Cham Bumo Gyeong: Episode 45

Cham Bumo Gyeong
Book 2: The Birth of True Parents
Chapter 3: True Father’s Childhood and Youth
Section 4: Study in Japan, Paragraph 10-22

10  Before I turned 20 years of age, I went through a course of bloody tears. I knew I could not enter God’s realm of heart unless I had the heart to be friends with beggars and love them as if they were my own older brother or my own mother. So I lived with the heart to love everyone. I trained myself the same way in Japan, but this time with a heart to go beyond the nation. I helped my friends pay their tuition by making money as a laborer at a construction site. You too should walk such a path. Why did I do it? I volunteered to travel the most difficult path because I knew God’s path has been even more difficult.

11  On days when it snowed or when typhoon winds raged, I went to work at a construction site rather than going to school. It felt good to challenge such harsh weather. Rain from the typhoon would wash the dirt and soot from my hands. Amid the storm I worked hard and sweated copiously. I felt so refreshed from it. When I saw a person behaving badly, I scolded him. Sometimes I had to deal with people who were bigger than me, but I defeated them. When a foreman exploited the laborers by taking 30 percent of their wages, I strongly protested. Most people feared the man, but I was not submissive; I admonished him to stop. In the end he surrendered to me.

12  When I was in Tokyo I worked pulling a cart as a deliveryman, making deliveries in 27 different districts. I decided to do the job not because I needed the money but because I wanted the training. If you find yourself working in a transportation company, you should become more knowledgeable about the work than the company veterans. If not, how can you persuade them to take you seriously? During the summer I transported telephone poles on a cart. Once there was an incident: As I came to an intersection, a pole shifted to one side, causing my cart to spin around. Sensing danger, all the passersby, men and women, scattered. I can still picture it in my mind. I have another unforgettable memory, about when I lived in a slum. I covered myself with a ragged blanket, and my clothes became infested with lice. I am God’s Son, but I volunteered to become a frontline soldier, a guerrilla of sorts, in order to conquer Satan’s world.

13  The times in Japan when I worked at a construction site and pulled a cart in Ginza remain vivid memories. I did not do that work just to make a living. I did it to set the example of how young people should go through difficulties. I had friends who had stopped going to school. I wanted to help them graduate, so I withdrew from school for several months and took on the role of their parents. I had no time to sleep at night. I woke up as early as two in the morning and went out to work to make money for their tuition. Why did I do that? It was not because I was not as smart as them. It was to serve them. For this I did all kinds of work, including working for a company, selling my calligraphy and working as a foreman.

14  I am very knowledgeable about the world. When I was young I traveled to every corner of Korea. I visited many places in Japan when I was studying there. I also did all sorts of work. I was an errand-boy for a large company. No matter how I was mistreated, I did not complain. People regarded me as nothing but a student from abroad, but they did not know what was in my mind. I did not even mind living in a slum. After all, we must train ourselves to have real ability to deal with any situation and bring good results in whatever we do.

The path of true love

During his time of study in Japan, True Father practiced his own motto, “Before you desire dominion over the universe, first have dominion over yourself.” He trained himself repeatedly in order to control his five senses. Among other things, he trained himself not to be ticklish and to look away from temptation. In order to live for heaven’s heart rather than follow a selfish human heart, he constantly reminded himself, “I must love the Japanese people more than I love my own people.” He trained himself to sincerely love the people of what was then an enemy nation as if they were his own parents or his own older brother.

15  When I was young and preparing for my mission, I would not even go near a movie theater. Until I could achieve total self-control, I did not walk in front of a bar. Unless we gain total control over ourselves, we are bound to fail in whatever we do. What is the most difficult obstacle to achieving self-control? It is sleep. Hunger is next. After that is sexual desire. These are the three enemies. Therefore, as a course of training I purposely did not sleep, I did not eat, and I lived a life of purity. Until we have dominion over ourselves, we cannot have dominion over the universe. Only after we govern ourselves can we govern the universe. We are not entitled to call on God for help or hope to enter the realm of God’s dominion unless we first achieve mastery over ourselves. This is the view of the Principle. Adam fell because he did not have self-control.

16  When I was in wartime Japan, I walked around the back alleys in the red light district of Shinjuku, Tokyo. I observed people and listened to them wherever I went in order to gain something helpful for my mission. If we are ready to deal with even the most evil places, we can digest anything. This is my philosophy. I am not the kind of person who goes around looking for an easy or comfortable environment. The idea that in order to cultivate the mind you must go to the deep mountains or to a quiet and magnificent place makes no sense to me. Studying only in tranquil places does not work for me. I could study well even in noisy factories where high-powered engines and motors were running. I trained myself in many different ways. Once, when a group of strong men were harassing a weaker man, I fought and defeated them singlehandedly. I did not do it for recognition. It was a matter of my philosophy, of what is necessary in life.

17  My hope is greater than yours; it is as high as a great mountain. However, because I knew that the time was coming when I would have to push many people to travel the road of a servant, I first pushed myself to take the position of a servant. Had I not lived the life of a servant myself, I would not be qualified to call others to do it. If I wanted others to live the life of a servant, I needed to live the life of a servant first. I had to become a servant for the sake of my country of Korea. This is why I once became a servant of three-year-old children and served them faithfully morning and evening. I attended those children as if each were God. Also, when I was studying in Japan, I lived in a slum swarming with lice. I carried loads of coal and loads of salt. I welcomed all kinds of experiences that others would shrink from. This is my personal story, and some bitter sorrow remains. You should alleviate my bitter sorrow. What then should be your starting point? What is it that you need to grab onto as the basis of your own emotional resolve? It should be to represent me. When you go to those places, you should go on my behalf. Although you may receive persecution, when you shed tears for the people there, you will feel my blood throbbing in your veins.

