True Father’s Speech at The Pledge Service On November 5, 1995 In Paris, France
French people, raise your hands. What about Japanese brothers and sisters? Since we have many French people here-the majority of you are French-I feel like I am in France now. (Applause.) It is true that everyone wants to have more of their own people and wants to be the number one. I see many French brothers and sisters, and I recognize that this is indeed France. I am happy to be here with all the French members. It is good to see you. I feel sorry that I cannot speak French.
Where is my homeland? (Korea.) Not everyone likes the name “Korea.” Therefore, we need the concept of God’s land and True Parents’ land. That means all humanity’s hometown. Originally, God’s will should have been fulfilled in the Garden of Eden, where one ideal family was to settle. However, because of the human fall, this did not happen. Therefore, in the last days there must be one place where God’s will inevitably shall be completed, one place centering on one family. Through the fall, one family was lost. To restore that one family, a foundation must be laid. Therefore, the beginning point is one, not two. However, Korea is divided in half north and south.
Why do you think Korea was divided? As you know, the Lord of the Second Advent came as the bridegroom to humankind. Christianity was in the position of bride. Therefore, Christianity was supposed to welcome the bridegroom and together with him establish the Kingdom of God on earth. However, the bride culture failed to receive the bridegroom and instead betrayed him. That is why the entire world has been divided. The fatherland of True Parents was divided, even my tribe and family were separated and divided. Thus, I had to walk the forty-year wilderness course by myself.
God cannot take dominion when something is divided. God has to find some person or some condition which is totally united and harmonized. That is why I had to find Mother, who could totally unite and become one with me.
The Unification Church replaced Christianity’s role as the bride and established the victorious foundation of unity with me. Upon that foundation, Mother restored the bride realm on the worldwide sphere has had more blessing and more wealth. However, the time is corning for the Southern Hemisphere to receive God’s blessing more and enjoy more affluence. By the same token, the satellite countries in the Eastern bloc suffered more than Western democracies. However, now the Eastern bloc countries will enjoy their freedom and believe in Christianity and God more sincerely than Western people do. Christian people in the Western Hemisphere started believing in God first. They enjoyed their life of faith all these years. On the other hand, those people who lived in the Eastern bloc did not know how to believe in God; they did not practice the life of faith. However, because the world is turning in reverse order, now the people in the Eastern bloc will be more faithful than the Western people.
Until now there has been order in relationships between father and mother, elder brother and younger brother, grand-parents and grandchildren. This kind of order is being totally reversed. People who are in the position of children will be in the position of parents, and parents will come down to the children’s position; grandchildren will go up to the grandparents’ position and grandparents will come down to the grand-children’s position; the elder brother will become the younger brother and the younger will become the elder. This kind of reversal is taking place right now.
That is the reason that the world is now welcoming the youth-centered period. Youths are becoming the focus of world affairs. The youths in the secular world belong to Satan, and the youth on God’s side, particularly the blessed children, will belong to God. The youths of the secular world follow the footsteps of Satan. That is why they seek immorality-free sex, homosexuality, and lesbianism. However, the second generation in the Unification Church seeks absolute unity between mind and body and absolute unity between husband and wife, parents and children, and among family members. With all this unity, we are building the ideal couple, the ideal family, and eventually the ideal world, centered on true love. You see the difference.
What is the most fundamental problem in the world? The family problem. All the problems of the world stern from family breakdown. That is why I initiated the blessing centered upon the ideal of true love. That is why I blessed 360,000 couples, 720,000 people. Centered on this kind of heavenly theme, the ideal world will be built. There will be 3.6 million couples next time, and after that, 36 million couples. If we go through these few more steps, the entire secular world will surrender to me and to God. The world is turning to that direction.
The most difficult problem the free world is facing is of extreme individualism. If there are a thousand people, there are a thousand opinions. In the communist world, because of their training, even if there are a thousand people there is only one direction and policy. That is the way they have been trained. Now God is using that training to bring citizens of former communist countries to God. Between the Western, democratic bloc and the Eastern, communist bloc, which side will progress faster in following God? (East.) What then is our task? We have to be totally alert all the time not to fall behind. People under the former communist regimes believed that the communist ideal was the only ideal which could save the world; but now they see the falsity, and communism is gone. There-fore, if those people accept Unificationisrn as their saving ideology, they will progress rapidly.
Walk right side up
The satanic world is like people walking upside down, walking on their hands instead of their feet. How difficult is it to maintain a headstand? How hard is it to walk on your hands? You Unificationists are now walking with your own two legs. The entire world tested us in every possible way.
