Good morning everyone!
Why are we meeting together at the very early hour of
four in the morning? Before we leave each other, we need
to bring our CARP Conference and Convention back to the
root of who we are. All of the things we have
experienced together in the last few days don't mean
anything if we are not rooted in the will of God.
Without that root, we cannot be the people who fulfil
the work of God's providence.
Last year I went on a
world tour to Korea, Japan, Philippines, Thailand,
Taiwan, Russia, Moldova, Hungary and Germany. There was
one significant country missing, and that was the USA.
Therefore let me remind you why the theme of that tour
was Inheritance and Development. It was because there
was a tension between the first and second generation.
By second generation I mean all young people not just
Blessed Children. The first generation thought they had
their own path and the second generation felt they had a
separate path. Each felt they could do without the
other, and even discard the other.
Our movement has a
long history of sacrifice. Our movement is built on the
root of tears, blood and sacrifice. I started off my
inaugural tour by asking if it was God's intention to
have True Parents walk the course of the wilderness for
40 years, restoring all 6000 years of human history?
That was not God's plan. He had already prepared a plan
through worldwide Christianity. It had been prepared for
6,000 years. I explained about the Old Testament Age and
the New Testament Age, and how that foundation was lost.
In 1945 history was
undoubtedly at an inflection point.. After the war,
there was a feeling of the real possibility of global
unity. The UN was founded, and America was the most
powerful nation. Christianity was strong. At that time,
True Parents should have stood on the national
foundation of Korean Christianity and the International
foundation of American Christianity. If that had
happened, the Kingdom of Heaven could have been built in
seven years, by 1952. However, a critical failure took
place and the wilderness course began.
Now we have entered
the settlement age, the time of settlement when once
again we can lay the foundation to build God's
substantial kingdom. Father has spent more than 50 years
speaking about True Families. If you read the Hoon Dok
Hae books all the way from the early speeches in the
1950s up until just yesterday, you will see that Father
is always talking about the same topics. He always talks
about the relationships between men and women, relations
in the family and with God. True Parents recognize that
it is the relationships within the family that are the
root of all other relations.
From the very
beginning God lost the ideal of the true family. Even
the original Divine Principle focused on just the
reciprocal pair relations on the individual level, such
as mind and body, myself and True Parents, myself and
God. One consequence of that individual focus was that
people could say that they had faith in True Parents but
not in True Family. Now it is time to focus on the full
four position foundation. It is through the family that
the substantial lineage can be created, not just from
the relationship with God between individual men and
women, but the substantial relationship though a family.
God needed to create a
lineage on earth. That's why he created man and woman to
grow to maturity and begin a family through marriage.
Adam and Eve, standing on left and right, should pass
the vertical tradition coming from God down to their
children. Why is this so important? Because in the
family you have true love, life and lineage.
After the fall, all of
human history was a history to change blood lineage and
ownership. Satan took away Eve who was to be through
Adam the wife of God. She went away taking the seed of
the enemy in her womb. How difficult would it be for God
to see that child when he was born? Every time he saw
that child he would be reminded of the blood lineage and
life of his enemy. This was the analogy Father used. To
restore this you have to build a substantial family. It
is time now that the Cain type and Abel type children
come together. When that relationship is correct it can
unite all our family. We have to stand as one family
before the world if we are to build Gods substantial
kingdom.
Why is it then that
until now we focused only on the individual? As I said,
the Divine Principle speaks mostly on the individual
level, because history until now was a history of
salvation on the individual level. Man and woman fell on
the individual level before they could stand as true men
and women. That's why the question of mind/body unity
has been the fundamental challenge of the spiritual
life. Father asks all the time, and asked again
yesterday, "Do you have real mind/body unity?"
Recently I was sitting
in one of the classes at UTS on the topic of "Building
True Family Values" We were talking about how one
develops moral character. Today many psychologists and
sociologists are following a model of moral reasoning
being developed through stages. Kohlberg's theory of
four moral stages is an example. This theory says in
essence that there are different moral choices to be
made at each level of growth, and that the moral
paradigm used at each stage is different and therefore
relative.
I challenged the
professor that this theory implies that all morality is
relative. There is no absolute right and wrong. "How is
it then," I asked, "That the great figures of history
faced moral dilemmas with absolute consistency?" They
were absolutely clear about right and wrong and the way
they should go. On the cross, Jesus was willing to
accept the vertical path prescribed for him. He realized
that it was a difficult course, but he was willing to
accept it.
I mention this because
the so-called moral authorities of today are not
authorities at all. They are confused and their theories
only reflect the mind/body disunity in themselves. Moral
values do not lie in the nice rhetoric and explanations,
the graphs and the rational process. They lie in the
heart, based on experience. They affect us all wherever
we come from, Asian, black or white. Regardless of all
the cultural differences, there are universal moral
standards that affect all of us.
