Father’s speech on MAY 16, 1995 in ASUNCION, PARAGUAY
This is the English translation of the speech Father gave throughout his seventeen-nation speaking tour in South America. Meetings with heads of state were arranged in many countries. Banquets, attended by top dignitaries, were also held in each nation, at which time this speech was presented (with the appropriate modifications).
LADIES and gentlemen, l would like. to express my sincere gratitude to you this evening for having made it possible for me to meet such distinguished personalities in this welcoming banquet. I am Reverend Moon, about whom you already know through many rumors and stories, no doubt. I have stirred up a number of problems in the world. At the same time, I have realized a number of events and accomplishments of worldwide consequence. I must add that these things are the result of the historical reality of having served God until today.
This evening in this brief encounter and in the midst of a jubilant atmosphere, I would like to speak to you for a time on the subject “The True Family and I,” because the world’s problems stem from the family. Let us ask what we mean by a “True Family.”
Is the world good or evil?
Today, if we ask whether the world in which we live is good or evil, we must answer that it is evil. Why then is it evil? Because whether we consider world history, Paraguayan history or the history of any other country, there has constantly been conflict. Conflict or struggle implies that the parties involved will not develop, but will necessarily decline. To say that the world is evil implies that Paraguay is evil, that Paraguayans are evil, and that we ourselves are evil. If we study ourselves, we cannot deny that within ourselves there is a struggle between our mind and our body.
For that reason, the origin or the cause of struggle remains a problem which must be solved. If an individual does not possess a foundation for peace within himself, then no matter how peaceful his family, nation or world might be, he will not be happy because the individual is the true battlefield. As you know, World War I, World War II and the Cold War have already ended. In the midst of any other future conflicts, it will be possible to have a truce. However, the struggle between our mind and body has existed from antiquity. It has continued throughout the course of history and, of course, continues today. We do not know how much longer it will continue in the future.
When we think of this and, furthermore, consider that God exists, it is a major problem that God permitted the historical struggle between mind and body to continue until now. If we concur that a human being committed a sin, we can understand that it is a human being who must indemnify it. God cannot take that responsibility upon Himself nor can He interfere in it.
The origin of struggle
Where then does the struggle between mind and body originate? We inherit life from our parents and from the parents of their parents. If we continue going back in this manner, we eventually arrive at the first generation that is, the first human ancestors. The origin of the struggle between mind and body results from a problem in the conjugal love of Adam and Eve. The origin of our life is the love of our parents. If this struggle had begun before we were even born, we would have to conclude the problem related to the circumstances in which our first parents entered into a love relationship with each other.
The love of Adam and Eve did not become a love of true happiness. Instead, it was conflict-ridden love. Because we have the roots of our life in such love, we must conclude that the conflicts in the inner self of the human being originate there. The Bible teaches us that because Adam and Eve sinned, they were expelled from the Garden of Eden. Once they had been driven out of the Garden, they began to multiply children. God could not follow behind them and bless them in marriage, because He had driven them from the Garden. Thus we must ask under whose guidance they married. We must concur that, because of having fallen into sin, they married at the hands of Satan.
The fall consists of Eve being tempted by Satan and her later temptation of Adam. Therefore, when our ancestors, Adam and Eve, established a relationship of conjugal love, that relationship was not a happy one. Instead, it was conflict-ridden. Today, humanity, because of its roots in that relationship, can-not separate itself from the origin of that struggle between mind and body. This reality is very clear and logical. The fall began with immoral love. Due to a love relationship which God did not desire, Adam and Eve became united with Satan. They became, not the ancestors of goodness, but the ancestors of evil instead; thus acquiring the roots of evil love, evil life, and evil blood lineage.
If this is true, what began with one fallen family grew to encompass tribes, nations and a world where the five billion people which make up present humanity are descendants of Satan, incapable of denying that we inherited the lineage of evil parents. No one knew Satan’s blood was present within our body or that this was so displeasing to God. This is the essential problem.