Once we have one fatherland, one tradition and one ideology we can start God’s ideal world. You need to inherit the ideology of True Parents. Do you understand? In all of human history there is only one True Parents; there can be no other True Parents. Therefore, humankind should have only one direction following True Parents. One direction, one tradition, and one language.
There will be no French people there. What shall you do? How can you erase your past tradition? You will even forget your name, too, because your name belongs to Satan’s side. Forget everything. You French brothers and sisters, you do not feel good about it? Can you forget your French name and adopt this heavenly tradition, including the language? Do you really feel bad about it? The way you are laughing indicates that you do not feel good about it.
Our time has finally arrived. It is the time of spring. We have to sow seeds. I have been sowing seeds this year beginning from South America and then North America. Mother went to Japan, Mother and I went to Korea, and finally we came to the European continent to sow new seed in the ground. Once I sow this new heavenly seed, you have to make sure that these seeds germinate and grow to produce flowers, bearing all kinds of fruits for heaven. That is how you reach the position of tribal messiah. You will become a second True Parents here on your level and then bring all the harvest to heaven, together with your family. That is the way we will build the ideal world on the European continent too. The seed which I am planting and the seed which you will harvest have the same value, connecting to the Kingdom of Heaven. Satan cannot control that realm; only God can. The world which God can control is called “the Kingdom of Heaven.” This is the message this morning. I brought this heavenly seed to sow here; if you can harvest the plants that are growing from that seed, the quality of the seed will be the same. That is the message.
Until now, the entire human race has been walking upside down. That is why it is so difficult. Because of my teaching, Unification ideology, you can now stand right side up. Do you think it is an easy step? It is very difficult. If you look deeply into your conscience, your mind will tell you your posture in walking, whether you are walking on your hands, whether you are walking sideways, crippled or lying down. Your mind clearly knows your quality of life. Is it true? Your conscience tells you everything. That means as long as your conscience is clearly guiding you, you do not need True Parents; you do not need God, because your conscience will guide you all the way. Your conscience represents God, True Parents, and your original mind.
Those who have confidence that you are walking on your own two legs, raise your hand. Can those people who raised your hands say that your mind and body are totally united, that there is no conflict whatsoever? Isn’t it true? Even after that explanation, do you still have confidence?
That is why even the Family Pledge, which we recited this morning, focuses on true love and mind-body unity. That is the essence. Centering on true love, we can unite mind and body, man and woman. Without true love, we cannot complete anything. No matter how difficult, we have to find the center of true love. Only true love connects us to God.
After the fall, everything went to Satan’s side. We have to overcome that satanic realm; otherwise, we cannot connect to the true love realm. Down here is Satan’s side; the vertical dimension connects to God’s side. That means we have to make victory all over the world; otherwise, we cannot connect to God’s realm. This is serious.
That is why the Bible says that those who seek to gain their lives will lose them, while those who are willing to sacrifice their lives will gain them. That is a paradox. You are living in the fallen world. You have to overcome everything. It is not so easy. You have to bet your life; otherwise, you cannot go.
Help each other
Is there any brother or sister who is meeting Mother and me in person for the first time? Those brothers and sisters who did not receive the blessing yet, raise your hands. No one? Everyone is blessed? One person? Who is your father? How old are you? (Eighteen.)
Because of the fall, human history started with false parents. Adam and Eve became false parents after the fall. Therefore, unless the family is restored, there is no way to complete restoration. We must regain the ideal family. Again, we must take the opposite course. There should be mutual support and cooperation between grandparents and grandchildren. They should cooperate according to God’s direction. Parents and children should work together; assistance should not be just from parents to children, but also from children to parents.
In the Garden of Eden, if Adam and Eve had helped each other, worked together and cooperated with each other, the fall could have been prevented. Even now, unless there is mutual help, consent and cooperation in your own family, your family can be broken. One blessed couple may be like a gemstone, surrounded by hundreds or even thousands of secular, satanic families. In France, people are against blessed families. That is why you need absolute unity among the blessed couples; become like diamonds, which no one can break.
Adam and Eve faced no evil situation other than Lucifer. However, they fell. Compared to that, what we are facing in this secular world is enormous. Every day you are faced with satanic influence. That is why when you get up in the morning you bow to True Parents’ photo; in your mind you receive True Parents and promise, “I will live my life today according to the teaching of True Parents and God.” When you come home at night, you have to report to True Parents in your heart, also your physical parents. That is the way you should live. To do that, you cannot be selfish. If you are a self-centered person, you will be like Eve. Selfishness was one cause of Eve’s fall. Therefore, you should not have a selfish, self-centered way of life.