What are the
fundamental and universal values that everyone shares?
Take any man anywhere, he is always the son, husband,
father, brother of someone. And any woman, be she a Miss
America, a housewife, a professor from the Philippines,
is the daughter, wife sister or mother of someone.
Regardless of where we come from, we are the sons and
daughters, brothers and sisters husbands and wives and
fathers and mothers of someone. These familial
relationships are universal. However, there is a problem
with these relationships in every culture today.
The gap between
generations is a result of the conflict between people
and their parents and grandparents, and the failure of
that relationship. The struggles in society between men
and women start in the family. The failure to create
true brotherly relations in the family is expressed in
war and struggle. The breakdown of the family is because
of the failure of parents to love children.
Many people say,
"Well, talking about ideal families is great, but what
is the connection to building a world of peace." My
reply is this. The family unit is the basic building
block of any social order. If there are flaws in the
basic building block, then the end product will be
flawed. If you fix the flaw in the building blocks then
the end product, will be OK. Somehow the DNA, the basic
molecule was flawed and the result is totally the
opposite of what God had intended. If we can recreate
the original building block we can recreate God's ideal.
Everyone wants love,
but there are so many different standards of love. We
have to recognize that. We do not share the love between
husband and wife with the children- that is incest. We
do not share the horizontal love of bothers and sisters
between parents and children, which is vertical.
There is a gap between
the generations. The older generation says, "Young
people today have no standards." Every generation has
been the same since the beginning! Abba is 81 and his
life represents many generations. Don't you think he
feels that way about every generation? I am only 32, but
I see today's kids and think, "What planet did they come
from, they have no respect!" I would say that all of
this is because of the ambiguity of the standard of love
between generations.
Likewise, you could
say that the confusion in sexual relationships comes
from a loose and ambiguous understanding of what the
relationship between husband and wife is, leading to
things like homosexuality. Yesterday Father said that
homosexuality was Satan's tool to destroy humanity. Why?
You cannot create any vertical standard with homosexual
relations, and there can be no procreation of the next
generation. Therefore it means the end of that
generation.
That kind of
relationship is worse than even that of the animals. The
basic theory of evolution speaks of the survival of the
fittest and the strong urge for reproduction. That drive
creates competitiveness among the males to pass on the
genes. Even in the animal kingdom the relationship
between male and female to pass on the lineage is very
clear.
I see this myself when
I go out hunting. All of my life I have loved nature,
and my true church is God's creation. That's where I
find peace, solace, and internal peace and purification,
when I am thousands of miles away out in the boondocks.
Right now, my playground is Alaska. If I had lived 2000
years ago I would have been a wilderness person who
stayed away for 40 days. Who knows I might do that by
taking 40 days away from CARP! What if I smelled and was
dirty, or away so long my language skills deteriorated,
would you still come to hear me speak? You are crazy
people.
How about the
relationship between brothers? When Father met all the
great leaders in Washington DC last week and gave the
speech there, he spoke of all conflict as being at root
a brotherly struggle, an extension of the Cain and Abel
struggle that started in the first family. The inability
to love each our brothers is the cause. Warfare
represents the two camps, one representing God and the
other Satan. Among these, it is those who attacked first
who represent the evil ideas. That's why the struggle
between nations can only be resolved by finding the true
relationship between brothers and sisters, brothers and
brothers. Where are we going to get that knowledge?
I have been studying
at UTS and now I realize why I did not take theology in
college! In the USA you don't have to decide a major
until the 3rd year. When I was a college student, I
asked Father what should I major in? He said History,
Philosophy or Theology, and I chose History. Now at UTS
I am taking courses in theology, including Christian
theology. Now I see why it is so challenging for
Christians to accept Fathers message!
This is the time that
religious people should be open minded, not dogmatic and
not doctrinaire. Jesus was not a theologian, he was a
man who wanted to build God's kingdom. Many of the
troubles today come from the ideas of Christology about
the role of the messiah and the person of Christ. If
these are the conclusions and results, maybe we should
ask different questions.
Today people are
looking differently at the question of Christology. In
New Testament studies we talk a lot about the search for
the historical Jesus. Was he apocalyptic, or a sage or
wisdom teacher? The apocalyptic view says that Jesus
died on the cross as a condition for bodily
resurrection. The wisdom view is that Jesus was a
philosopher king, But does reason lead us divinity? If
you look at the Bible it is full of paradoxes and
'unreasonable' sayings. There is a component of faith
and of heart that leads people to God's Ideal will
beyond mere reason. This is the beginning of religious
life, the relationship between man and his heavenly
father.
At the Washington
Prayer Luncheon, the president of the Billy Graham
Association said that the thing that Billy Graham was
most proud of in his life was not any aspect of his
great worldwide ministry but his relationship with God.
