313. The Cosmos Is Our Hometown and Our Homeland

Book 3: Cheon Il Guk and Our Mission
Part 1: The Road to a World of Peace
Chapter 19: The Cosmos Is Our Hometown and Our Homeland

This speech was given by Reverend Sun Myung Moon on February 2, 2000, at the Second American Century Awards Ceremony, and then by Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon between March 7 and March 10, 2000, at Rallies for the Unification of the East, West, North, and South in Japan. 

Honored guests and beloved leaders! I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude that so many leaders from a wide variety of fields in American society and from all over the world have gathered here today to recognize the life achievements of my husband, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, and to congratulate him on his 80th birthday. I am particularly grateful to God, who has been my constant companion and protector, and to Him I offer all glory and honor.

The model of an ideal person

During the course of his life, Reverend Moon has been totally committed to the salvation of humankind centered on God's Will. Ever since he was called at age 16, he diligently explored God's Will, communicating with Jesus in Paradise and other saints and sages. As a result, he came to realize that God is not sitting on the throne of glory and honor but is a God of suffering, grief and lamentation who has been endeavoring to save His children who were thrown into hell as a result of the Fall.

Due to the Fall, humankind became spiritually ignorant. We did not understand God's existence, the origin of human life, the purpose of living on the earthly plane in the physical body, the existence of the spirit world to which we go after our life on Earth, and the preparation necessary for life after death.

Ever since he learned about the Will of God and about His heart, Reverend Moon's life has been totally committed, with a single-minded goal to accomplish God's Will, transcending time and space and forgetting about everything else. Reflecting upon the 80 years of Reverend Moon's life, filled with misunderstandings and persecution, it is just amazing that he is still here with us today. I believe that it is because, during the entire course of his life, he has not for a moment deviated from the Will of God in order to seek a comfortable life for himself. He has given approximately 10,000 public speeches throughout his ministerial career. These speeches have been published in 300 volumes, and so his life is open to view through those speeches. On this day of such great significance, I would like to share with you the most fundamental relationship between God and us by speaking on the topic “The Cosmos Is My Hometown and Fatherland.”

Originally, the cosmos is a huge house in which humans are meant to live as the master. Human life assumes a spherical structure in the context of relationships between people who relate in positions of above and below, right and left, and front and rear. These culminate in the relationships between parent and child, husband and wife, and brother and sister. God occupies the center of all these relationships. Thus He is in the position of the number 7 as the center of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, which represent the positions of above and below, right and left, and front and rear. That is why God can guide and educate us in our daily life, even though He is invisible. Despite the struggles and difficulties we face in Satan's realm due to the Fall, we recognize that the normal course of human life is to become a true spouse, after growing to be a true son or daughter of God, and become a true parent by having children. Therefore, we cannot deny the relationships of brothers and sisters, of husband and wife, and of parents and children. If we do, we are violating the principle of the universe.

Thus, we need to have a family with parents and children, husband and wife, and brothers and sisters. Being together as a family with parents, husband and wife, and children is the ideal model of human relationships. That is the reason one should fully receive love from one's parents, one's spouse, and one's children. What can perfect all of these human relationships? It is certainly not money, knowledge or power. Only true love brings balance to these relationships.

Such true love is the force of investment, the force of giving rather than receiving. It is total giving, to the degree that we ultimately reach the zero point. When we reach the zero point, we can embrace anything that comes in. The power of total giving is eternal. Therefore, the power of receiving and giving back is also eternal. Thus, an eternal balance is created in the relationship. Hence, the original reciprocal relationships based upon living for the sake of others, centered on true love, perfect the world.

If we look at heaven and earth, we see that creation exists through relationships. The source of the energy that pulls the world of space can eternally define a central point between the energy of giving and the energy of returning. There God exists in the position of a lucky number seven, keeping the balance of the entire universe. Heavenly fortune develops in the process of receiving this and returning it. Within it, love flows, air flows, water flows and light flows. Then, after going around and around, everything flows back to its original balance and form.

God is the Father of humankind

Ladies and gentlemen: What makes a good person? We can come up with various answers to that question, but one that must be included is that a good person is one who returns more than he or she has given. For this reason, no parents wish that their children be inferior to them. On the contrary, they desire that their children be superior to them. Likewise, a husband desires that his wife be better than he is, and vice versa. Furthermore, an elder brother desires that his younger brother be better than he is, and vice versa.