This democratic, Western world has become a satanic world, centered on extreme individualism and selfishness. Therefore, it has to be completely overhauled and reversed. Again, one of the main causes of the human fall was Eve’s self-centered, individualistic thinking. Just as the beginning was centered on individualism, now in the last days we see rampant individualism all over the world. Individualism rules the world. In the spring time, Eve’s individualism caused the fall. Now at harvest time, the fruit of individualism has expanded all over the world, producing hell on earth. Whatever you sow, you will reap, the Bible says. Because of individualism, the fall came about.
Live by the heavenly law
Now the heavenly law, the heavenly constitution that is coming through True Parents, says that boys and girls must stick with their parents until they receive their ideal spouses through True Parents. For example, the girls should stick with their mothers. Boys should never stay with any girls until they marry. This is the way you can keep your purity. The crux of the fall involves establishing a love relationship on one’s own without the consent or permission of the parents.
The conjugal relationship is not your own; it comes from God, from parents. You have to inherit it from parents. Adam and Eve should have married with God’s blessing. That is why to restore the human fall, we have to make sure that our marriage, our conjugal love, is centered on God and comes through True Parents. Love originally belongs to God; it is not ours. That is why in the Unification Church our life of faith means that even if I live on this end of the Planet Earth and my spouse comes from the other end of the planet, as long as True Parents and God approve, we receive the blessing and we live together in eternity.
Do you want to have your love confined to the French nation and the French people, or do you want to have your love expand all over the world, reaching the cosmos? (Cosmos.) Why? Why do you want that kind of expanded love? Because when God looks down upon the human race, God considers the world to be one nation, one brotherhood. Therefore, you blessed couples have an obligation to show an exemplary life to your children, so that as they watch you they will long to have a marriage just like yours, saying “I want to have my wife just like my mommy. I want to have my husband just like my daddy.” Blessed couples, if you keep fighting between husband and wife, that is what your children will learn, and they will practice the same thing in the future.
When Mother and I were in Korea, some second generation children testified, saying, “Well, we always see our daddy and mommy living really harmoniously with love and unity and centered on God, so we want to marry too in order to have that kind of happy, united family.” This kind of testimony should come from your children. Parents are in the position to set an example, lead exemplary life in every way.
When you look at Mother and me, do you think there is fighting between us every day? (No.) How do you know? Mother says the youngest true son, Hyung Jin, who is now about sixteen, says, “I want to get married because I want to have a family like you, Father and Mother.”
In front of your children, husband and wife should never show tears of sadness. Your children respect you and look up to you as exemplary, ideal parents. If you suddenly show tears of sadness, pain or conflict to your children, the spiritual wound you give to your children is immeasurable, enormous. It will cause an eternal scar in your children. Even if you are really angry at your spouse, you will be unable to fight with each other when you think about the consequences for your children. If you fight just once, a scar is planted in your children’s heart; if you fight twice, the scar becomes even larger. If you keep fighting and creating scars, your children may finally leave your family. So make sure you do not fight.
Listen to your Conscience
‘If there is any blessed couple who fights a lot, always in conflict with each other, always in disunity, sometimes the husband battering his wife or the wife ignoring her husband, raise your hands. Only one couple? Your con-science knows and tells you clearly how good a spouse you are. That is why if you are not sure about yourself, always ask your conscience, your original mind; you will get an answer right away because your original mind belongs to God. It is directly connected to God. Your original mind precedes your own parents. Your original mind knows in advance what you are doing; before God knows, your original mind knows.
If God knew what you were going to do before your original mind did, you would not be an autonomous entity but just a lifeless lump. However, you have autonomy because of your original mind and your conscience. Thus your original mind, your conscience, is your supreme teacher, because it knows things before God does. Your original mind precedes even the sovereign of your country. Does your king or president come to your individual level and protect you 24 hours a day? No. Therefore, your conscience has more value than your king or president. Once you are totally united with your original mind, you can conquer God’s heart and rule this entire world. That is the value of your original mind.
We all have the ambition to reach the position of royalty, in whatever form it may take. Maybe French people do not feel that way, because you are so humble. However, you may be arrogant in your mind. French people have a tendency to consider themselves to be superior. You think your French culture is number one on the European continent. If you truly think that way, do you suppose such thinking belongs to Satan or to God? Since the French Revolution was based on human-ism, your culture has been advocating materialism. Based on this materialism, the French culture blossomed into beautiful flowers; but in essence, that kind of thinking belongs to Satan.