Many religious teachers said the same. Reason is not the
way that leads us to God. It is time for us to rethink
the theology and see Jesus from a different point of
view.
This goes to the
question of concept and experience. How does one learn,
through experience or abstraction, or both? As humans we
can abstract great concepts and principles out of thin
air. We can use pure mathematics to learn about the
relationship between stars in the universe that we
cannot experience directly. However, all theories are
just a theory until they are proved in the physical
word.
When it comes to moral
lessons and learning about God, it is experience and not
abstraction that teaches us the real way. Experience is
the source that leads us to true knowledge. Reason
stands in the subordinate position. True love, true life
and true lineage should not be an abstraction but a
substantial reality that we experience on a daily basis.
We manifest true love not by thinking about it, but by
practicing it on a daily basis as a son, husband and
father. This is how we get the substantial knowledge of
True Love.
At various
conferences, I have told many VIPs that the model of the
family is the model for world peace. You will not find
solutions that work from discussions about economics and
politics. Those things change very quickly. However, the
fundamental relations in the family will not change. The
family is the place where the mature people emerge and
leave a legacy behind.
If those people can
create a relationship of True Love in the family it can
be used elsewhere as a model. Through the family the
individual can know the secrets of the man and woman
relationship. If you are a man, you must understand the
world of women not from a political perspective but
through the eyes of love. If we really did that would we
see all the conflicts we see today? No.
We can solve the
problems that nations and cultures have against each
other based on the model of true brotherly love learned
in the family. This is knowledge that is more powerful
and more useful than anything you might find in a book.
In the family you learn to look at other people through
the eyes of love. That is why it is the family that is
the basic building block of human society and has the
key to all the secrets, all the hopes that people have
had since the beginning of history.
Let me ask our brother
here a question. When you were a baby, did you know what
the meaning of your life was? Did you even know if you
are a boy or a girl? No, you only know what to put in
your mouth! Today you are a gentleman, but everyone was
a baby once, weren't they?
Later on you realized
that there was an expectation of being a boy. You
probably first realize you are a boy by looking at your
sexual organ. Did you ever think, 'Why I am a boy? Why
do I have something dangling here and the other half the
human race has nothing?' One day you realize that you
are different and there must be some purpose.
The moment you realize
that you are different, you realize there must be a
meaning. You don't worry about big philosophical
questions, but you do wonder about the meaning of the
sexual organs, They are the means to create true love
and lineage in the creation of ideal families. You are
smart. You are the product of all the ideals and
cultures that came before you, but also of barriers that
they bring. Patriotism in one sense can mean
ethnocentric in another. People who have a strong
cultural heritage may love their culture and language
but be unable to embrace other culture and languages. If
we shed all of that baggage, to look across the street,
nation and world through the eyes of true love, all we
should see is true love, life and lineage and no other
distinctions.
I spoke the other day
to the President of the Comoros. We will have a CARP
chapter there soon. In the future we will have a CARP
convention and symposium every year. Where will it be
held? I want your feedback because it has to better,
more effective. The guiding purpose is to make members
effective in the field as leaders. A leader takes
initiative, is responsible and accountable. A follower
does none of these things. We want to give all of you
the tools to become leaders. We have to create the
curriculum to become leaders.
I want the things that
are taught here at the CARP Conference to be applicable
in the field. That is one of the key purposes of the
Convention. The second part is that we can show to the
world and to ourselves the international identity of
CARP. It is a chance for all of us to see CARP Members
from other nations and can practice the ideas of true
love.
Is this an idea that
is only attractive to Unificationists! No. We do not
have a monopoly on the message of the family. But we
have a message that anyone can use. I speak to many VIPS
and I speak as frankly as I do to you. They realize that
all the problems come from the breakdown of the family,
and there is no true model. But we have it in our
movement and we have it in practice. Amen or No men?
Shall I teach you all now, or over many years? You say
you want it all now but if you get too much your back
may fold onto the floor!
If you remembered
nothing else about this conference remember that the
building of Gods substantial kingdom comes from the
building true families. We should see everything through
the eyes of love. True Parents were able to overcome so
much adversity. From the beginning Father was kicked out
by the Christian community and was left with no
foundations. Most men would have crumbled under that
situation. Many people lose their faith in the time of
death where it looks like that they are losing
everything. But despite the misunderstanding,
persecution and tribulation True Parents continued.
No parents would
abandon their loving child, although sometime it may
seem that way to the child. Did you have such a
situation within your life of faith? Father told me that
in his life, every time God promised him a great
blessing, God sent him to prison. Every time! That's how
Father went to prison six times in his life, the first
time when he was your age. As a human being, don't you
have similar experiences? Be like Father and never quit.
