Cham Bumo Gyeong: Episode 280

Cham Bumo Gyeong
Book 10: Preparing the Ideal Environment Centering on the Providence of the Ocean and Latin America
Chapter 2: The Ocean Providence and Development of Marine Resources
Section 2: The United States, Seafood enterprises
Section 3: The Spirituality of Fishing, Paragraph 04

Seafood enterprises  

True Parents trained members and built Ocean Churches in 30 locations in the United States where there were Coast Guard stations. These were preparations to establish a seafood business and the ocean tourism industry for fishing enthusiasts in America. Alongside their efforts to expand Saeilo Machinery into a nationwide network, True Parents worked to build a global foundation for marketing fish. As part of this ocean providence, they built a shipyard and a factory for processing seafood, and they trained young people in sales. True Parents began creating the business structure that would become International Oceanic Enterprises, one of the leading seafood businesses in the United States. It supplies customers with the freshest seafood, purchasing and processing fish from the five oceans, transporting them, and supplying them to consumers throughout America.

30  You are now working under the banner of a new church organization called Ocean Church. We have bases at locations where there are also US Coast Guard stations. When I dispatch you to these locations, if you are to bring renewal in those places through fishing, you will have to become an innovator in everything. A person who sits back and just follows what others are doing cannot spearhead something new. Only a person who has the audacity to block someone's path and say, "Listen to me!" can do it. I want you to start something new in society, and I have to train you as people who can do that.

31   I created something that did not exist in the US by sending out people to pioneer Ocean Church. I created Ocean Churches in 30 of the most important seacoast locations in America. We can pursue the seafood business, but we can also enter the charter-boat fishing business. This is the foundation for the global recreational fishing business I will create in the future. I trained people and built Ocean Church as an enterprise that gives tours to people who enjoy fishing as a hobby.

32   I chose two types of businesses to build an economic foundation in America. One is Saeilo Machinery, which I am trying to build into a nationwide business network. The other is the seafood business, which I am expanding to serve the global market. My challenge is to make them both successful. While the machinery industry is already at the center of Western civilization, the seafood business has not yet had a champion who has made it popular in the West. Yet to be in line with the Principle, I placed these two businesses in a subject partner-object partner relationship. This is the reason I am investing to develop both Saeilo and the seafood business, even though they are losing money. We must keep investing to secure their foundations, even if it means that the church must make sacrifices

33   Our Good Go boats are well-known for tuna fishing on the East Coast of the United States, but they are also talked about in South America. I am putting you through this training to make you agents who can develop the seafood business. It cannot be done without your efforts. I myself went on the boats day and night and taught many young people like you. In the very beginning, when I told them to go on the boats they would not listen to me and ran away. Yet whenever I had time, I talked to them about it over the course of four or five years. Finally, by the time seven years had gone by, even women were ready to volunteer to become captains. I created such an atmosphere.

While doing this I built a shipyard and a seafood processing factory and trained people to sell our products. I trained them to sell products out of a truck. For the first year they learned to make nets, handle boats and catch fish, and then I had them sell the fish. When the amount of fish we caught became too much to sell locally, I opened a factory and we began processing our fish. We even started seafood restaurants. Through these efforts, I built the foundation of our seafood business

34   I went to Barrytown and caught carp by the thousands. When we drained water from the pond, we found six large turtles. We released those turtles into the Hudson River. We also released the first batch of carp we caught. Subsequently when I caught carp, I said to them, "You were born through love, and it is the way of nature to die for love. Do you prefer to live for the people you love or die for them? If you die, in a sense you are being sacrificed. Yet I believe you will become the flesh and energy of people who will develop America's seafood business in the future. It is through you that the people of the Unification Church will be able to show greater loyalty to God and greater love for people. You were born as fish, but I give you my love so you can become the flesh of the people who among all Americans I consider my children in heart. How can you reject this? Dear carp, don't you think you should become the flesh and blood of my beloved children and the people of America?" 

35   We formed a global business network that can quickly supply favorite fish from the five oceans of the world to Africans, South Americans, Asians—customers from all over the world. This is how we came to have a formidable influence in the US market. For example, when an African goes to a restaurant and orders fish, he asks for a particular fish that he used to eat in the land of his birth because that is the fish that suits his taste. The customer will leave if the restaurant does not have that fish. This is why I say we should start an advertising campaign with the slogan, "We supply restaurants with fish from all five oceans." Americans usually work eight hours a day. Some restaurants close after 5:00 in the afternoon, but we keep our restaurants open late. Also, if a restaurant affiliated with us runs out of a certain product, we can supply it from one of our other restaurants. Hence, no one can compete with us. This is why I am recognized in the seafood business world.

