Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: Episode 12
Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: A Selection of True Parents’ Speeches
Book 1: The Principles of True Peace
Speech 3: A World of Living for the Sake of Others, Pg 51-54
A World of Living for the Sake of Others
January 16, 1975, Chosun Hotel, Seoul, Korea
Korean Day of Hope Banquet
I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to you eminent figures from all walks of life. Your coming here this evening in such great numbers has made my night of celebration a great success.
This man standing here is, as you all know, the very man who has been stirring up considerable controversy both in Korea and the United States. I am aware that many of you are attending this event wondering, “What kind of person is this Mr. Moon?”
Love, the ideal, and happiness cannot be achieved alone
It is a great pleasure to be able to eat together while watching and listening to a good performance. Therefore, let us give a big round of applause to show how grateful we are to Mr. Kim, Gang-seob, leader of the KBS lounge band, and his band members, for providing us with musical accompaniment during this delicious dinner so we could enjoy it all the more. In addition, I would like to thank the staff members of the Chosun Hotel, who are working hard to entertain guests at this late hour.
I have given considerable thought to what I would speak about before all of you gathered here this evening. It would be easy to say just a few courteous words and end it there. However, if I did so, I’m sure you would feel quite disappointed that Mr. Moon did not speak since you have come to meet him. Therefore, if you will allow me, I will now take this time to share my thoughts.
We know that from early on, humanity has yearned for true and unchanging love, the ideal, happiness, and peace, which are eternal, true, and unchanging. However, in this day and age, we live in a world of distrust and chaos. Under these circumstances, we are faced with the fact that it is impossible to attain the conditions that human beings long for.
At present, humankind has made every possible effort yet still has not achieved these basic conditions. If we as human beings cannot achieve this through our own efforts, we will have no choice except to go beyond our own capacity, to find and rely on a certain Absolute Being who is eternal, unchanging, and true. If that Being also yearns for true love, a true ideal, true peace, and true happiness, we must conclude that it is possible to attain these things only through that One. Based on this viewpoint, if there is such a Being, it can only be God.
God is a Being who can be the King of love, the King of the ideal, and the King of peace and happiness. Therefore, we can conclude that in order for human beings to attain the ideal conditions we pursue through God, we have no choice but to discern what God is proposing and to respond to it. This is an obvious conclusion.
When we think about love, the ideal, happiness, and peace, we know that we cannot attain these things as individuals. We can do so only in a reciprocal relationship. Even though God exists as the Absolute Being, He also cannot achieve by Himself the love, ideal, happiness, and peace that He desires. It is an inevitable conclusion that even God needs an object partner.
Then, if we were to ask who, among all created beings, can be the object partner of God, we can declare without argument it is none other than human beings. Until now, we have been unable to consider that humankind is the very object partner to achieve the ideal of God and realize the love of God, the happiness of God, and the peace of God. What meaning would there be for God to love all alone, strive for the ideal alone, or be peaceful and happy alone? The obvious conclusion is that none of this is possible without human beings as God’s object partners.
God desires an object partner that is better than He is
In light of this, I would like to ask a question of the many prominent figures present here today. When you were young and were about to choose your spouse, did you seek someone inferior to you or better than you? If I asked anyone among you this question, you would answer that you wanted someone better. Furthermore, if a handsome man and a beautiful woman married and had their first baby, and you looked at the baby’s face and saw it was quite plain, compared with the mother’s or father’s, and yet you said as you looked at the infant, “This baby is more beautiful than her mother or father,” you would see the parents smile from ear to ear with delight.
Keeping this in mind, we can ask, “Why did we turn out this way? Whom do we take after?” Human beings are in all respects resultant beings, not causal beings. Resultant beings possess certain characteristics because they are made of the same material as the causal being. We can conclude that we are a certain way because we resemble God, who is like us. If you were to ask God, “Do You wish for Your object partners to be better than You or inferior to You?” God would answer that He wishes for them to be better than Himself. This is why we also desire our sons and daughters be better than ourselves. When we look at ourselves simply as human beings, we may seem insignificant, yet when we look at ourselves based on this principle, we can see we are beings whom God originally desired to be superior to and more precious than God Himself. We have been completely unaware of this fact.
Today’s established theologies state that the Creator and the creation do not stand on equal terms. If this were true, it would be impossible to realize love, peace, happiness, and the ideal as envisioned by that Creator. In this regard, humanity, up to the present, has been unaware of the fact that we originally were created with the right to become God’s object partners, who can be even more precious and noble than He is, and who are qualified to stand as His children. Based on this viewpoint, all of you present here this evening need to remember that we stand before God as His object partners and His children, who possess a value that is greater than God’s. Therefore, if God is eternal, we cannot exist for only a short time on the physical plane and then just disappear. Even though we live in this physical world, we know there is not one person who wishes for their loved ones to exist for a short time and then just disappear. There is not one person who wishes to live apart from his or her beloved children throughout eternity. In this respect, as long as God is eternal, unique, and absolute, we can logically conclude that, as His object partners, we also need to become beings possessing eternal, absolute, and unique value.
Among those of you gathered here, there may be some who do not believe in religion and who do not lead lives of faith. Nonetheless, the fact that these ideal requisites resonate with you leads to the conclusion that God exists. If we possess the value of His object partner then, if God is eternal, it is reasonable to conclude that we will live eternally. I believe that if all of you present here this evening, remember this and nothing else, I will have provided you with the starting point of a more meaningful life.
FFWPU, USA