and morality are rapidly deteriorating.
That is not all. The spirit world is one step ahead of us in breaking open the age of the peace kingdom. Starting with the five great saints, more than 120 billion blessed families are working day and night to cooperate with us on earth and prepare for the day that is to come. According to the Principle of Creation, God's ideal world should be completed first on earth. Although people today are descendants of the fall, God's unending love and the spirit world's cooperation now allow us to understand the nature of the heavenly kingdom. Please recognize that it is time to accomplish a true love revolution of overwhelming proportions, taking as our example the miraculous accomplishments of the spirit world.
The time has come for you as well to open your hearts and receive the secrets that Heaven is disclosing in this age through me. In one sense, I am a human being living with a physical body like each of you. But in the context of Heaven's providence, I am God's ambassador, sent to earth with His full authority. I am sent to accomplish His command to save the world's six billion people, restoring them to Heaven with the original goodness in which they were created.
The five great saints and many other leaders in the spirit world, including even Communist leaders such as Marx and Lenin, who committed all manner of barbarity and murders on earth, and dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, have found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new persons. Emperors, kings and presidents who enjoyed opulence and power on earth, and even journalists who had worldwide fame, have now placed themselves at the forefront of the column of the true love revolution. Together they have sent to earth a resolution expressing their determination in the light of my teaching of the true family ideal. They have declared to all Heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent. This resolution has been announced on every corner of the globe.
Respected guests, it is now only a matter of time. Look at the world. Do you see anything that gives you real hope for the future? Sooner or later, we have to give what we have to our descendants and leave this world. What gift could be more precious than that of completing the family ideal in your family, so as to guarantee eternal peace and happiness for your children? Surely no one who has such an opportunity should hesitate to take up the task of building the peace kingdom on earth, for which God has waited thousands of years.
I have reached the advanced age of eighty-five, by the Korean way of counting. But I will continue to work harder than anyone else until the day the Earth overflows with God's true families, guns in the Middle East fall silent and give way to fireworks of peace and joy, and shouts of mansei [eternal victory] celebrating the unification of my homeland Korea echo across the Pacific to be heard in America. I hope that you leaders representing the world's six billion people in this ceremony will join hands with me. I call you to take the lead in building what is God's original ideal and the desire of all humanity, the peace kingdom on the Earth.
Thank you.
The 50th Anniversary of HSA-UWC
Congratulatory Banquet Founders Address on The 50th Anniversary of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (HSA-UWC). May 1, 2004; Seoul, Korea. Fifty Years on the Providential Path to the Realization of God’s Fatherland and the Peace Kingdom.
Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon
Respected guests, distinguished leaders from 191 nations, ladies and gentlemen, dear members!
Fifty years ago on this significant day-on May 1,1954-as I was walking this path of upholding God’s will, I founded the official organization of the movement for unification. The path I have pioneered for half a century is one no one has really understood. God alone has been my driving force as I have walked this lonely path of persecution and suffering, which is stained with my blood, sweat and tears.
The movement for unification that I have been promoting is entwined with God’s desire. Therefore, for the past fifty years, rain or shine, I have not once forgotten my mission in relation to this time and my responsibility to the future.
On this significant occasion today, I would like to reveal the fundamental purpose that God, who is the motivating force behind this unification movement, had in its inception, its destination and its goal.
The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity
I did not create another denomination or sect. I was fully aware that that would not have been God’s desire. Fifty years ago, the movement for unification began as the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity; in other words, it began as an association for the sake of unification. Selecting this name, which portends the unification of global Christianity and, further, the unification of religions and of the spiritual world, was in itself a risky step to take. The development of the Christian tradition and the formation of its cultural sphere were achieved through the faith, sacrifice, passion and searching of exemplary Christian saints, leaders and scholars. Despite this, Christianity has splintered into numerous denominations, which are in conflict with one another even today. Under these circumstances, unifying Christianity is no easy task. The unification of religions and, further, the unification of the spiritual world, are even greater tasks.
How to Bring About Unification
The concept of unification that I set forth does not just involve superficial unification or unification merely in form. It involves fundamental and complete harmony and unification according to God’s ideal.