18  I studied the subject of what people will not do. For instance, people do not want to skip meals. So I pondered, “Can I endure not eating?” And I said to myself, “Yes, I can.” So I started training myself not to eat. I was then so hungry that if anyone served me a meal I could have quickly devoured three or four bowls of rice. One day I thought to myself, “Let me see how much I can eat.” As it was the middle of a war, we received ration coupons. Taking all my ration coupons, I took my friends to a restaurant and said, “Let’s eat as much as we can and see what our limit is.” We wolfed down more and more. I ate seven servings of rice covered with fried eggs and chicken. After seven servings I was so full I could not even turn my neck around. It was more painful than being hungry.

I gave myself that experience. However, you would be seriously mistaken if you think I did it all the time. In fact, I was always hungry. Why do you think I made myself go hungry? If I only cared about keeping my stomach full, how could I keep people with me and keep God with me? So although I was hungry and wanted to eat, I resolved that I must love my people and God more than food. This was truth to me; it was my creed.

19  When I was a student in Tokyo, on rainy days while still wearing my student uniform I would purposely mix with laborers who smelled from their dirty, wet clothes. I went to the places that smelled the worst. Standing next to them, I thought, “What if these people were my older brother or my father? If they were enduring these miserable conditions for me, what must I do for them?” When I rode the trolley to school, I would look around at the students all well dressed in their uniforms and compare them to those laborers. And I would think, “You are in the springtime of your life, all smiles and laughter, but in time this will all disappear. However, my way of thinking leads to a life that will shine and rise up like the sun to a hopeful future. My future is more or less assured, but your future is less certain.”

You must understand that upholding and living up to the name of True Parents throughout my entire life has been extremely difficult. I had to cultivate such qualities in myself that people of every status, high or low, could relate to me as their subject partner.

20  During my time of studying in Japan, I would occasionally visit my home in Jeongju. I generally did not send telegrams to my parents to tell them when I was coming. My home was about eight kilometers from the train station, and I wanted to walk home. I enjoyed walking on cold, windy, snowy or rainy days. As I prayed while walking down the road, I realized even more what a magnificent world we live in, and I could not help but be amazed at the Maker who created it. I have unforgettable memories of nights when I walked home after sunset, or nights when white snow was falling. Carrying small gifts for my parents in both hands, I delighted in imagining the expressions they would have on their faces. Whenever I think of it, I become nostalgic. I realize how blessed I was at that time in my life.

Graduation and return to Korea

Due to a change of circumstances in Japan caused by the war, True Fathers study in Japan was cut short by one semester. Hence he graduated earlier than expected, on September 30, 1943, in the 25th graduating class of Waseda Technical School. After graduation True Father purchased a ticket for an October 4 departure on the ship from Shimonoseki to Busan and sent his family a telegram giving the date and time of his arrival in Busan. On the departure day, as he entered the train station in Tokyo with his friends who were sending him off, he suddenly felt uneasy. He did not know why, but it was as if his feet were weighed down and he could hardly drag himself onto the train. So he decided to postpone his journey home.

The ship that departed that day, the one for which True Father had purchased a ticket, was called the Gonnon Maru. On October 5 at 1:15 a.m., about ten nautical miles northeast of Oki-noshima, the ship was sunk by an American torpedo. True Fathers family was in total shock when they heard the news of the sinking. They had not heard that Father had changed his departure date. As True Father was journeying back home in the middle of October, he made a solemn resolution: This time I am coming home without having been able to dissolve the bitter sorrow of my people. Yet in the near future the time will come when I will be able to teach Japanese youth and guide them to do God’s Will. Then we will meet again.

21  When I graduated from my school in Japan, it was the middle of the Second World War. For military reasons they graduated my class in September, six months earlier than normal. I sent a telegram to my hometown informing my family of my arrival time on the ship from Shimonoseki to Busan. But in the midst of the war that ship was sunk. Back in my hometown, my family checked the passenger list of that ill-fated ship, but they could not find my name. Everyone thought I had died, which caused a great commotion throughout my village.

22  The sinking of the Gonnon Maru was in 1943. I was scheduled to board that ship in order to return to Korea from Japan. My graduation had been advanced by six months, and I bought a ticket from Tokyo to Seoul that included passage on the ship, which was to depart from Shimonoseki. But as soon as I entered the Tokyo train station to catch the train to Shimonoseki, I felt uneasy. So although I had already purchased the ticket, I did not take that train. Shortly after purchasing my train ticket, I sent a telegram to my family giving them the scheduled date and time of my arrival. Based on that schedule, my family in my hometown expected that I would come home on a certain day and time. However, after I had my premonition I left the Tokyo station and instead went with my friends who had come to send me off. I believe we went to a place called Atami. Consequently, I did not board the ship that ended up sinking.

In the meantime, since I did not come home, my family in my hometown, to whom I had sent the telegram, thought I had died. My mother went nearly insane. She dropped everything and hurriedly traveled to Busan to find me. It is 230 kilometers from Jeongju to Seoul; the journey took ten hours by train. Then she took another train from Seoul to Busan. You can hardly imagine her mental and emotional state during that journey. She did not even put on a dress; she ran out of the house only in her house clothes, which are like pajamas. Her shoes came off as she ran to the train station nearest Jeongju, but she did not notice; she did not even feel that an acacia tree thorn had embedded itself in the sole of her foot. A callous hardened over it, and I heard that she did not pull it out until after I returned home. I then realized, “Ah, this is the greatness of a parent’s love!”