How to eliminate Satan’s roots How are we going to eliminate those roots within us? Satan dug his roots into our physical body, our flesh.
God cannot avoid working to separate good from evil and thus reverse this situation. God is public-minded and continues on the path of living for the whole, going toward the goal of love and peace. On the other hand, Satan is selfish and individualistic. Satan is always trying to destroy the good side through hate, evil and war. His intent is to prevent the earth from returning to God’s side eternally.
God cannot severely punish humanity for having gone with Satan. God’s strategy to regain humanity on His side is to allow that evil to attack Him. He can then, later, claim indemnity for damage and abuse. Satan’s strategy is to strike first, but in the end he loses everything. Satan has come throughout history, wishing to ruin God’s plan with hate, evil and war; while, on the contrary, God has been working to recreate love and peace.
In the last days, humanity will return to God’s side and evil will lose support and respect. For that reason, Satan introduced atheistic materialism, humanism and communism to stop that from happening. That was the essence of the Cold War. After the Second World War, with the victory of the Christian world, there began an era of transition toward a world of peace.
The present era is the era of the realm of individualism, the era of free sex, the era of children denying parents, the era of parents denying children, the era of denying the couple. Through homosexuality, an attempt is being made to completely destroy the family ideal which the Messiah, at his second coming, intends to establish in order to change this hell into the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. The Messiah, as the True Father, desires the unification of mind and body, the unification of husband and wife, and the unification of children.
What came first-matter or spirit?
Problems must still be solved on a worldwide level. They include: (1) What came first, matter or spirit? (2) Is the materialist theory or the idealist theory correct? (3) What comes first, reality or concept? (4) Is evolution or creationism correct?
Let us attempt to answer this by way of an example. When we observe the animal kingdom, we discover that the first thing formed in a newborn animal is the eyes. The eyes are pure matter. Would those eyes know prior to birth that the sun existed?
Being purely matter, the eyes do not know, but something or someone before matter knew that the eyes were created to see sunlight. Someone knew. Being purely matter, the eyes did not know that the atmosphere existed, but the eyes were formed with eyelashes to assure that dust in the air does not damage the eye. The eyes, being purely matter, did not know that steam and other heat radiations could dry the eyes and damage them, but someone knew and, for that reason, we blink so that our eyes can be lubricated and not dry up.
The conclusion we can derive from this is that, through the simple example of the eye, we can solve the great debate of whether thought precedes existence, whether spirit precedes matter and whether concept precedes reality. We can answer the debate of spirit versus matter, of creationism versus evolution.
Given this, we cannot deny that everything was created by God. Therefore, we must return to the original world of creation, knowing the kind of self, the kind of family, the kind of world God desires.
If Adam and Eve had not fallen, it would have been logical and normal for their minds and bodies to be one, just as God is one. Due to the fall, there emerged another positive in the body, opposed to the positive of the conscience, which relates to God. The repulsion between these two positives resulted in a history of struggle. We must be conscious of this.
The body became the base of operation for hell, and the conscience became the base of operation for heaven. The human being did not know that he contained, within himself, the division of two worlds. From this perspective, we should ask ourselves if our body leads our mind or our mind leads our body. In reality, throughout history, the body has been completely free to lead the mind. If the conscience were strengthened, we would automatically return to God. Already, the world would have been with God for some time. The fact that the physical body leads the conscience shows us that the problem stems from the moment of the fall.
The force of false love, which tied the first ancestors to Satan, was stronger than the force of the conscience. God, who knows the situation of human beings very well, cannot abandon fallen humanity. Instead, He must establish a strategy to weaken the body-centered force which dominates our conscience.
The historical s stem for salvation is religion
The historical system for salvation which was created and driven by God is religion. Yes, religion. God established several religions. According to their different circumstances and antecedents, the world cultural spheres were formed. Until now, religious people did not know that the purpose of religion is to prevent the body from continuing to lead the mind. If there had not been a fall, religion would not have been necessary.
