Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: Episode 119

Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: A Selection of True Parents’ Speeches
Book 3: The Mission of Religion in Achieving God’s Ideal
Speech 8: Dialogue and Alliance, pg 413-416

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Dialogue and Alliance

November 16, 1985
Americana Great Gorge Resort, McAfee, New Jersey, USA 
Assembly of the World’s Religions

Honorable chairman, scholars and leaders from religions around the world, ladies and gentlemen:

I welcome you from the bottom of my heart to the Assembly of the World’s Religions. Our gathering here is not an ordinary event. It is itself a great accomplishment that we, from eighty-five countries and with such a diversity of religions, cultures, traditions and nationalities, can come together to open our minds, to harmonize with each other, and to share our concerns about the future of humankind. I am sure that God also is delighted with this historic event.

Humankind has yearned for eternal true love, happiness and peace 

We come from different religious backgrounds. Our answers to the fundamental problems of human existence are not identical. Our understandings of the causes of human suffering do not have the same frame of reference. Our ways of seeking world peace are diverse. Yet we still have common ground. All of us try to solve problems in the context of our relations with the Ultimate.

Throughout East and West, North and South, people living in the situation of sin, disbelief and confusion have yearned for love, happiness and peace that are true and eternal. They have been making every effort to overcome the temptations that entice their evil desires and, by following their good desires, to find the happiness with which their original mind will rejoice. Although human experience throughout history cautions us that pursuit of such ideals is rarely successful, people’s original minds are not likely to give up. All humankind, irrespective of its diversity of nationalities and traditions, pursues this ultimate goal.

If we human beings are not able to fulfill such a purpose by our own effort, then we can depend only on the eternal, true, Absolute Being beyond ourselves. We know that we are finite beings. Since we cannot determine our own destinies, we are bound to depend on the Absolute to whom we ascribe supreme power. We believe that since there is an Absolute Being who wills true love, peace and happiness, all these things can surely be realized only with Him. We need to know more about this Absolute, the source of the ideals that humanity is seeking.

I have become familiar with the content of the spirit world through my own spiritual experiences and through deep communication with the Absolute. I have learned about God’s Will, love and heart. Religion is not merely truth or ethical teaching; it is rooted in people’s original impulse to find that which they can absolutely depend upon and relate with.

True religious intuition meets the Absolute and the Infinite. Through this intuition, we can hear God’s call to each of us. Such a state of original communion with the Absolute transcends any particular religious system or form. Only in this state do humans reach perfection and happiness. This God-human relationship is one and universal. Because the transcendental power is one, and humanity’s capacity to enter into the relationship that it offers is universal, the ultimate goal of human beings cannot be more than one. The goal of an individual is one. The goal of a family consisting of such ideal individuals is one. The goal of the ideal nation and world is one. All ways run toward God’s ideal world of love, happiness and peace. The ideal of love, happiness and peace is not possible for an individual in isolation. It can be found only in relationship with another. Even the Absolute Being cannot fulfill the ideal without relationship.

The ultimate goal of religion is to construct the ideal world of peace 

If God is alone, who is there for God to love? In what is God to find His ideal? In this light, we can understand God’s motive for creation. God created humanity in order that He might realize His ideal and fulfill His love. Only in human life in the world can God realize ideals such as love, happiness and peace.

In this sense, how precious is the original human being! Human beings are not on the same level as God. However, God and human beings are supposed to be in a relationship and ultimately are to become one. In other words, God and human beings are in a parent-child relationship. Just as God is eternal and absolute, human beings also become beings of absolute and eternal value as the children of God.

Furthermore, human beings are object partners for the realization of God’s ideal. God’s eternal and absolute Will is consummated where He becomes completely one with humanity. Thus, the purpose of human life is also absolute and eternal.

God is eternal, unchanging and absolute. God’s purpose of creation was also eternal, unchanging and absolute, and was to found one ideal world, united through one purpose. Today’s world of sin, conflict and disbelief came into being because humanity fell from the original way. God has worked through the world’s religions to restore fallen humanity to its original state. The salvation of fallen humanity will be completed by God’s providence through the Messiah.

As God’s purpose of creation is absolute, the purpose of God’s restoration providence absolutely must also be fulfilled. We cannot leave the messianic hope of an ideal world only as a vague dream. We need to make it a substantial reality in our lives. Likewise, the purpose of all religions is to realize God’s Will in our daily life on earth. For the purpose of the whole providence, God has been broadening the foundation of goodness through many religions, each appropriate for its own age, people and environment. However, the ultimate purpose of all these religions is only to realize God’s Will, that is, the ideal world of peace and happiness. Religions need to be concerned with God’s Will for world salvation more than with the salvation of the individual or the welfare of their own denomination. I think that now is the time for all religious bodies together to search again for the true Will of God.

As far as I know, God is not sectarian. He is not obsessed with minor details of doctrine. We have to liberate ourselves quickly from the theological conflict that results from blind attachment to doctrines and rituals, and instead focus on living communication with God. I think we urgently need to purify the religious atmosphere into one in which believers can have living faith and every soul can communicate with God. In God’s parental heart and His great love, there is no discrimination based on color or nationality.

There are no barriers between countries or cultural traditions, between East and West, North and South. Today God is trying to embrace the whole of humankind as His children. Through interreligious dialogue and harmony, we need to realize one ideal world of peace, which is God’s purpose of creation and the common ideal of humankind.

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