First, this is achieved through spiritual works. The unification of religions and within the spiritual world cannot be achieved by force or authority, or by any other external condition. When the foundation that allows God to work on earth is laid and the conditions sought by the saints are met, spiritual works can occur. The power to spur good spirits into action lies with God and the spiritual world.
Originally, the spirit self (the inner person of a man or woman) is an entity that would respond to good spiritual influences. However, fallen people, who have dysfunctional spirit selves, have lived in ignorance of the existence of the spiritual world. If their spirit selves can be repaired and purified, all people will naturally be able to experience these good spiritual influences. Thus, we all must be conscious of the spiritual world, and the time when we will be so is coming.
Throughout my entire life, I have been promoting the movement for unification, which supports God and the spiritual world. Through God’s working spiritually on earth, unity between mind and body, unity among people, unity between the spiritual and physical worlds, and unity between God and man can be achieved.
Second, unification is achieved through truth and love. I have revealed that the relationship between God and man is that of a parent and child bound by true love. I have also revealed to the whole world the fundamental principles of life and of this universe, the true nature of original sin, of restoration, and of the spiritual world, and the history of God’s providence. I have not only done that; I have taught about true love and put it into practice.
True love is investing oneself for the sake of others. This is because, in true love, I cease worrying whether my own good qualities receive recognition; I wish to draw out the greatest qualities of the object of my love. By investing and investing again, the object of my investment will become greater than I am. Yet true love means investing, forgetting that I have invested, and continuing to invest still more. This means sacrificing all of my interests and status. Here, genuine unification can be achieved. The self-centered mind is therefore the greatest obstacle to achieving unification.
For the past fifty years, I have totally invested myself. I have invested everything that I have as an individual; I have invested my entire family, clan, and nation. I have invested the Unification Church; and even now I am tirelessly investing myself for the sake of the world and of all humanity. All of this has been to achieve the ideal that God, who wants to achieve complete harmony and unification through true love, intended at the time of the Creation. God’s desire for us is that we live in ideal oneness with him through love. The values of freedom and peace and the lofty vision and happiness that man longs for are only possible when harmony and unity is achieved within true love. The unification movement is therefore the movement for the globalization of true love.
Religion as Training for Fallen Man
God, the invisible true parent, created us, as well as everything else in existence, in order to establish an object partner for his true love. In particular, we, who were created to be his children, are the beings most precious to the heavenly true parent, who is the subject of absolute love. Therefore, our first ancestors were to be the body and holy temple of the invisible God. They were to be the substantial object of his true love.
Originally, Adam and Eve were to mature into people whose character manifested true love that is based on God’s true love; they were to become a true couple and multiply true children in order to become the true parents.
If they had done so, they would have perfected themselves as the substantial entity of God’s true love, true life and true lineage. If Adam, Eve and their children had perfected a four-position foundation of true love with God at the center, God would have been able to have descendants related by blood through true love, and the ideal family of man would have settled throughout the earth.
An attribute of true love is that it impels those who experience it to invest more in their object of love than in themselves. Therefore, the concept that people, who were created as the object of God? love, might sin and suffer in hell was unthinkable to God. All these things are results of our first ancestors acting against the nature of true love and falling.
Our first ancestors, who were expelled from the original world, could not bear children of true life and true lineage under the blessing of God? true love. People are born without a relationship with God's true love, true life, and true lineage. They are thus destined from the moment of birth to need a savior and salvation.
Salvation means recovering one's original state, that is, restoration. It means our returning to our original state before the Fall and the restoration of the relationship with God that we have lost. Fallen man must inevitably go the path of restoration through indemnity. Therefore, in each era and in each region of the world, God has raised religions and has led humanity along the progressive path of restoration.
Religion is a training center and educational institute to repair dysfunctional man and return him to his original state. Religious teachings are not for the sake of religion itself. Religion is the means to realize God's will, which is to educate and recreate us as his children. It is impossible for God to be contained within the limited doctrines and rituals made by religion. The mission of religion is to cultivate our character through a life of faith that embraces enlightenment and personal growth, so that we can attend God in our everyday lives.