Something bad happened and religion became necessary to correct it. What does God intend to do through religion? He intends to discipline the body. You probably think that by believing in religion you will be saved, that by believing in Christianity you will go to heaven, or that by believing in Buddhism you will go to paradise. But it is those who are united with God’s love who will enter heaven. To enter heaven, Adam’s family should have been a family whose center was the love of God, a family which had a blood relationship with God. Until now, no one knew that the place where such families dwell is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Therefore, to strengthen the power of the conscience, we must dominate the body. We must liberate our conscience, so that it can lead our body with the will. We can then return to the bosom of God’s love as original beings, free from sin.
If we ask what religion should do, the answer is that it should motivate our body to do everything it hates to do. What does the body hate most? To fast! To serve! To sacrifice! Furthermore, religion asks us to be an offering. The offering is destined to shed blood and must be capable of sacrificing its life. Therefore, the Bible tells us that he who is willing to lose his life shall gain it, and he who wishes to save his life shall lose it. What this paradox teaches us is that if we live according to the flesh we are going to hell. If we win over the flesh and liberate our conscience, we go to heaven. If we completely subjugate this body and our conscience stands in a totally subjective position, the conscience will have unlimited desire and infinite hope.
In the course of history, there have been numerous religions and numerous religious leaders. Yet those who believed in those religions and in those leaders were not able to get total control over the body and could not deny themselves completely. They could not liberate the conscience and place it in a position to relate with God on the original basis. We sinful people did not become true olive trees. Instead, we became wild olive trees with our roots in a false love. The human being should have had his roots in God’s true love, yet we established roots in Satan’s love. How are we going to solve the problem of being wild olive trees, instead of true ones? This remains as an inevitable and extremely crucial task, which we must fulfill.
If you study yourselves, you will ‘notice that the conscience knows everything about you. The conscience is closer to you than your own parents. It desires to possess eternal love and be embraced eternally in God’s bosom. When we marry, we separate from our earthly parents. Yet the conscience exists with us prior to our birth on earth. It loves us and its mission is to transform us into eternal sons and daughters of God. The conscience does not need a teacher. Have you ever heard of a Minister of Education in some country announcing a plan to educate the conscience? If the conscience had gone the original way, we would have clearly known the course to follow in life. It would have taught us and guided us to return to God’s bosom. Because your conscience knows everything about your life, when you go to the spiritual world you will discover that there is a computer which fully registered everything you did on earth. Until today, we did not know that the mission of the conscience was to convert us into unblemished, true sons and daughters of God.
We will all go to the spiritual world someday
Is there anyone here who is convinced that he or she will never die? We will all go to the spiritual world someday. When you enter the spirit world, they will immediately know you by your name. They will know about your entire life. They will also know about your ancestors, because the spiritual world transcends time and space.
We should not bring anything with us into that world which would stain our conscience. For that reason, know that the conscience is above all other teachers.
Today we have gathered distinguished personalities here. There are professors among them. There has never been a professor who possessed a teaching which is superior to that of the conscience, honestly. It fulfills the same role that a compass fulfills for a ship.
This evening, [Father inserts the names of dignitaries attending the banquet] are among those who have gathered here. To them, I would like to ask, “When you married, did anyone want to have an inferior spouse?” The answer is “No.” If I asked you whether you wanted a spouse ten times better than you or one hundred times better than you, no doubt you would reply that if it were possible, you would prefer he or she be 1,000, 10,000 or one million times better. The conscience’s ambition demands the maximum amount of love. It wishes to possess the Absolute Being. The same was true for our ancestors. The same will be true for our descendants.
If we asked God, He would respond in the same way. Is it not true that it is impossible for all of our desires to be fulfilled? A senator from Uruguay will want to be president. Later, he will want to be someone in Latin America. Ultimately, he will want to achieve the highest position in the world. That is the measure of ambition of the conscience. From the beginning of history until the present, the general thinking of people is that the conscience’s ambition cannot be completely satisfied. But Reverend Moon, the person who is standing here, arrived at the conclusion that it is possible to satisfy it.