You are proud of the Louvre Museum here, aren’t you? When God comes down and looks at the Louvre, do you think He would be proud of what you have? When you look at modern paintings produced in this country, can you make sense out of them? They are confused and complicated. They have no center.
God is in the position of center of centers. I coined a new term “centerism.” The Satan-based ideology is “non-centerism,” whereas the God-based ideology is “centerism.” It is beautiful, isn’t it? Individualism does not have any center. If there is a center, the center should be one; whether the scale is the individual, family, nation, world or cosmos, everything is centered on God. In individualism, however, each man has his own center as a man, and each woman has her own center as a woman. As I said earlier, if there are a thousand people, they have a thousand centers. That is why individualism does not have any center. Furthermore, is individualism centered on your mind’s desires or your body’s desires? The center of individualism is always moving around, while the original mind, the conscience, is stationary; it does not move. That is why it is called “centered.”
You are here representing the French Unification Church. What possibility is there that the French church will support my worldwide providence and progress, as I expect you to? Will things go the other way around? Your answer sounds good, but your tradition has been not so good. That is a problem. French people have a very keen sense of comparing themselves with other cultures and other people. Isn’t it true? Perhaps that is why you are artistic. Secular French people try to find whatever is good and adopt it as French culture. Such a tendency is not easy to get rid of it. As a genuine human being, if you are defeated you have to admit your defeat. Be honest. If you try to retain your position and make excuses after being defeated, instead of admitting your defeat, that is not fair. In World War II, did France win the war against Germany, or did Germany win the war against France? Which country won? When you say France, I feel you lost, but you still say you won. That is the problem. You have such a pride.
If I came here with a very stern expression, you would feel afraid. Since you would be unable to touch me, you would sense a big gap between us, isn’t it true? However, I have been making gestures and childlike actions, so you feel very intimate and close to True Parents. That is the blessing from True Parents. Do you feel close to True Parents this morning? (Yes.) Do you feel closer to True Parents than your husband or wife? (Yes.)
Well, in a tree, no matter how big or beautiful or strong one branch may become, it cannot replace the root, can it? The branch is still a branch, and the root is still a root. Which is more beautiful, branch or root? (Root.) You cannot see roots, so how can you say they are beautiful? The roots usually deal with smelly fertilizers, whereas the branches reach up in the sky and enjoy the fresh air.
The roots absorb nitrogen and provide oxygen for fresh air, as do the leaves. Since I usually stay in Korea or someplace other than France all the time, I am like a root, unseen; but you are here in France and working in your country like leaves and branches. Do you feel that you can do whatever you want according to your instinct and freedom, just because I do not see you? (No.) You know the answer, yet it is not easy to practice that principle. When you go to college to continue your education, you gain a Ph.D. in the end; but it is not easy, is it? Not everyone can do it, because it is a tough course.
If I give you too much education this morning, you will immediately forget it all. Well, since you have not seen me here in your country for the last five years, have you progressed or declined? What is the situation of your country? Has your church shrunk?
Hunter culture versus farmer culture
Comparing the Oriental countries and the Western countries, which side enjoys individualism more? Which side did more evil the Eastern countries or the Western countries? In the record of history who shed blood more, the Western countries or the Eastern countries? In the Orient, if a person is riding through trees and suddenly a poisonous snake bites his horse, he does not usually pull out a gun and shoot the dying horse. In Western cowboy movies, however, they shoot such a horse.
The Asian culture is based on an agricultural society in which people try to blend into nature and harmonize with it. That is the base for their culture. In contrast, the White race started from the North Pole, like polar bears, based on hunting, rather than agriculture and harmonizing with nature. Hunters cannot just sit still and wait for crops to grow. They have to keep moving around to find animals. When a hunter finally sees the animal for which he is looking, do you suppose he will think from that animal’s viewpoint before killing it, or will he act based on his hunger and desire? Under such circumstances, the hunter will try to kill that animal because he is hungry and needs food. When he kills that animal and its blood spurts out, the hunter feels joy. Thus we can conclude that wherever the White race goes, there is always bloodshed. With that spirit, the White people have conquered territory and colonized the rest of the world.
In contrast, Oriental people, such as Buddhist monks, will sit and meditate, even at the point of death. That is why all the great spiritual leaders came from the Eastern Hemisphere. God wants to embrace the entire human race as one, not just one side.
Farmers certainly kill chickens, pigs and cows for food many times, but these are animals that they have raised with love. When they really need food, they kill them for food; there is more tolerance there. Hunters do not raise animals for food. They go after them, find them, and shoot them. Sometimes those animals are hiding someplace or resting in the bushes, and the hunter shoots the animal before it wakes up. These are key differences between the hunter-oriented culture and farmer-oriented culture. That is why Western people are the champions at conquering new territory, champions at fighting. Western warriors have come to Asia and conquered its agricultural societies, but they did not last too long.