Thus, parents wish to return something greater than that which they have received. Both spouses wish for this. Siblings wish for this. All creation wishes for this. Ultimately the universe wishes for this. Moreover, only those who believe with broad vision and heart that the cosmos is their hometown and their fatherland will be welcomed by the cosmos. That is, one can come to the conclusion that only when one is welcomed first by the individual, then by the family, the nation, the world, and finally by the cosmos, can one become God's divine son or daughter.

Then, where would you like to live? I believe that you would like to live in your hometown. Your hometown refers to the planet Earth in the cosmos, and your fatherland refers to God's dwelling place. Therefore, the ancestor of our fatherland is ultimately God. The place where parents, spouses, children, and siblings who have no relationship to the Fall live together is our hometown. That is the original planet Earth, where people of black, white, and yellow skin live together in harmony.

Whose children are we? We all originated from the same Parent. He is the Father of all humanity, who is with us wherever we go, whatever direction we take, whether north, south, east or west. That is God, the Parent of all humanity.

For example, it is wrong to think that the owner of America are the people of white, black, or yellow skin. The owner of America is God. The same is true for Korea. The only reason our skin colors differ is the fact that climate and environment may require a protective color, depending on the region where we live. That is why white people occupy the regions with heavy snow. Conversely, there are many black people in places that have strong sunlight, such as Africa.

Nevertheless, all people have the same bone structure and the same blood color. Therefore, discrimination is not permissible.

That is the reason the Unification Church has been conducting so many large-scale international, cross-cultural marriage Blessings. We are striving to promote the equality of all races. People of all races and colors marry one another, following the laws of nature and the Principle. Marriage between white and black is like the North Pole and the South Pole coming together. And when Asians and Africans marry, their descendants will benefit by inheriting and combining the strengths of each race.

The most important things in the human world

There is no conflict where love exists. Although you come from different hometowns and nations, you cannot help but share the same true hometown and fatherland centered on love, because all creation desires to go to the central point of creation. The most important matters in the human world are love, life and lineage.

Life is created through love, and the true lineage is established. If the true lineage is not established, true love will not arise. Therefore, love that is not connected to true life is false, and true life is seeded through the relationship of true love and true lineage. Thus, the path to the Kingdom of Heaven can be opened only through true love, true life, and true lineage. God's ideal of creation is to bequeath to us true love, true life and true lineage, by having us become true persons.

Why do we marry? It is to connect the true tradition to the past, the present, and the future. Prior to the Fall, Adam and Eve could directly and freely relate to God, but after the Fall, they could not. And their children, Cain and Abel, could not receive God's lineage, only Satan's. That is why Jesus said, in John 3:3, "Unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of Heaven.”

God is suffering and grieving tremendously, looking at today's world in which free sex and homosexuality are prevalent. God's situation is that He nevertheless must love the children of Satan, His enemy, more than He loves His own children. No matter how difficult, God must give and give and give everything that He has in order to restore His lost sons and daughters. That is the context of God's providence of salvation.

A stronger force of life must manifest in the world in order to revive fallen lives. God is unbelievably pitiful, tormented by the misery of each baby who is brought into this world through the false seed. Such children have multiplied into the billions during the course of history. Humans are to go through the three stages of life: in the womb, on earth, and in the spirit world. These correspond to the age of water, the age of air, and the age of love.

The planet Earth on which we live in the physical body is like the mother's womb. As a growing fetus receives its nutrition in the womb, we grow by eating food from the created world. That is why we should love the Earth as a mother. In the spirit world light is shining like the sun, day and night. Out in the solar system, there is no night, only day. It is the same in the spirit world. The light of love in the spirit world does not change. Love does not change whether it is day or night, at the North Pole or the South Pole. The spirit world is the world of love. And the spirit world is like a storehouse in which the fruits of the hard work we do through our four seasons on earth are stored.

The Messiah comes as the True Parents of humankind

During the course of God's providence of restoration, Jesus was the only one born with a life connected to God's direct lineage. Accordingly, no one among fallen humanity has ever entered God's realm of direct dominion. That is why God has been living a lonely, lonely life, all alone. Hence, we are sad, creation is sad, and our human world is sad. Therefore, God has been looking for one trustworthy man who can purify the fallen lineage of humanity and connect it to true life. That man is the Messiah, who can bring liberation to all humankind by restoring the true love of God.

