Cham Bumo Gyeong: Episode 183

Cham Bumo Gyeong
Book 7: True Parents’ Course of Suffering and Victory
Chapter 1: Suffering and Victory during the Japanese Occupation and in Communist North Korea
Section 4: Victory of Love, Paragraph 21-28

21  We were hungry from right after breakfast until noon. You cannot imagine how hungry we were. Our tongues were worn out and our breath smelled bad. In those circumstances I too was hungry, but to comfort my fellow inmates I wove lengthy stories and shared them. Because I did that, before one month had passed they started to bring me food they had received from their visitors, saying, "Teacher, please take this and do whatever you want with it." Thus I experienced something amazing, even awe-inspiring. 

The Principle is truly simple: If we invest completely with love to live for the sake of others, whatever we give is bound to return. This is the starting point of the heavenly law. Therefore, as long as we move forward with this principle, no one can destroy us. When we act upon this principle, the output is greater than the input. The output of those days is the group of people I see in front of me today. You have emerged, with a pledge that combines resolute determination and tears, to willingly advance along the path of death on my behalf. When I see you, I know that the path that I have trod is surely the path of truth.

22  There is one experience during my prison life that I cannot forget. It happened on my birthday. Prison is usually filled with dreariness. Still, there was an inmate from Pyongyang who, I do not know how I learned that it was my birthday, and on the morning of my birthday he left me a bag of powdered grain that he had been eating from. It is something I can never forget in all my life. I still think that I must find a way to pay him back, even thousands of times over. 

I really hate being indebted to anyone. When I am in debt to someone, I cannot rest until I repay it. I do not believe that I came into the world to be indebted to others. I rather think that I came to become a creditor. So once I start to do something, I cannot be in last place, a place that would incur debt.

23  In Hungnam Prison there were some people who followed me. Whenever they had something special to eat, like powder made of mixed grains, they would bring it to me. They would wrap it in paper and hide it inside their smelly pants in order to bring it to me and share it with me. If they had been caught by the guards, they would have been in trouble. Sharing that food impressed me more than any deluxe banquet. After all these years of life, it remains in my memory. Sharing and eating that grain powder, all my senses were totally intermingled and melted together. You need to have that kind of experience before you go to the spirit world. It is such a blessing. You must not live for the sake of yourself but for the sake of the whole.

24  As an inmate in Hungnam Prison in North Korea, I fought on the front lines to love a wide variety of people, not only my fellow inmates, but also the communist prison guards. Because of that, I experienced that some guards made efforts to protect me in prison. If they saw me doing something against the prison rules they covered for me, even though they ran the risk of losing their own lives. 

The system inside the prison intensified the atrocities of communism, yet even in that world I found ways to protect myself. The one and only path was the path of loving and sacrificing. It was in prison that I discovered this truth.

There was a former leader of the Communist Party in the prison. When his family sent him powdered grain, he mixed it with water and made balls like rice cakes. Hiding them in his crotch, he walked the four kilometers to the fertilizer factory. If they fell out while he was walking, what he was doing would be discovered and he would get into a lot of trouble. He could even lose his life. Despite this he brought the food, solely for the purpose of sharing that food with me. 

Hiding them deep inside his pants, he worked, drenched in sweat, until lunch time. Of course the grain cakes absorbed his sweat and smell, even though he had wrapped them with newspapers. Could I refuse to eat them and throw them away? At the moment when he shared them with me, it was like an explosion of love, big enough to buy even the entire universe. It was like the eruption of an active volcano. I saw clearly with my own eyes that in that worst place, a heavenly comrade had emerged in front of me. I again realized that the only thing that can digest this world is the path of love.

Disciples in prison

True Father victoriously overcame the ordeals of prison life. In prison he was not allowed to witness directly, but still he found more than 12 disciples. This was possible with the guidance and cooperation of the spirit world through such things as dreams and revelations. By gaining 12 disciples, True Father established the condition of indemnity to restore the 12 disciples who betrayed Jesus. In this way, he made the foundation for a new beginning as the Lord at the Second Advent.

25  In prison, there were some inmates who followed me. If I had asked them to escape the prison with me, they would have followed me out at the risk of their lives. I had to have inmates who would follow me in that environment of death in order to restore the 12 disciples that had deserted Jesus when he was hung on the cross. To restore them I had to find inmates who would naturally submit to me. I did not have to speak to them, because the spirit world already was mobilized to witness to them. 

My number in prison was 596. This number, in a way, sounds like "wronged." One inmate had a dream in which he saw his ancestor, who commanded him, "Do not eat the powder you received, not even one spoonful. Give it to Mr. Moon." So this inmate plodded over to my cell holding the sack of powder, and asked, "Is number 596 here? Who is he?" In such ways the spirit world mobilized to feed me.

After I left the prison, I traveled to Pyongyang and then journeyed to the South. At that time four people followed me. This was the restoration of the four-position foundation. Those four people whom I came out with were my church. In this way, providential history cannot deviate from the fundamental rule of restoration.

26  I wished God's compassion even upon extremely wicked prisoners who were sentenced to death. On the cross Jesus said to the thief on the right, "You will be with me in paradise." Likewise, throughout my life I have fought to give new hope and encouragement to people whose lives were filled with tearful stories. I did this even in prison. I comforted them and lived for their sakes to such a degree that after I left the prison they missed me, shedding more tears than they shed when their parents passed away. I have lived this way because I understood that without doing that, I could not fulfill my responsibility for the mission of restoration. That is why whenever I left a prison, I would see many people clinging to me and weeping. Because I lived my life this way, when I left Hungnam Prison for the South, four people followed me, leaving their parents and children behind.

27  I had more than 12 followers who lived in other cells. Every morning when the guards ordered the prisoners to come out of their cells, we had 15 minutes to line up. During that time many prisoners went to the latrine, but when it became too crowded we had to wait in our cells. Since the guards watched us closely, my followers in other cells could not come to where I was. We could not pass over the boundary line. 

For those followers, to see me and greet me was the most honorable moment of the day. It was the moment they received life. Therefore, they would even crawl from their cells to come to see me, hoping not to be seen by the guards. If they were caught, the guards would beat them with the butts of their rifles. They would be accused of planning to escape and put in solitary confinement for one to three weeks. If they were caught three times, they would be punished more severely. The problem could become more complicated.

Nevertheless, they risked it anyway, considering that to see and greet me that day was a great honor. When they had something to eat, they would ignore their hunger and feel honored to share it with me. You have to understand such relationships of heart. They are a hidden tradition in the historical background of our church, and will remain theirs forever.

28  The reason I suffered harsh oppression and mistreatment in Hungnam Prison under the communist regime was because heaven mandated that I must carry out substantial restoration. Hence, even in front of Satan's guns and swords, heaven sent me people who were prepared, who by following me would enable the prison gates to open so that I could leave. 

Even though I did not say a word to them directly, spirits in the spirit world witnessed to some inmates and brought them to follow me. I kept silent, but their ancestors directly appeared to their descendants in prison and witnessed to them. In this way, I was able to find and restore in prison more disciples than the 12 disciples who abandoned Jesus and fled when he was on the cross.

Before leaving to work every morning, my followers tried to meet me despite the strict prison security. Amid the din and commotion of people going outside to go to work, the first thing they wanted to do was to come and greet me, the man whom the spirit world had guided them to follow. Even if they had to crawl, even with the guards standing there with their guns, they came. God worked like that. This is how in prison I established the condition of indemnity to restore the four-position foundation.