We can graduate from school only after completing a prescribed course of study. In the same way, all faiths should attach greater importance to educating and training individuals to perfect their character, thus raising them to become people of faith, than they do to merely bringing people to a path of faith through witnessing and sermons.
Man was not originally created to relate to God through religion and a life of faith. In the original garden, religion did not exist. There was no need for the formalities of ritual in the original relationship between God and man. It was to be a relationship of a true parent and true child who live as an ideal family, intoxicated in the bliss of true love.
I have tried to teach and offer guidance on this heavenly law and principle through the established faiths, in particular, through the Christian foundation that was prepared by God. Unfortunately, due to ignorance, self-righteousness and denominationalism, God's central providence could not advance but instead met with persecution. Under these circumstances, I was forced to establish the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity. Without having the purpose of establishing a separate religion, I have, from the early years of this movement, promoted ecumenical and interdenominational activities.
The world has come to call us the Unification Church in place of our full name. Many years ago, I said that I was looking forward to the day when we could bring an end to the Unification Church. That is because the mission of the Unification Church has been to restore and recreate the ideal of God on earth. The ideal kingdom of God, the original world envisaged by him at the time of the Creation, can only be realized when the mistakes of our ancestors, who betrayed God, are completely eradicated, and when the supra-religious, supra-national realm of liberation and complete freedom is perfected such that the original realm of love-the four-position foundation ideal-is realized. This means transcending the mission of any one church or denomination, and perfecting the family ideal of true love. Yet the focus of churches and religions until now has been on individual salvation. No religion until now has ever put emphasis on the salvation of the family.
The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification
Crucial to the salvation of the family is receiving and maintaining the marriage blessing ceremony, through which people receive the blessing of God's true love. The ideal of true parenthood, which our fallen ancestors failed to achieve, cannot be attained by the fallen descendants on their own. It is only possible through the savior sent by God; because he is the true parent-the true ancestor that can replace the fallen ancestor. Fallen men and women, who multiplied through the false lineage, which has no relationship to God, and which was received from the first ancestors, can be likened wild olive trees. They must be restored by being engrafted with the true parent who comes as the true olive tree. The ceremony for this is the marriage blessing ceremony.
On the foundation of pure love education and the true family movement that I have initiated worldwide, I inaugurated the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification on July 31, 1996, in Washington D.C., the capital of the United States of America. Some 4,000 people attended, including many heads of state and high-ranking world religious leaders. On that day I officially announced the end of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity. With the inauguration of the Family Federation, the providential age in which families may receive salvation that transcends the boundaries of religion, nationality and race has begun.
The Old Testament Age and New Testament Age were not ages for the ideal family. Those ages belonged to the providential age for the salvation of the individual, where the main focus was on individual salvation alone. The age of the salvation of the family is the Completed Testament Age. When families combine as a federation, they move into the age of the providence for the salvation of clans, and beyond that to the salvation of nations. The blessing ceremony eradicates the fallen lineage, which had been the fate of fallen man, transfers ownership of the lineage back to God and brings about a transformation of heart. Indeed, there is no greater grace than this!
Heaven does not come under the banner of a certain religion. Heaven is the place where people who have regained the parent-child relationship of true love with God-who transcends religion-attend God and are intoxicated in his true love. The person who receives the blessing, creates a family of true love and lives in attendance to God can enter heaven along with his clan and nation.
Throughout history people have sought and cried out for their own liberation and salvation. But what about God? Is God not in need of liberation? Does he exist intoxicated in joy? Was it possible for God's heart to be filled with the joy of liberation when throughout history he, as the parent, had to watch as his children groaned in sin and suffering? That has never been the case. God? heart can be liberated and he can enjoy complete freedom in accordance with the degree of the completion of the ideal family and ideal kingdom on this earth and in heaven. Only then can people be liberated and completely freed through a family life of true love. In turn, the creation, and further, the spiritual world, can be liberated and completely freed through us.
Heaven can be likened to a palace of true love where we, as God? children, who are centered on the living God, the origin of true love, can share joy with him, and respond to his heart. The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification has promoted the true family blessing movement worldwide with the purpose of substantially realizing the kingdom of heaven, which is beyond religions, races and nations.