The two cultures are connected to the restoration of the relationship between mind and body. The Western culture dominates the external world, and the Oriental culture dominates the internal world. Which of the two will ultimately dominate: the physical external world or the world of mind? Until now the Western culture has dominated, but eventually the culture centered on mind will come to dominate, according to the principle of restoration.
Until now, the Western Hemisphere culture progressed beyond the farmer-based culture, but it cannot last too long. Eventually the great thinkers, religious leaders and teachers from the farmer-based culture will educate, lead and guide this entire human race.
Because of the fall, people have been dominated by physical, bodily desires. Through the history of restoration, the conscience, the original mind, will finally have control over our physical desires. That is the course of restoration.
We see no value system in the Western culture. People seek material things to satisfy their physical desire. Families keep breaking up because there is no value system in the family and no central value system in the nation or world. What else can you expect except destruction? People focus on their own benefit, their own self, forgetting that before they existed there was the sun, cosmos, nature, water and air, their ancestors, humankind. When they cut themselves off from everything else, they lose everything. That is why extreme individualism keeps people from becoming the center, the master. Our spirit, our original mind, wants everything big, like the cosmos, doesn’t it?
Digest my criticism
Now is a transitional period. We are reaching a crossing point. Individualism is going down and the holistic, God-centered ideology is going up. This is the crossing point. For example, England used to be the bastion for pirates. The British people at one point wanted to conquer the entire world centered on the leadership of their Queen Elizabeth. That island country occupied the five oceans. Is it good or bad to use merciless power? It is a bad country.
You have to understand why I am giving you this kind of talk. If you are British or French, your ears may not be pleased by this kind of talk. I know that. Yet I am giving you this kind of talk deliberately, because I want you to take it, digest it, and overcome that feeling.
Think about American people. The majority are descendants of Anglo-Saxon ancestors, and they take such pride in saying, “Well, Christopher Columbus came and discovered our continent.” When you look at history with magnifying glasses, Columbus went there and was actually just about to die. Who saved his life? American Indians. That is how Columbus survived and Western people could go there and settle.
However, history does not record it that way. They did not even consider American Indians to be part of the human race at one point. Now they are changing. Is that fair treatment or unfair treatment? Before Western people reached the Americas, there were hundreds of thousands of Indians living all over the North and South American continents, yet this White race went and killed tens of millions of Indians. Now the total population of Indians in both American continents is only twenty or thirty million. History records that large numbers died of sickness within this 400-year period. Hundreds of millions of people died because of sickness when they had survived thousands of years without dying out? It does not make sense. This White race, the descendants of hunters, went and hunted them down. Whether you believe it or not, some of those hunters considered one American Indian less valuable than one bear. Who is right? Is my explanation correct or is the American history book correct? Therefore, we have to repent.
In the population of the world, how big a portion does the White race include? About 850 million people belong to the so-called White race. What about Asians? There are 3.2 billion. That is about four times the number of the White race. Put yourself in the position of God. If a choice had to be made between these 850 million White people and 3.2 billion Asian people, which one would you rather sacrifice: the smaller size or the larger size? Unless I continue protecting Christian culture centered mainly on the White race, there will be bloodshed and racial conflict on the cosmic level. The White people in America fear that Asian people will come and take over the continent. When the next century dawns, scholars and economists predict that America will be surpassed by China.
Even now, I am preparing for this through the international, interracial holy weddings. That is my strategy. Why do you think I am doing that? After racial conflicts, religious wars will come. To prevent future religious conflict, I am promoting holy weddings. When religious people collide with each other, inter-religious, inter-denominational matchings will prevent wars.
When a German person and a French person marry, what happens? When the husband and wife make love, do they say, “oh, this is German love,” or “this is French love”? Do they make such distinctions? Love is one. Because of love, making unification is no problem. Isn’t it true? In the beginning, because of their different cultural backgrounds, the spouses in an inter-cultural marriage may think that each has to become half German and half French, for instance. As soon as you have your first child, that concept disappears. Isn’t that true? I do not know. You know better than I do. This is absolutely the best way of unifying people of different races and nationalities. When I talk about the love relationship, I am talking about true love: love which can love your enemies. In the future this atmosphere can bring about the unified world. Is it true? (Yes.) Thank you.
Usually we do three cheers of mansei after this kind of gathering. Why do you think we do it? First, we cheer for God; second, for True Parents; and, third, for the Unification Church.