Cham Bumo Gyeong: Episode 61
Cham Bumo Gyeong
Book 3: The Beginning of True Father's Public Course and the Founding of HSA-UWC
Chapter 2: True Father’s Journey to South Korea and His Course in Busan
Section 3: Wolli Wonbon, God’s authorization
Section 3: Wolli Wonbon, Paragraph 11
Section 3. Wolli Wonbon
God’s authorization
On May 11, 1951, True Father began writing Wolli Wonbon, Original Text of the Divine Principle. He completed it on May 10 of the following year. He wrote so fast that the disciple who was living with him was constantly sharpening pencils in order to keep pace with him. While writing the first manuscript of the Principle, he tearfully sang hymns and prayed. Sometimes he climbed to a small outcrop on the mountain behind his cardboard hut to sing and meditate. Then he returned and devoted all of his heart and soul to his writing.
The manuscript of Wolli Wonbon consists of five volumes. Each volume was drilled with four holes and tied. The entire manuscript has more than 690 pages. The text is written with a pencil from left to right in cursive script, in both Korean and Chinese characters. The revision work was done using pens with black, blue and brown ink. Red-colored pencils were used to lightly underline texts. Interestingly, in ten pages in the middle (pages 291 to 300), the text is written in blue ink.
Wolli Wonbon has great significance in that it was written in True Father’s own handwriting. It is the earliest manuscript of the Divine Principle in existence. In the early days of the church some of his disciples transcribed Wolli Wonbon and shared their copies with others, passing them around.
1 When I teach about the Principle, I do not refer only to the Bible. Much of its content is not directly from the Bible. I received most of it directly from God. Jesus did not personally write the Bible; the New Testament was compiled by his apostles.
The truth must be kept as the truth. Your own theological view or theory must not be added. Did God authorize you to do so? I am asking you: Are you approved to add your own theory to the truth? I never presented anything that was not approved by God. I first lived it, and then I presented it to the world. There is no question about it. That is why it will not perish.
2 When I was living in Beomil-dong, Busan, I did not even have decent clothes to wear. I had bushy hair and lived with a young man, Kim Won-pil, in a cave-like shack. When others looked at us, they must have felt pity for us.
One day, Kim Won-pil said he would work to make money and I said it was okay. At that time, when I was writing Wolli Wonbon, the first manuscript of the Divine Principle, having even one companion who followed me, walking the same path, was so precious. You too must experience the taste of such a close relationship.
Every day when Kim Won-pil set out for work, I accompanied him for at least a kilometer without fail. Otherwise, I did not feel comfortable. When it was time for him to return home from work, I went out again to meet and accompany him on the way home. You have no idea how delighted I was to see him again at the end of each day. When we slept at night we did not have comforters, only one thin blanket to cover ourselves. That’s how we lived back then.
3 I wrote a book about the Principle, Wolli Wonbon, at Beomil-dong in Busan, overlooking the harbor. I first noted the main points in outline form, and then started writing. I wrote the ideas in condensed form, like poetry. Since I just wrote the essential points, people could not easily understand it unless I explained the main points to them. This is how I wrote the text, which I completed in May 1952.
After Wolli Wonbon came Explanation of the Divine Principle (Wolli Hae-seol) and then Exposition of the Divine Principle (Wolli Gangnon).
4 I did not discover the Principle only from reading the Bible. I thought, “If Genesis is the chapter on the Human Fall, the Book of Revelation is the chapter on restoration. Since something went wrong with the tree of life, it must be restored through the tree of life. If it does not work that way, the Bible is misleading.” Anything that comes from a seed returns to a seed. That is how it ought to happen. In a similar manner, the sprout from the seed grows upward, and not sideways. It has to be this way.
The Principle that I am teaching you today is in accord with history from the providential viewpoint. It is based on a deductive method. Without a doubt, God is alive. As long as God exists and leads the providence for the Will centering on love, the world will have to enter the era of unity based on the cultural sphere of God’s love. From this perspective, I disclosed why God created heaven and earth, how the creation of heaven and earth was carried out, and why God is love.
5 God comforts all sorrowful people. He is also the Lord who reigns over life, death, misfortune and blessing. That is why human beings want to rely on Him in any situation, especially when in difficult times. So when you have a heart to care about others, God will come even if you tell Him not to. It is because in such a place you form a base upon which He can relate to you as His counterpart. That is why whenever you are doing something good, God will come to you even if you ask Him not to. Wherever there is goodness, God is present.
