Hyo Jin Moon

 

Awe & www.definingmoment.tv

 

Tarrytown, New York

September 10, 2006

Edited Transcript by Joe Kinney

 

Good morning.

Please sit down.  Do you feel awe when you see parents? (Some in the audience respond "Yes")  When do you feel awe?  Some young people are in awe if they are face-to-face with movie stars or something, a rich man, Bill Gates or somebody.

Let's say even if you walk into a palace. Let's say you live in a palace and you walk into your palace for the first time and your awed by the magnitude, everything to the extreme, great halls, great dining halls, great gathering halls, everything great great grand grand magnificent and you're awed by it because of that presence, that ambiance everything grand.  But let's say you live in it. How long do you think that awe will last? ...

Let's look at the opposite side. Let's say that you go to prison. You're awed by that uncertainty, that fear. But let's say that you have to live there and you have to survive in that opposite environment of living in a palace, by living in a hell hole for however long that you're sentenced. And what you have to face initially is that awe, that awe of uncertainty and when you transcend that, when in time what happens is just livelihood.

From that moment what's important is what is important to you in life itself.  So for instance, if we believe in religion and in your case you believe in True Parents.  You know sometimes I feel awed by it. Even though they're my folks I don't know them as much as they know themselves.

So in that sense I am awed by them (True Parents). Of course through more interaction, if we can actually live together like ordinary folks, I'm sure through livelihood we would get to appreciate each other in life and understand the basic human experience that we all go through in an ordinary setting.

But in some kind of extraordinary situation the awe can sometimes really get you. And if you get addicted to that kind of stuff it can really mess you up whether you're living in a palace or living in a jail somewhere in a hell hole what ever it might be.

So, in essence, in order for us to understand what's important in life its not just "boy I'm just trying to have fun". Of course that's important to young people because they want to experience life to the fullest.  It is part of human maturation that you go through many extreme experiences so that you can understand your potential range. A lot of young people take risks while they're young and some people never grow out of it, and that's a problem.

But beyond the obvious process of trying to discover yourself through experimentation because you have to; you will. Because in the end that's what you take to the grave till your dying day, the experiences that actually molded you and gave you some kind of enlightenment as to how one should live and how one should control their lives through living with other people because you don't want to live alone.

Many times you do not just take extreme experiences to understand your boundaries but you do also take other extreme measures to understand how to live as a human being in a gregarious setting.  That social experience some times will take you to push yourself a bit. Why? Because you need to understand your boundaries, your limitations and you do take chances at times. Some people mess up and break the law. There are obviously consequences to every individual action.

Even when we think about True Parents, Parents to me doesn't just symbolize parents and the ancestry of humankind the restoration version of it, but it's also the embodiment or symbolification of law, right?  The American government has three branches executive, legislative and judicial. It (My view of True Parents as the incarnation of law) embodies pretty much that aspect of it.

So when you talk about Parents as that kind of symbolic figure, that is what a King is and the reason that you don't trust a king is that historically kings have abused their powers. Because that's what it (True Parents) represents, technically, theoretically, in every aspect. I doesn't matter what kind of historical tribe that you come from, what kind of heritage background that you have, you pretty much follow that route.

And many times you don't trust those kinds of circumstances because of historical experience. Then we don't trust.  But however with True Parents, when they talk about individual responsibility, to me that is the way to be free from judgment. If you're individually responsible then you're free from judgment from God, from history and from posterity. That's freedom.  We're not talking about freedom in the sense that there is no law, no boundaries, then obviously that is nihilism, anarchy.

Responsibility is freedom. That equalizes things. And even if you fail, in God everybody has the opportunity to be God's children, to feel God's love. Why? Because even if you fail your responsibility, there is a course. You pay your consequences and indemnity, and restoration through indemnity can be restored.

That is the greatest freedom, is a sense. We can all achieve that end indeed. Sometime when you are going through paying the consequences this is very difficult, because you have to live through it. It's not somebody else, it's you. You have to live through that stuff and that's nasty. Sometimes its painful, sometimes it's hopeless, helpless, powerless, and it's bad.

Your whole perspective of life changes sometimes when you're going through some kind of serious situation, paying those consequences. It's bad, nasty, but it will end sometime, it won't go on forever. That's about it. That's what you have to walk through. You try to tough it out and try to reason with yourself "there is a purpose for this and I accept it. I know this will end one day. It will not last forever"

In that sense when we're awed by things in life whether it is positive or minus, it has to do with life itself. We have to understand the basic premise of life and see the value in it. If we can appreciate that value of the plus or minus experiences that you might have. If you can try to understand the essence of why they exist, and how they affect you and why they should be relevant to you and you accept it, you have taken one step closer to understanding and mastering your life.  Ultimately you can help people, other people, if you can help yourself.

Yesterday some second generation came and I showed them some video because they were wondering about Archbishop Milingo working on the issue of married priests.  Actually these are productions from a company that I created several years back, and since last year we have been working on this kind of partial format stuff.

I was going to report to you when we had over one hundred interviews, but now we have a little over twenty interviews on these kind of topics in that same spirit. They're inspiring and I want to use them.  You can also have access to them at http://www.definingmoment.tv because it will benefit you.

The plan is to create shows like these. The host is Bret Moss. He's been around for a long time. If we have more of these we can put them together and make an internet broadcasting company. It's a cheaper version of cable TV, but you have to start somewhere. It can be done; it can be done.

The reason that we want to pursue this is because it's for the purpose of immunization, detoxification and straightforward education. A lot of people still to this day have a kind of (negative) notion about the Unification Church "Moonies" that they still hold on to that was influenced by broadcasters in the beginning of our ministry in the early seventies.

We still hold that stigma, and that is something that we need to detoxify. We need to provide our people with information. People aren't out there just to be our enemies. We can bridge the gap through this kind of understanding, and build on the similarities that we have with others to create a positive outcome. We can grow into something more constructive. Because it is doable when you do things in a doable way.

You can always attack. There are times when you have to attack. Most likely you defend yourself first. We should always try (to educate people) and if it works, that's great isn't it? That's the way it should be. I think it can be done that way. Because this is just about detoxifying people's hearts and strengthening people's minds, sharing and educating about what is right and wrong.

There are some crazy people that we may have to fight, but in general, in essence living in civility I think we can do it through education. Basically that's the first step we can take on the twenty first century platform. The fastest way we can achieve this is through the field of multimedia. That's why I've always been adamantly pushing that kind of area.

We have several other production companies because we have to be self-sufficient. Some things are non-profit, just for education, others produce income. You can't do anything without money. If we have more money the quality will be better. This is low budget, but the content is okay. We try the best we can and we'll do other stuff to support the growing community that we have.

The executive producer of Definingmoment.tv is Ryuichi Fujita, he is in the back. Please raise your hand. These projects will give us more tools to communicate better.  This is our strength. You need to network. The more networking you have even in your personal things this networking will improve your personal livelihood.

I don't know how because I don't know your talents or what you do for a living but it can help you in many many ways. Of course I'm not asking you to be a self centered...

(Hyo-Jin-nim caught him self before he finished the sentence with a harsh word and started laughing. Many of the audience understood and there was general laughter)

I'm trying to change … anyway you know what I mean. (Laughter)

Check it out (DefiningMoment.tv) and help yourself with it. I'm sure that it will be helpful to you. And we are going to produce more and more content and add it to the site. The more the better.  Anyway we're trying.

Take care of your self.

See you next week.