Cham Bumo Gyeong: Episode 43

Cham Bumo Gyeong
Book 2: The Birth of True Parents
Chapter 3: True Father’s Childhood and Youth
Section 3: School Days, Paragraph 15-24

15  In the future, anyone who wants to know the history of the Unification Church will have to visit Heukseok-dong, this place where I lived as a young man. One day Heukseok-dong, which means blackstone neighborhood, will be transformed into Baekseok-dong, whitestone neighborhood. This pitch-dark valley where I lived long ago must become the base of a tradition that shines like sunlight to all the people of the world. Nodeul Riverside Park used to be there too, but I cannot find any traces of it now. Although today I cannot meet the people whom I knew when I lived in Heukseok-dong, they must have produced many descendants who still live there. I would be so overwhelmed to meet those people, whose parents or grandparents knew me in those days! I imagine what it would be like if that happened; we could resurrect the history of that time. We would talk about that history and recall those past relationships, and they would blossom anew in this era.

16  When I was living in Heukseok-dong I had an experience that I still cannot forget. On the road to Sangdo-dong there was a Japanese-style house with flowers growing next to a forest of pine trees. Behind that house was a rice field, and beyond that there was a village. In that village was a home that I used to visit when I was doing pioneer evangelizing.

One day I saw a sick stranger lying on that road. I had never met him before. It must have been around the end of March, since the new semester had just started, and I was carrying with me the money for my school tuition and other expenses. This pitiful man had no son, but he said he had a daughter living in Cheonan. So I gave him all my money so that he could travel to her place and get medical treatment. He must have had good ancestors, because the moment I saw him I could not just continue on my way and turn my back on him. That is why I gave him all the money in my wallet, including the money for my textbooks and the rent money for my boarding house. Moreover, I carried him on my back for about three kilometers. I still vividly remember this; it is as if it happened the day before yesterday.

When heaven leads you to meet someone, you should love that person more than heaven expects you to. Then you will never suffer damage. For example, if heaven asks you to give 10 but instead you give 100 instead, 90 will be considered your offering for the public purpose before heaven. On the other hand, you should never give 5 when heaven hopes you will give 10. When heaven hopes you will give 10, you should give more than 10. If you give less than heaven hoped you would, God’s grace will be blocked from reaching your path. This is a law. It is a formula of the Principle.

17  In those days I was hungry every day. It was not from lack of money. Early in April my parents would send me money for my tuition, but by May it was gone. I would give it all to people who were poor and destitute. I have many stories about this. How, then, did I cover my tuition? I delivered newspapers, sold things and did various odd jobs. I needed to take the path of indemnity. When I first moved to Seoul from my hometown in Pyeongan Province, I was not used to the language and customs there. I missed my hometown very much, particularly during my first school vacation. You cannot imagine how much my mother loved me. But after I came to know God’s Will, I had to separate from her. I also had to distance myself from my sisters who loved me dearly.

I had to take the opposite way from what my mother and father expected me to do, from their point of view. That is why on the first day of the vacation, when my neighborhood and school were hustling and bustling with students preparing to return to their hometowns, I closed the door and locked myself in my room. I spent the first day of my vacation thinking, “I have many things to do before my friends come back.”

18  All people desire to have mastery over the universe, but they cannot even master themselves. That is why I declare, “Before you desire to rule over the universe, you must first rule over yourself.” Self-control begins with the desire for food. You can master the desire to eat by fasting. A one-week fast should be no problem. You must go through training that would bring an ordinary person to the brink of death. You must overcome hunger. When I was living independently as a student, Korea was under Japanese occupation, and rice was scarce. My friends fought over who would take the largest portion of rice from the pot, but not I. The person who puts down his spoon first is the master of those who put it down later. That is a rule and a principle. My life is renewed every day. Tomorrow must be better than today. I believe heaven wants something new from me, and that is what I put into practice. Because I did this, I could reach the worldwide level, something no one has ever been able to do.

19  During the years I was growing up in Seoul, I did not eat lunch. I thought, “As long as we don’t have an independent nation, how can I be worthy to eat three meals a day?” I missed meals many times in my life, but I missed my people more than food. This is the path I chose. I continually resolved, “I will love my people and my country more than food.” So after I left my hometown and moved to Seoul I did not eat lunch. Such was the life I led. It was not because I could not afford to buy lunch. It was because whenever I had money I gave it to the poor.

20  I do not sleep more than four hours a day. I trained myself until it became my habit. When I am busy, I can go with only one hour of sleep daily. I think I am the person who has slept the fewest hours of anyone in history. I lived my whole life that way. Also, there is no one who has been hungrier than me. I had food to eat, but I could hear the cries of hungry people wishing to be fed. That is why I could not eat three meals a day. Until I became 30 years old I practiced a discipline of having only two meals a day, skipping lunch. I spent my youth eating less than two bowls a day, even though I was healthy and big enough to digest five bowls a day. I trained myself to love people more than I loved food, and I strove to make my life a tower of loving God and loving my nation.

21  Wherever I was, I always prayed in tears. People who happened to see me in tears felt sympathy for me without knowing why. Wherever I went, many people treated me as well as you do. For example, my landlady would bring me some of the food she had prepared for her husband or for a holiday celebration, food she had prepared all through the night without sleeping. She could not go into her room otherwise. She told me that whenever she went into her room without first bringing me food, suddenly everything turned to darkness and she could not see anything. She did not know why that happened.

When women prepared food with sincerity, God wanted them to give it to me and moved their hearts to do so. Many such spiritual events took place. That is why I can never forget God’s love for me, not even for one moment. I can never forget God’s love, even if my body is crushed to pieces and my bones are turned into powder thousands upon thousands of times. Throughout my life God was with me wherever I was, and He toiled so hard for me.

22  When you pray, you need to pray to the extent that your back becomes bent and the skin of your knees becomes callused. My knees are still callused from my prayers in the olden days. You should pray on a wooden floor. And you should shed tears when you pray. I experienced several occasions when I prayed so tearfully and for such a long time that the floor became soaked with tears and still had not dried out by the next prayer time. I am not a man who will just drift away.

23  The path of restoration is never easy. Do you think I could ever feel at ease if I ate and slept as you do? The Principle itself is so serious. My knees are callused from countless prayers. I do not know how many tears I shed. I knew people were dying every day with the fundamental problems of their lives unresolved. Therefore, my eyes were always swollen and red with tears as I tried to find solutions for them. Sometimes I shed so many tears in prayer that when I opened my eyes I could not see the sunlight. Yet this was how I had to seek for the path.

24  You should pray every day. Even your prayer life should be a tithe. That means you should pray two hours and 24 minutes every day—one tenth of each day. When my prayer life was at its peak, I prayed 17 to 18 hours per day. I usually prayed for 12 hours straight, bending down on my hands and knees. I never ate lunch. In my prayers I wept bitterly. Without such prayers, I could not live. Every direction was blocked, and there was no hole through which to escape. Only when I prayed could I see a pinhole of light. Passing through these ordeals I discovered the Principle. Did you ever weep while holding the Divine Principle book? Have you ever been that serious? Your lifetime is precious. Once your life is gone, it will never return. Usually people marry and give birth to children; then they end up finishing their life while struggling with all kinds of burdens. It is a serious problem. If this pattern continues, we can never bring about the world of goodness.