Beginning at the time of Adam and Eve, the providence of the Old Testament Age was a historical path leading the chosen people to receive Jesus as the Messiah. God's Will was to have the chosen people, the Israelites whom He had prepared for a long time, receive the Messiah and bring all humankind back to Him through a process of engrafting. However, due to the faithlessness of the people of Israel, Jesus gave his life for us on the cross, enabling God's providence to reach its conclusion at the time of the Second Advent.

Accordingly, the Lord of the Second Advent should restore the haven of true love in the position of the True Parents and fulfill God's providence for the salvation of humankind by the Parents of heaven and earth. The Messiah's starting point is to become a son and daughter of filial piety greater than Adam and Eve, who would have established a true family had they not fallen, by serving and attending God better and more gloriously than Adam and Eve did.

The Messiah is the master who should start everything anew in the position of the father centered on true love and connect the lineage of true love through true life. Accordingly, the Messiah should come as the True Parents of all humankind.

The coming Messiah should deny the love of the satanic fallen world and fallen human ways and work to establish perfected individuals, families, societies, nations and a perfected world and cosmos connected to the true love of God. We should understand that the only way to inherit a new lineage from God is through the marriage Blessing given by True Parents. The only way is through true love. In this way, we can liberate hell, the realm of Satan.

All people should be restored to the position of God's sons and daughters. In other words, we should pass through eight stages from the age of the womb through the ages of infancy, brother or sister, betrothal and marriage as husband and wife, parents, grandparents and finally the age of king and queen. Hence, we should understand that we were born with the purpose of becoming the great masters of heaven and earth by becoming princes and princesses as God's children.

The law of Heaven and the law of Satan

Ladies and gentlemen: What this means is that man was originally to meet a woman as his wife, and woman to meet a man as her husband. They were to inherit everything in Heaven as a prince and princess and become a king and queen. Through an eight-stage process of restoration, even the dungeons of hell are restored when unity is brought between the Heavenly Kingdom and those in hell. However, this can be achieved only through the marriage Blessing of the True Parents, who are coming as the Messiah. Therefore, blessed couples should become "plus couples,” who are making a contribution for the sake of others in the world.

As such, in order to become totally new people, they should practice absolute faith, absolute love, and absolute obedience. Reverend Moon also has practiced this throughout his life.

At the time of creation, God created the universe with absolute faith. God made us as His partners in love. Absolute obedience means that one invests everything, including oneself totally and completely. And one totally forgets about the investment that he or she made and then invests all over again. Such a process continues until he or she reaches the zero point, without any concept of what is his or her own. Heavenly Parent walked such a path, and the Parents of Heaven and Earth have walked such a path.

Thus, the one who invests and forgets what he has invested becomes a central person, and the one who lives for the sake of others becomes a central person. Even in a family in which ten people live together, including a grandmother and grandfather, the central person will be the one who is living most for the sake of others. The one who invests everything for the sake of others and forgets about it, repeating the same effort over and over again, will become the central person, a standard-bearer for the sake of the whole, and the greatest among all people of filial piety. The same is true in relation to patriotism in the nation. The more one invests and forgets about one's investment, the more one can rise as a patriot, a saint, and a divine son or daughter of God. Since the beginning of human history, God has been living more for us than anyone else has in this world. He has continuously invested Himself and forgotten about His investment. And because He will continue to do this for eternity, He will continue to be the King of all kings of living for others, and our ultimate Ancestor.

The reason the Unification Church that Reverend Moon has founded and led could become a worldwide religious group in such a short time is because he personally lived a life based on this principle. When I reflect upon his life, totally committed for the sake of humankind, I can testify that it truly has been a path of receiving opposition from the billions of evil satanic forces in both the invisible and visible worlds, from numerous religious leaders, and from many governments. Yet because he has been living for their sake, he came to be their center. As he lived for those who opposed him, who did not understand him, and invested himself for their children and lived for the sake of governments that persecuted him, they came to bow their heads before him.

From this, we can learn God's strategy in contrast to that of Satan. God's strategy requires taking the blow and initial loss, then regaining everything in the end, but Satan's is to strike first but then he will lose in the end. Based on such a principle, my husband and I have blessed many tens of thousands of young couples from the six continents in large-scale Marriage Blessing Ceremonies as a means to save the people of the five races of humankind and establish one world under one God.

When the West and the East come together as one, conflicts will disappear. For example, when an American and a German marry each other and become a husband and a wife, those two enemy nations become one. Furthermore, I gave the Blessing even to people in the spirit world. In order for the Kingdom of Heaven to be realized on earth, denizens of the spirit world also should be liberated, and only True Parents on the earth can do that.