How big is the conscience? How can the conscience be measured? Do you think that the day will come when the con-science will possess God? Do you think that if something exists that is bigger than God, the conscience will have the ambition of possessing it?
What is the conscience’s ambition seeking? If something existed which had the maximum value in the cosmos, the con-science would desire to possess that as well. How big would God’s conscience be? If we compared the human conscience with God’s conscience, which would be bigger? If God’s con-science is bigger than a human being’s, what would He do with it? The conclusion is that what God wants to possess is also the immense ambition of the human being: true love.
What does God need most?
What do you think? We know that God is absolute, but does He not feel lonely or do you think that He feels happy? Ladies and gentlemen, even if a person becomes the president of the nation, but lives alone, without a spouse, that person will feel unfortunate. If we do not have an object of love, we are unfortunate.
Does God need someone or not? How do you feel about this? Even if God is God, He feels very lonely. The human being feels empty when he or she lacks money, knowledge or authority; but God does not need money, knowledge or power.
The question is what does God need most? We call God the “King of Love” or the “Owner of Love.” If God is the King of Love, this means that He needs a queen. This is an absolute principle. Who then can be the absolute object of God’s love? A true human being!
Ladies and gentlemen, you need money. You need knowledge. You need power. But if you do not have a spouse, all of that will be useless. A husband needs a wife and children. A wife needs a husband and children. The place where those objects of love are found is in the family.
I serve God, the Subject of love, in the position of an object of love who completely satisfies the ambition of God’s conscience. The family where man and women unite as objects of God’s love and where children live happily should be the initial foundation of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, centered on the true love of God.
Thus, just as the human being wants his or her object of love to be infinitely more valuable than he or she, God also wants the human being, His object of love, to have infinite value. A person of that value is a true human being. Yet we did not know that Adam and Eve were meant to be that kind of man and woman.
Until now, no one knew that we were created with such value. If we were given such a high aspiration in our conscience, it is because God is Subject and He wanted man to be in the position of object. He did not want him simply to be a part of Him, but a completely different personality. God allowed us, as human beings, to have the action of conscience at such an elevated level simply because He hoped that man would be 1,000 or 10,000 times more valuable than He Himself. You must under-stand this very well.
If, at the beginning of creation, a family could have been realized in which God and man could have united in a relationship of true love, we would not have to worry, today, about hell or heaven because we would have automatically entered the Kingdom of God. The problem here is that God’s true love and true man’s love did not begin at a common point, united as a subjective and objective love. God’s love and man’s love began in two different directions with two different goals. Therefore, it has been impossible to realize the ideal world for which God and man long. God’s ideal of beginning in a common point was completely frustrated.
False parents arose centered on Satan’s love. By being their descendants, we inherited that false love, false life and false lineage, and are thus destined for hell. We have nothing to do with the Kingdom of Heaven.
We did not know we were supposed to conquer God’s love through our conscience by being people whose spirit dominated our body through willpower. Have you heard the expression “love-sick”? If someone is “love-sick,” when we can solve the cause of his sickness, all of his problems will be solved. The human being is a sinner, but there remains within him a part of Adam’s original nature. This is what causes man to miss God’s love, like someone who is love-sick.
What does the conscience do to win the true love of God? Even if a person has money, knowledge or power, and loses the love of her life, none of those things have any meaning.
The conscience begins from love
If you unburden and liberate your mind completely, your conscience will automatically connect with the true love of God. If we compare the conscience’s size to love’s size, we will see that the size of love is greater. We can know this due to the fact that the conscience begins from love.
The Kingdom of Heaven is the place where we go to live in unity with God, true love and with a free conscience. It is the place we go after having lived centered on love and after preparing ourselves to be the lineage of God’s love. Without winning this love, we can never enter the Kingdom of God. We will have to wait thousands of years until that day comes. Due to the fall, there will not be a connection with the Kingdom of Heaven, so long as humankind is not illuminated by God’s true thought and sustained by God’s true love.