To Build a Peace Kingdom of True Love
Respected leaders and beloved members!
Throughout history mankind has dreamed of heaven, an ideal world. But what is the reality that we see today? Society today has become the kingdom of free sex and individualism amidst family breakdown and the loss of values. In such an environment based on fallen man, it is impossible to have the correct view of life and of values, let alone a correct view of the world and the universe. We therefore cannot expect to have hope of creating or perfecting harmony either within the individual or on the level of the whole.
In the past century many people placed their hopes on the Utopian movements under the banners of communism and equality. The communist movement created a stir and shook the world, but in reality, the only thing the people in the communist sphere experienced was inequality and exploitation, misfortune and fear, and that movement ended in failure.
On the other hand, a system was built with the dreams of democracy and freedom as the highest values and ideals. But what was the result? This system spurred man? self-centered desire for pleasure and brought about decadence and corruption, imbalance and disorder. The future of democracy is also unclear.
Some have called for the construction of the ideal world through secular humanism or the North Korean Juche ideology, but these ideologies have dehumanized people, driving them to become like animals. There are also those calling for globalization, but this has been promoted from a self-centered perspective and has failed to establish the absolute, vertical values that God desires. Such people now struggle horizontally in the confusion and conflict of relative values. In this way, humanity has been following the path of self-destruction, far removed from the path of one global family, in which genuine happiness is possible.
All these things are a direct result of man estranging himself from God, the true parent, throughout our long history. Thus, the most urgent task for people in the present age, who wander about unable to find an exit from unhappiness and suffering, is to seek out and come to know God-and come to understand original sin and the spiritual world. Alone, the individual cannot achieve the ideal of happiness. It is only possible when he establishes the proper relationship to his family, tribe, race, nation, world, cosmos and God. It is the ideal of God's true love that can bring about the perfection of all these things.
The future world in the new age will not be a world under a man-centered ideology. It will be a world under Godism," the ideology of our Heavenly Father, under which we attend God as king. Thus, the age of true parentism," the age of true love is dawning. The age of nationalism has passed. Even a superpower nation cannot exist on its own. Thus, the age of unilateralism has passed. A new age has dawned, when national boundaries will be eliminated and we will live together harmoniously, beyond nation, religion and race.
The core of this coming world order will be true love; in other words, investing for the sake of others. Those countries that go against this heavenly law and adopt a self-centered policy of protectionism will gradually lose influence and in the end, perish. The future world must be one in which religion is the first to take down its banner-ahead of the political realm and secular worlds-to take the lead in practicing true love and compassion. All religions must reconcile and cooperate on an interreligious level and pull forward the reconciliation and unity of nations and races. They must have the heart of our Heavenly Father and be examples in practicing true love.
I created the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification and promoted the true family movement worldwide while unsparingly investing all my resources and human power to prevent war and to realize a world of peace.
For this I inaugurated the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace in February 1999 as an integrated organization. Through this organization I expanded the foundations of my endeavors for reconciliation between the faiths-endeavors that span many years. Many leaders in different fields, such as politics, economics, education, the arts and non-governmental organizations, have participated in this effort. I have appointed over 50,000 Ambassadors for Peace in 191 of the world's nations. I am promoting a movement for the revival of the United Nations, so that the UN can become an organization that is truly dedicated to world peace.
In October 2003, I founded the Interreligious and International Peace Council, the Peace UN, and expanded its activities as the central organization for the realization of a world of peace.
Not only that, in accordance with heavenly fortune and on the victorious foundation of devotions offered in the heavenly and earthly worlds, I offered God his kingship in January 2001. It was a historic event of liberating God as the eternal king, and the king of all kings. Through this, God's sovereignty of goodness substantially expanded its territory to all corners of the world.
Fifty years have passed since the launch of the Unification Movement as an official organization! The first stage of the Unification Movement was a period in which it was active mainly in the religious sphere dealing with individual salvation. The next stage was the movement to find and establish true families, the basic unit of heaven. The movement will continue on to work for the restoration of clans, and to have an impact in local communities, until all people on earth and in heaven receive the blessing.