As false parents, the first human ancestors, Adam and Eve, sowed sinful seeds. The Messiah should liberate humankind, both on earth and in the spirit world, by coming as the True Parents. God alone cannot untangle the problems wrought by wrongful lineage. If God could have done it, He would have done it long ago. He would not even have allowed the Fall to occur in the first place. However, as the God of Principle, God cannot interfere with the human portion of responsibility. Accordingly, the returning Messiah who comes as the True Parents should give rebirth to humankind, whose lineage was defiled by the original sin.

What is God's Kingdom?

When viewed from this perspective, the large-scale Marriage Blessing Ceremonies are not simply to bring young men and women together as husband and wife. In fact, they are holy ceremonies in which you are reborn as God's true children by receiving the original seed of life from God. According to the principle of indemnity, the age of liberation of the spirit world and the age of liberation of earth can come through the ages of individual indemnity, family indemnity, tribal indemnity, national indemnity, worldwide indemnity and universal indemnity.

The world is divided into tens of thousands of people. Relationships between parents and children, husband and wife, and brothers and sisters have been broken. Even the religious world has been divided into the four great cultural spheres of Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Confucianism. However, we now have entered the great age of unification by entering the Age of the Realm of the Fourth Adam, passing through the Old Testament Age, the New Testament Age and even the Completed Testament Age, which is the age of completion. Thus, we now have entered the age of the Kingdom of Heaven. And in accordance with the progress of God's providence, passing the ages of the first Adam, second Adam and third Adam centered on the ideal of the Second Advent, we have entered the Age of the fourth Adam, the age of God's direct dominion.

In other words, no longer are we living in the age of nationalism or even in the age of globalism. These already have passed. We now are living in the age in which the universe is to be one with one God. Moreover, by becoming the hometown of blessed families, the planet Earth will become one with the spirit world. Then will come the Kingdom of Heaven on earth and in the spirit world.

Honorable and distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen! With the arrival of the new millennium at midnight on New Year's Eve, my husband proclaimed a message with a new motto for this year, "The Cosmic Expansion of True Love Is the Perfection of the New Millennial Kingdom of God.” The cosmic expansion of true love means to remake heaven and earth as the house of true love. In other words, the universe is the house of the Heavenly Kingdom. And as we receive the new millennium, the house built with true love is to be the cornerstone upon which the Kingdom of Heaven can be built throughout the world.

The nation is the house of love that families can enter. The world is the house of love that nations can enter, and the cosmos is the house of love that the world can enter. The family of true love becomes a huge house of Heaven, the starting point and core of the cosmos. This means that the husband is the house of his wife's true love and the wife is the house of her husband's true love. Parents are the house of their children's true love, and children are the house of their parents' true love.

Moreover, the nation of true love is the resting-place of the cosmos, and God's nation is where true freedom, true love and true life can dwell for eternity. We have been promoting true family values with the theme "The Realization of the Kingdom of Heaven through Ideal Families.” This is because the center of the realm in which heaven and earth can rest is the family in which a true man and woman in whom God can dwell are brought into union. Accordingly, we should now create on earth the Garden of Eden mentioned in the Bible.

This new millennium is an era in which to complete the 6,000-year history of the providence of salvation to rescue humanity and build the original Heavenly Kingdom centered on the ideal of creation. It is an era in which the promises of the Old and New Testaments are to be fulfilled. The direct dominion of the living God is to begin through restoring the right of the elder son, the right of the parents, and the right of the king, opening a new era of God's transcendence, immanence, abundance and sovereignty.

As was mentioned above, earth is the hometown of all humankind and the spirit world is the eternal fatherland where all humanity will eventually arrive. The time finally has come for the global family ideal to be realized on earth, centered on the Heavenly Parent, moving us beyond "one nation under God'' to "one cosmos under God.” Therefore, I request first that you understand that the fundamental relationship between God and humankind is that of parent and child. On that foundation, I ask you to take an active role in turning the cosmos, that is, heaven and earth, or the spirit world and physical world, into our hometown and fatherland.

Once again I thank all of you who attended this event. I would like to conclude by expressing my desire that the people of the world, of all colors and races, will live as true brothers and sisters and build a new millennial kingdom of peace, freedom and righteousness.

May God's blessing be with you and your nations! Thank you very much.