I once told Father after studying his life, "Every time
you went to prison, our movement grew." This is parallel
to how Christianity grew. Persecution was intense.
Martyrs died to share their faith. That sacrifice came
long before all of Christian theology.
At Danbury the whole
religious community came forward and told the
government, "You are wrong." The ministers who came
yesterday to welcome Father came first from the Danbury
time. The campaign manger for George Bush who organized
the conference was also there. Also the ministers who
led George Bush to be a believer were there. Another man
was there who will soon get a cabinet level position.
All the different denominations and religions were
there.
Let me tell you a
story about that meeting in Washington. After giving his
speech, the ambush media came to Robert Schuler, the
famous TV evangelist, and asked 'Do you know this event
is sponsored by Rev. Moon?' He said yes, and moreover it
is time we rethink our position on Sun Myung Moon. This
came from the mouth of the most prominent religious
leader in the USA.
After that, Father was
in his room reading Hoon Dok Hae when many VIPs came up
to greet him. There were no chairs and so they sat on
the floor. When God looks at us, does he recognize
positions like president or vice-president? God does not
see all that. He sees all humanity as his children and
he sees through the eyes of love, not through external
means. Look at each other and see how different we all
are from each other.
Some people say that
to be united we should all be the same, same hair, same
skin color, but the beauty comes because we are true
people. We are different. Some of us want to move
mountains, and others just to still the soul. Through
True Love you can see true greatness. God does not value
things like power, money and knowledge. God needs
families under his domain, true families. At the end of
the Hoon Dok Hae, a successful presidential campaign
manager came up to Father and said, 'I read Inquisition
and I want to apologize to you on behalf of my nation
for the way you were mistreated in my country' At
Danbury, people started to realize the value of Father's
word.
If Father had reacted
or argued with God he might not have gone through all
the difficulties he has until now. Yet he persevered in
obedience to God. The leaders have to know this. This is
the settlement age, the 7th millennium from the Biblical
view, the 21st Century. It is not every day that history
reaches such a critical point. This is a period to
rectify all that went wrong in the beginning. The
solution is the creation of ideal families. We came so
early in the morning because we want to align ourselves
with this message to position ourselves to be able to
build a new world order, a revolution of heart. If that
is the spirit you take, nothing can stop it!
Think of the dream we
have for liberating God, humanity and True Parents. If
we are to bring people under the dominion of God, True
Parents life and lineage is fundamental. This is our
mission, Amen. We will not go quietly into the night. We
will rant and rave and shake the world until it
recognizes that we have come at a time in history where
we will build the kingdom. We will take this message to
every campus and every street corner. Do you have that
dream? If you do, there is nothing you cannot
accomplish. Remember Father. You have been promised
blessing, but there will be times that you do not see
that. There will be difficulties instead. If we remember
Father's course, we will overcome those difficulties and
build that ideal world.
This year, I am going
to be doing another world tour. Don't think that CARP is
for young people who are isolated from the rest of
society. I know people were dying to get out of CARP,
thinking 'I'll do my 2 or 3 years, and then get out' Is
that what you think? Is that your view? To serve your
time and get out? Now there is a change, miraculously
people want to stay. CARP members of the past who are 40
or 50 want to come back but there is not enough room!
The power and
commitment is here in CARP. If the vision and ideals are
in CARP, do we just exist for ourselves, or do we want
to go out and share our blessing with the world? Invest,
forget, invest and forget is the message! Let's rock the
nations, rock their world! Amen? I want you not see CARP
just as it is today but to see the potential for
greatness. Do I look like a person who settles for
mediocrity?
What is the motto for
World CARP? There is no such thing as number two, only
number one! Why? Because God deserves Number One! Why?
Because True Parents deserve number one!
CARP is an
organization that strives for excellence. We will
liberate God and True Parents. This convention is not an
event in isolation. I have been kicking the butts of
these ajoshi, getting them to understand the vision I
have for CARP. You cannot carry the baggage of old CARP
into new CARP! CARP is going to revive the world! We
will take that spirit around the world, spreading faster
than a contagious disease. Old members have a lot of
children and worry about their families, as well as many
other things. Young people have the capacity and freedom
to focus and to propel Gods work forward at light speed.
The world of progress is not going to be made by
political and religious leaders, but on the grass roots
level in every town and city. This will be
grassroots-based, rising from the energies and
activities of young people. I want you to understand
your role in this most historic hour. Take this message
forward, take your conviction forward and change the
face of history. Amen! Amen!
Great! I finished in
an hour and a half what I thought would take two hours .
You can take the content of this message and debate with
any theologian, and you can meet any politician or
social worker and speak with confidence. You will have
knowledge and truth that is more than that of a whole
lifetime. You have been given a tool today. Go out and
use it!