Furthermore, the third stage, the movement to build the ideal world of peace, has already begun in earnest. During the past year alone, I devoted my efforts to lead sixteen initiatives, large and small, for peace in the Middle East. These initiatives aside, the entire world is scrutinizing my activities including the peace and unification movement for North and South Korea, the UN revival movement or new Peace UN movement, and the peace movement of the 50,000 Ambassadors for Peace worldwide.
Distinguished leaders from all walks of life!
The current era is a period of great transition in history. We will experience remarkable changes during this century. In particular, there will be a great awakening in the following three fields:
First, although the modern trend is exceedingly materialistic, humanistic and atheistic, there will be a sudden increase of interest in and awareness of spiritual phenomena. This will enable us to experience remarkable works from the spiritual world that will change the course of history.
Second, along with this deepening spiritual experience, humanity will gradually come to realize the divine value and social significance of the family as the basic school of true love. This realization will come from the painful experiences of family breakdown and the abnormal transformation of the family throughout the world during recent decades.
Third, on the foundation of the development of our spirituality, the hope and corresponding efforts for peace will increase markedly. Human relationships will not be bound by national, racial or religious boundaries. A remarkable change will come through which all people will live for the sake of each other and feel that they all are brothers, sisters and neighbors living together.
These are all the providential works of the living God. God is developing the spirituality of man and on this foundation he is establishing a family of true love. On the basis of that family he is working to create a genuine and everlasting ideal world of peace.
The time has truly come for us to build the ideal world longed for by the original nature of humankind; the time has come for us to build God? fatherland and the peace kingdom where we can attend the God of true love as the king of absolute values. Since we are in this time of tremendous heavenly fortune, I sincerely ask that you all become those who build the peace kingdom in accordance with the ways of heaven.
I pray that God's blessing will be upon you, your family and your nation.
Thank you.
Messiah and True Parents
The following is Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon’s address to world leaders at the Congratulatory Banquet of the World Summit on Leadership and Governance, Shilla Hotel, Seoul, Korea, January 27, 2004.
Distinguished leaders from around the world, respected dignitaries from Korea and other countries, ladies and gentlemen:
This banquet was prepared to celebrate my 84th birthday and the birthday of my wife, Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon. Instead of receiving congratulations on our  birthdays, though, the two of us would prefer to offer this banquet to the saints and sages in the spirit world who are present here now, to the blessed families of the spirit world, and to the participants of the World Summit on Leadership and Governance. I understand that you have been engaged in many discussions and meetings during the past few days on the theme, "Good Governance for a World in Crisis." I know that your hard work and passion will combine to create the opportunity for new hopes and dreams to be planted in a world that, until now, seems to slide deeper into crisis with each passing day. I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to each of you again for coming to my homeland, Korea, to join me in opening the fourth year of Chun Il Guk (the Kingdom of Peace and Unification).
This is a new year of great hope and this evening, in keeping with a tradition I have maintained throughout my life of more than 80 years of only speaking the will of Heaven, I would like to convey to you Heaven's message entitled, "The Messiah and True Parents."
In the beginning, human beings were created as God's children. They were destined to grow to maturity, form families with His blessing, and multiply His descendants for endless generations in a lineage of goodness unstained by sin. The first human ancestors, Adam and Eve, were to have attended God as their vertical True Parent, and with God the True Parent as their axis, they were to have become the embodied, horizontal True Parents. In such a world, the word "messiah" would never have come to exist. Their family would have been the ideal family reflecting God's ideal of creation, and the world would have been the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, where God's ideal of creation was completed. After living out their lives in this world, human beings would have automatically been registered as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven in the spiritual world, where they would live eternally in freedom, peace, and happiness.
Perfected Adam and Eve would have communicated directly with God using their five spiritual senses, and at the same time, they would have freely worked with the creation using their five physical senses. They would have lived as true masters, true parents, and true kings representing both the spiritual and physical worlds.