The person who lives in unity, with a true conscience and true love, will automatically enter the Kingdom of Heaven. No matter how much a person believes in Jesus, he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven if he is not linked to the love of God. The fact that our mind and body are struggling prevents us from entering the Kingdom. The person who inherited Satan’s lineage cannot enter the kingdom. The religions which have the mission of opening the way are struggling among them-selves and will have a sad ending in the last days.
God cannot be found where there is conflict. Religion is a movement to subjugate the body and liberate the conscience. It is not a key to open the doors to salvation. We have to know that the key which opens that door will not be received if we fail to inherit the love, the life and the true lineage of God.
By believing in religion, we will not receive salvation. In reality, religion exists to discipline the body. When our conscience is liberated, its ambition can be raised to God. How does this seem to you? Think first about what you are doing. Will you try to find out more about this?
Who will know what someone is doing first? Who will know first? The conscience or God? The conscience will know first. Humans are distinct from God because they occupy the object position. In the same sense, husband and wife are different. The characteristics of each are clearly different. If we were to conclude that God could know everything prior to its happening, we could say that we are a part of God, as if we were a single body. In such a case, we could not be God’s objects of love.
We must return to God
An ideal cannot be perfected when it is alone. After Adam and Eve sinned, God asked, “Adam, where are you?” Adam hid himself behind a fig tree and answered, “I am here.” God understood and said, “You hid yourself because you have sinned.” Man comes from God’s love and returns to God. We must return to God.
Ladies and gentlemen, when sons and daughters age, when parents reach the age of one hundred and their children reach the age of eighty, the relationship of father and son also becomes a relationship of friends. Friends!
We cannot compare the physical strength of a woman with that of a man. She can never defeat him; but, through love, wife and husband are attracted to one another and follow each other. If Adam and Eve had been the objects of God’s love, would that have been pleasing to Him or not? God created the universe before Adam and Eve would have perfected themselves as His objects of love. God had the ambitious hope that, in the future, they would be His ideal object. If, after having perfected them-selves as the object of God’s love, they had asked God to create something greater than what He had already created, do you think He could have done so?
As infinite as is the ambition of our conscience, we should know that God can create everything we desire. God created us with the value of true love objects. Because this value was lost, it must be restored. This restoration is the purpose of human life and history. God established religions and promised that someday each of the founders of those religions would return.
Christianity has taught that Jesus will return. In Buddhism, they speak of the return of Buddha. Confucianism alludes to a new Confucius. Likewise, in Islam, believers await the return of Mohammed. What would be the reason that God established the different religions? We need to understand that the _Will of God is accomplished centered on His beloved children, children who are like God’s flesh and blood. With that type of son and daughter, God wants to form families, tribes, races and nations.
What kind of person is the Messiah?
We need to understand what kind of person is the Messiah. In his second corning, the Lord is the person who perfects the ideal for which all religions have longed, corning to the earth for the first time in the eternal love of God. He will become a True Father and, centered on that lost true love, he will work to establish an ideal family on earth, on the foundation of true life and true lineage.
That is the purpose of the providence of salvation. Due to the fall, God lost the True Mother, as well as the children of Adam’s family. This means that God could not have true children. There was no family connected to the blood lineage which was to come from God’s love.
Because of fallen parents, blood ties originated from a false love and a false life. Due to this, the struggle between mind and body also began. Adam and Eve became enemies to each other. There was a fight to the death between Adam’s sons.
The providence of salvation is the providence of restoration which God has been leading to restore his lost sons and daughters, restore the absolute unity of mind and body, restore the absolute unity of husband and wife, and restore the absolute unity of parents and children in the true love of God. This true family, which is qualified to live eternally with God, should be connected to Christianity, which is in the position of the bride to the Lord. By establishing such a blood relationship with God, we can realize united families, tribes, races and united nations which would thus conform to the united world, the culmination of the providence of salvation.