For this reason, in Wolli Wonbon, the meaning of “object partner” and “the value of the object partner" are presented as entirely new concepts. Once you give and receive, you come to have a reciprocal relationship. The more you give and receive with your counterpart, the better the relationship you will cultivate. Hence, you will eventually become an object partner with him or her. For this reason, if your activity centers on God, goodness or truth, it will surely last.
6 Whenever you carry the Divine Principle book around with you, you must treat it with great reverence. Imagine if you had the only existing copy. Think about how serious I was to take care of Wolli Wonbon when I was writing the first manuscript. What would have happened if that manuscript had been lost, or I had died? I am telling you that such seriousness can determine the life or death of the world.
Have you ever considered that whether your tribe, your nation, the world and even heaven and earth will prosper or perish depends upon this book and your attitude toward it? Have you ever considered that each individual’s eternal life depends upon it? If you have never entertained such thoughts, you should realize how distant you are from the world of heart, and how long it will take for you to connect with those who are dwelling in that world.
7 Centered on the Principle, and with the Principle, I have come this far. I laid its foundation with considerable hardships. I invested my blood, sweat and tears while I was writing the Divine Principle book. Please understand that my bloody tears are embedded in each and every one of its pages, and that those tears are crying out to you.
I invested my life and sacrificed my youth for the Principle. That is why I am saying that my blood and tears are pleading to you from its very pages. You must never go against the Principle. Do not ever think the Principle I am teaching you is of no value. Even God solemnly bows down and honors it. Such is the value of the Principle.
The essence of truth
True Father emphasized that when he was writing Wolli Wonbon, Original Text of the Divine Principle, he had little choice but to write in a condensed style rather than with extended descriptions and explanations, because he was presenting the essence of the truth. This text has a historic quality, enabling it to touch one’s original heart and bring it to explode with the power of love.
Eu Hyo-won, the first president of the Unification Church, had thoroughly explored the scriptures of various religions. However, he confessed that when he first read Wolli Wonbon, he became so deeply immersed in the amazing world of its truth, weeping so profusely, that it took him days to transcribe just one page.
8 When I wrote Wolli Wonbon, I wrote it in a condensed form. The content of even one page requires dozens of pages of explanation. An ordinary person is simply not able to understand it deeply, even after reading and reflecting on it. One day I asked Eu Hyo-won, who had studied medicine, to explain the Principle, but he said he could not do so. So I explained just one page to him. Then, on the spot, he bowed down to me and said, “I am sorry. I did not realize that the Principle contained such a profound meaning. I could never have figured that out on my own.”
9 After coming down from Hungnam to Busan, I started writing Wolli Wonbon on May 11, 1951. I wrote it in a compact style. No one could understand it well, no matter how much they tried. So I explained it to Eu Hyo-won, and then his mind opened up. From then on he shed tears on reading each page of the manuscript, so much so that it became a “manuscript of tears.” He would say, “How on earth could there be such unbelievable contents! With this understanding, the fundamental teachings of Christianity and communism will be completely overshadowed.”
10 After President Eu Hyo-won read Wolli Wonbon, he pledged in writing that he would be forever grateful to God even if his body should become a sacrificial offering in front of heaven. At the time I met Eu Hyo-won, I was walking a solitary path. His coming was truly the work of God. At that time my heart was absolutely serious about the Principle. Since I was so serious, God worked to bring him to me. God did this entirely for me. This is how I have been able to come this far.
11 I guided and taught Eu Hyo-won in such a way that he was able to systematize the entire contents of the book into the form of Exposition of the Divine Principle.
When I wrote Wolli Wonbon, I sometimes made drastic jumps in logic and wrote the content in a condensed form. Eu Hyo-won was given a copy of the manuscript before he joined the church. As he read it, he cried and cried. I believe that he is the first person in our church’s history who was so moved after reading the Principle that he immediately wanted to become my disciple. This happened when he read Wolli Wonbon, which was even before he ever met me in person.
He wrote a letter to me with the vow, “Based on the words I read in Wolli Wonbon, I will become your disciple and serve you for eternity.” Moved by his letter, I traveled from Seoul to Yeongdo Church in Busan and held a 21-day workshop, in which he participated. I was told before the workshop that he was anxious, wondering what it would be like to meet me in person for the first time. But when we met, he openly shared with me all of his past life, which was filled with many serious stories, some of which I still cannot forget even to this day.
During the workshop in Yeongdo all the participants had spiritual experiences. So, after the workshop they felt so transformed that when they returned to the reality of their everyday lives, they marveled, “I just experienced a completely different world, which I never imagined could exist!”
FFWPU, USA