But, with the fall of the first human ancestors, all humanity descended into a hopeless hell from which they could not escape by their efforts alone. Their five spiritual senses became completely paralyzed. They fell into a state similar to that of a blind man whose eyes only appear to be normal to an observer but do not function at all. Forced to live with just their five physical senses, they became only half human. They could not see God. They could not hear His voice, or feel His touch. So how could they experience His love as their own Parent or understand His suffering heart?
Satan forced his way into the true-parent position that rightfully belonged to God, falsely pretending to be the parent. He placed humanity in complete bondage, making them his slaves. For this reason, the love, life, and lineage that we possess today is false. It is precisely that false love, false life, and false lineage first planted in Adam and Eve that persists in us today.
What great pain God must have felt as He watched humanity, though born to be His direct lineal children, receive Satan's false lineage and descend to the position of servant of servants. Because God is a God of principle and law, He would not break the principles by which He created nor violate the ideal of creation that He established. So He has had to wait tens of thousands of years before introducing the Messiah to the course of the providence of salvation. Different religions refer to this person by different names such as Maitreya, the Man of the True Way, or the Coming Savior, but the person needed by humankind to open the way, and the person sought by God, is only one person, the Messiah and True Parent.
Then who is the Messiah, and what is he like? He is the owner and substantiation of faith, hope, and love not only for the individual but also for the family, tribe, society, nation, world, and cosmos. And only in an age when humanity attends this person as the Messiah, will the faith and hope that still remains, finally bear fruit. The life and breath of human history is contained within this fruit. Our past, present, and future are linked to it. This fruit is linked not only to human beings but to Heaven as well. The Messiah comes for the sake of human beings, who became forlorn orphans after losing their parents through the Fall. He becomes our substantial True Parent, True Owner, True Teacher, and True King. He is the substantiation of God's true love, true life, and true lineage, coming to restore His lost children, who have been groaning in travail under a false parent, to bring them back to their
rightful positions as the true sons and daughters of God.
Ladies and gentlemen, Heaven sent Jesus to the earth 2,000 years ago as the Messiah. Jesus was none other than the one who came to embrace the children who had lost their parents and to restore them back to the original ideal of Heaven. He was the True Parent. Through the Fall, Adam and Eve lost their positions as True Parents. They failed to receive God's blessing and so could not form a union as a true husband and wife, and could not produce true children. Their failure meant God could not embrace three generations of His lineage, including His grandchildren. So God tearfully made preparations over a period of thousands of years, establishing the nation of Israel as His chosen people. And then he sent Jesus, the Savior and Messiah, through the lineage of Abraham.
Jesus came as the commander-in-chief for the struggle to establish the sovereignty, territory, and people of a single nation of God for the first time in history. On that foundation, he would then restore the whole world from Satan's false blood lineage to the true blood lineage of God's goodness.
Tragically though, Jesus was unjustly put to death on the cross, because he was not received by the people of Israel, whom God had chosen. The Messiah, Jesus, who should have restored the position of True Parents, then produced true children, and risen to the position of King of Kings, was prevented from establishing even the position of a true husband with God's Marriage Blessing. Because of this, he could not establish the position of True Parents or multiply true children. Instead he died on the cross.
The "Marriage of the Lamb" that the Book of Revelation in the New Testament speaks of is none other than the ceremony by which the Messiah receives a bride and forms a union of true husband and wife. If Judaism had received and attended Jesus at that time, then the world of God's earnest desire, the world of His original ideal of creation, the peaceful Kingdom of Heaven, would have been realized on the earth at that time through Jesus' kinsmen. As it was, the True Parent providence intended to be fulfilled by Jesus, the second Adam, was thwarted midway by the faithlessness of those who had been chosen. As a result, humankind was forced to wait for the Second Coming of the Messiah. Heaven though, had mercy yet again on pitiful humankind.
Heaven gave its blessing for the Messiah of the Second Coming to appear on the foundation of the spiritual restoration Jesus carried out throughout the 2,000 years of Christian history. The returning Messiah comes with the incredible burden of completing the mission of True Parents. To accomplish his mission, he must first, above everything else, achieve victory over the satanic realm. He must then go on to achieve victory in the spiritual realm as well. He must fully engage the satanic and spiritual realms, both of which cannot be sensed through the five physical senses, and be victorious in the life-and-death battle to subjugate the devil, Satan. Additionally, he must win over the many religious and philosophical leaders who are in the spirit world. None of this, however, can be accomplished through forced subjugation. Centering on God's character of absolute love, he must convince them by revealing the universal principles of religion and the universe and in this way bring them to a natural surrender.