How to receive God’s blessing
Distinguished leaders of this nation of Paraguay, is it not true that Paraguay would like to receive God’s blessing? To do so, you must become a people whose mind and body are united in God’s true love. You must also unite as absolute husbands and wives. When the number of families in Paraguay which can unite as absolute children of God grows, then God will come to live in this nation. If this happens, then automatically this nation will become the central nation of the world.
The human being has this kind of nature. If his beloved lives in the countryside, in poverty, he wants to live there with her. In the same way, if there is a place where God’s beloved sons and daughters dwell, that place will be the Kingdom of Heaven, even if poor. If rich, it will be the Kingdom of Heaven as well.
The mission of the Unification Church
Today, the founder of the Unification Church is here speaking to you. If you ask me, “What is the mission of the Unification Church?” I will say that it is a place where God’s true love is present. It is the place where we want our mind and body to unite in true love. It is the place where we want to form ideal marriages with absolute unity between husband and wife. By means of an ideology which can make all people into inseparable brothers and sisters, we are carrying out the mission which God has given us.
With the love of the True God and the love of the True Parents, we are cleansing everything that was dirtied by false love, false life and false lineage. Our marriage has achieved the True Parents’ position. The large international marriage ceremonies which we conduct are the ceremony to sow the seed of true love, true life, and true lineage, which results from the unity of God’s love and man’s love.
The blessing is a ceremony to restore families formed in false marriage which, due to the fall, received the see of false love, false life, and false lineage. Having families participate in these marriage ceremonies from around the world, we want to connect them to God’s great blessing. It is my fervent desire that all Paraguayan people receive that great blessing and become families and a people which can establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
The purpose of the Unification Church is to succeed through this means to establish relationships of brotherhood which transcend nations. Through this means, we want to realize the ideal of one great universal family, centered on God, and thus proclaim the ideal of True Parents, true spouses, and true brothers and sisters. In this way, we will begin the world culture of heart. From earth to heaven, we will be liberated to fulfill the world of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
Since the end of the Second World War and during the past fifty years, Reverend Moon has been persecuted and criticized by the entire world. The time has come that you should know that such persecution was not because he committed any crime. Instead, it was to save you. Unlike in the past, people now think that I am the most admirable man.
By the hand of Reverend Moon, communism collapsed. It was Reverend Moon who awakened Mikhail Gorbachev and Kim 11 Sung. To save the United States, which is going toward collapse, I established a foundation which leads Americans to feel that Reverend Moon is the hope. Behind the difficult political circumstances of North and South Korea, Reverend Moon is also involved. The same is also true for the Middle East.
You need to know that, after forty years, the Republican Party triumphed in the United States; it was due to the influence of Reverend Moon. Perhaps you are unaware of these facts; but you should know that if Paraguay precedes the United States in receiving and absolutely embracing Reverend Moon, Paraguay will become the first nation in the world.
Everything which Reverend Moon has said has been fulfilled. The entire world did everything it could to put an end to me, yet I did not die and I am firmly standing on top of the world. If I can speak to you out loud today, it is because God loves me. You need to know that if I survived, it is because God absolutely protected me. For that reason, I believe that you should seriously study about the Unification Church.
We have met together today and this is a day of deep significance. I have shared a very important message with you and I have placed my trust in you. I kindly ask that you not forget this. I also ask that, to follow the proper path, you make a re-determination, based on this new awakening, to bring God’s blessing to your families and your nation. In that way, ideal families will begin to appear on this earth.
As you probably know, Reverend Moon and his spouse are known throughout the world as the True Parents. If it is true that, as True Parents, we are connected to God in true love, true life, and true lineage, I would like you to remember that beginning from a true family and you, a realm of liberation, liberty, unification and happiness will begin. It will allow the hope of peace to sprout upon the earth. Thank you very much.