36   International Oceanic Enterprises (IOE) is becoming a company that any businessman dealing with seafood products in America will have to pay attention to as competition. We are not only catching fish now; we have entered the transportation business as well. We have already reached the level where we have direct routes from Boston and Hawaii to markets in Tokyo, and our fishing boats go to Europe and South America. There are many nations in the world today, but the issue is the United States. The US is the largest market in the world when it comes to importing and exporting goods; therefore, we must develop business connections with America. Ships travel from other countries to America, unload their goods and return empty. We are building a foundation in organization and human resources whereby hundreds of our people will be waiting at the ports ready to load our goods onto their ships. When the nations of the world find out that our business is transporting seafood with a spirit of serving humanity, they will come to support us.

Section 3. The Spirituality of Fishing

Fishing as an act of devotion  

For 85 days beginning on April 24, 2004, True Father offered a special condition while fishing day and night at the reservoir near Yeosu. Fishing was one way he expressed his single-minded dedication to save fallen humankind. True Father did not fish for the sake of fishing, but to make conditions of devotion for God's providence. As he fished, True Father focused his mind and meditated, contemplating how to fulfill God's Will. He cultivated his mind-body unity, communicated with God and engaged in deep conversations with Him, all the while keeping in contact with the spirit world. In addition, he taught the members who were with him his fishing techniques, acquired from his vast experience and study.

1   I do not fish for the sake of catching fish. I do it as an act of devotion, so that daylight shines on my path. I have to deal with global matters all by myself. I have no one in the outside world with whom to discuss them. When I make conditions of devotion, I totally focus my mind and heart. The results are formidable. People who offer their utmost devotion and make the greatest efforts can reach the summit.

2   The spirit world helps you only when you do things that other people in the world are unable to do. You have to be different. Heaven cannot work through you if you are the same as the people in Satan's world. God can work through you only when you are different from them. Do you think I am making conditions for no reason? I am determined to set a higher standard than anyone else who goes to the ocean or crosses the land or climbs tall mountains. That is how I reach the level where God can cooperate with me. In order not to lose my resolve to meet that standard, I always carry a fishing pole with me. My ultimate goal is not the fishing itself.

3   When I go out to fish in the ocean, I am actually fishing the world. It is for this purpose that I fish; it is a condition of devotion. You too have to learn to love the ocean. The fastest way to focus your mind is by fishing. I can say this from my own experience. After I cast my fishing line, I gaze at the summit of a mountain and think, "How long did that mountaintop wait for the day when it could align with a person who offers devotion in the presence of heaven? Now is that time. I am focusing my spirit while moving this fishing rod in order to open a clear path for the salvation of all people. By aligning with me, you too can be liberated." I think about this while relating to all of creation.

While focusing my resolve, I say to the seagulls flying by, "You need to cooperate with my standard, which is to be aligned with God and His desire to complete the providential Will. I am to be totally focused and will never allow myself to be scattered. You need to become my object partners and act as the representatives of all things of creation as I offer these conditions of devotion." It does not matter whether it is raining or snowing. I fish even when gale winds are raging and lightning is striking around me. Amid my devotion I forget about that. Such is the life I am leading.

I still remember when I went out from Gloucester on the New Hope and offered conditions for the success of the Washington Monument Rally. I sat on the upper deck of the New Hope and fished for 21 days. I could not get even one fish to bite, yet I remained single-minded. I did not allow my own thoughts to intrude. It was a time when everything was up in the air. We were in a dire situation. Yet with God's help, we witnessed a miracle.

4   Sitting by myself on the boat in the middle of the ocean, there are times when I talk to myself. My mind listens to what I am saying. Without realizing it, I murmur to myself. As I listen to what I am saying, I realize it is a prophecy. I find myself murmuring about things that will happen today and tomorrow. On the boat I utter words of prophecy, words of revelation. When I am on the boat on the ocean, invariably my mind and body become friends. When I am on the boat there is just me, the boat, and the horizon. There is only my mind and body. Where is the subject partner? If I find the 90-degree angle, I am immediately connected to God because that is what God wants as well. Once my mind and body are united, I am drawn to the place where I can connect directly with the spirit world. This happens when I am on the boat.

God only wants to visit us on earth when we are in the state of mind-body unity. That is where God begins to work. In the state of mind-body unity, we can begin to speak words of revelation. This can happen wherever we are, but I think I reach this state faster when I am totally focused on fishing than when I am at home praying.