Reverend Moon, who stands here before you, is the one who has appeared in this world bearing this incredible mission of the True Parent.
The phrase, "True Parent," does not appear in any encyclopedia. It is not a phrase that I created, nor is it something that anyone in the world can attach to my name easily. Instead, it is the destiny and blessing that Heaven has bestowed on my wife and me. The position of True Parent carries with it the vertical missions of Savior, Messiah, and returning Lord, responsibilities that have never been realized before in history or will ever be seen again in the future. For this reason, human beings still affiliated with the fallen realm must fulfill a number of conditions in order to attend the True Parents and accomplish Heaven's will.
First, they must participate in and complete a revolution of indemnity. This means they must cast everything aside and follow the True Parents. They must cast aside their friends and teachers, even their parents, and follow the True Parents. It is only when everything is cast aside and a standard of "total living offering" is made that Heaven can bestow blessings and grace upon us. This means that humanity must mercilessly eradicate all bonds and relationships with the satanic world, not showing even the slightest attachment, and in this way, return to the zero point and mark the dawning of a new creation.
Second, they must complete a revolution of conscience. This means that they must maintain a tradition of true love, true life, and true lineage in accordance with the predisposition of the original mind and conscience endowed in us by God. They must do this without even the smallest variance, regardless of whatever worldly sovereignty or ideology they may encounter. They must live a life of "noon-time settlement," where they do not leave any shadow or even a speck of shame in the presence of the spiritual and physical worlds. The revolution of conscience is completed when our lives reach a harmonious state of one mind, one body, one thought, and so establish the realm of pure love and pure lineage as an eternal and unchanging tradition in which the age of unity and harmony blossoms.
The third condition is a revolution of heart. This means that humanity must complete a world of true love in which God will want to come to human beings, consult us on all matters, and will want to reside with us. In other words, the revolution of heart is a revolution of true love. "Living for the sake of others" speaks of the practice of unchanging, sacrificial love. Think what it would be like if all of us lived for the sake of others more than for ourselves. God, the root source of true love, would reside within us and would live for our sake. What greater joy and glory could there be for us? Wherever the revolution of heart has been completed, there will be no such thing as family breakdown, racial strife, international border disputes, friction between religions, or any other vestiges of the satanic world. An eternal Peace Kingdom will be established.
Respected guests, in 1996 my wife and I declared an end to the Unification Church and gave it a new beginning as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification in order to fulfill the heavenly command to build a world of peace on the earth. The will of Heaven resides in human peace grounded in true families, not in the progress of any particular church or religion. Over the past decades, we have carried out many activities on interreligious and international levels. On this foundation, we founded the Interreligious and International Peace Council, that is, "the Peace U.N.," in New York on October 3, 2003, as a way of making a substantial beginning toward realizing a world of peace.
A movement to remove crosses from church buildings in accordance with my declaration is spreading like wildfire in many areas of the world. Thousands of clergy have journeyed to Jerusalem, the epicenter of the strife in the Middle East, to participate in interreligious and international peace rallies. On December 22, 2003, many Jewish, Christian, and Muslim clergy took each other by the hand, sang the praises of peace, and performed a ceremony to crown Jesus as the King of Kings. It was a miracle performed in Jerusalem's Independence Park before a crowd of some 20,000 people. This was a day when Jesus' grief was resolved and the victory of True Parents could be declared to all of heaven and earth.
Ladies and gentlemen, in the same way that the mission of True Parents, to which my wife and I have been called, is a matter of heavenly destiny, your mission and that of heaven is to join hands with us in building a peaceful Kingdom of Heaven on this earth. Now, Heaven's time has come.
I pray that each of you will return to your communities and become passionate workers as messiahs and true parents yourselves in the effort to bring about world peace.
Thank you.
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