Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: Episode 278
Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: A Selection of True Parents’ Speeches
Book 7: The World of the Culture of Heart
Speech 3: Becoming Leaders in Building a World of Peace, pg 1018-1021
Becoming Leaders in Building a World of Peace
August 24, 1992
Little Angels Performing Arts Center, Seoul, Korea
First World Culture and Sports Festival Congratulatory Banquet
Distinguished chairpersons of the first World Culture and Sports Festival, guests and participants from Korea and around the world:
As founder of the World Culture and Sports Festival, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to you for gathering here in such large numbers to pray for the success of this festival. I would like to speak to you this evening on the topic, “Becoming Leaders in Building a World of Peace.”
The history of conflict originated from the Fall of Adam and Eve
During the mid-1930s, when I was sixteen years old, I received a special mission from Heaven through Jesus. I am seventy-two years old now, and in the intervening years there has not been one single second when I did not think of God’s Will and His commands.
I lived my boyhood and youth under the colonial rule of imperial Japan. I know only too well the painful and tragic circumstances suffered by the weaker and smaller nations of the world. Being sensitive to God’s heart, I felt unspeakable pain and sorrow as I witnessed, first, the cruelty of a more powerful nation as it plundered the weaker nation of Korea and, later, the terrible carnage of the Second World War.
Immediately following World War II, in a development that compounded our already difficult situation, the Korean peninsula was divided between north and south. In 1950, the Korean War broke out and Koreans found themselves in a fraternal conflict. Various countries of the world on the left and right chose to support one side or the other. I witnessed this tragic history directly, and I know in my heart of hearts how the lack of peace in the world has brought much pain and sorrow to God and humanity.
How do you imagine God has felt since the time of creation? God had to watch while time and time again brothers set themselves against each other, beginning with Cain, the older brother, taking the life of Abel, the younger. All the wars in human history have been, in their essence, struggles among brothers. The Bible teaches us this through its record of the murder of Abel by Cain in the family of Adam. Why do such conflicts among brothers occur again and again on the levels of family, tribe, society, nation and world?
The reason lies in the sin committed by Adam and Eve, the parents of Cain and Abel. Adam and Eve were the original ancestors of humankind, placed in a position to represent all the men and women who would come after them. They were to have brought God’s ideal of creation into reality. By breaking God’s commandment, however, they forfeited their position as the True Parents of goodness for all of humanity who would be born after them. Instead, they became fallen parents of evil. It is this evil that is the original sin and the fundamental root of all crime and unhappiness in human society.
The original sin of the first ancestors was that Adam and Eve broke God’s commandment and engaged in an illicit sexual relationship. In this way, they formed a blood relationship with the devil, and became fallen false parents, passing on false love, false life and a false lineage to the entire human race. There is only one way for humanity to escape this world of evil and struggle, and that is to be reunited with their True Parents and be reborn through them. It has been revealed to me that accomplishing this is the true way to cast off original sin.
The World Culture and Sports Festival is dedicated to God
After I received my calling at the age of sixteen, I spent years searching for the answer to precisely the problem of how to bring salvation to humankind. The result of that lonely search for truth is the new expression of God’s truth that you refer to today as the Unification Principle, Godism or Head-wing Thought. On August 15, 1945, the day Korea was liberated from imperial Japan, I began proclaiming this truth on the earth. For proclaiming these teachings, I faced tremendous persecution and attack. Think for a moment about the fact that in my life I was imprisoned six times. This alone is enough to tell you how harsh the attacks against me have been.
The first World Culture and Sports Festival, which is being held during the 47th year since I began proclaiming the Unification Principle, is a holy celebration. It is an occasion to let the entire world see, and to offer to God, the harvest reaped from the seeds I have sown and nurtured for the liberation of God and humanity and for the realization of world peace. Everything I have strived to achieve during my life has been for the purpose of confirming the fact that all people in the world are brothers and sisters before God, our common Parent. When we center on God, our common ties as members of the global family transcend our differences based on race, nationality and international boundaries.
Activities for world peace
The primary institution in which my teachings are being practiced is the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, that is, the Unification Church. The Unification Church exists in every country in the world. The Unification Church has put down roots in all races, nationalities and countries. The International Marriage of thirty thousand couples that will be held tomorrow in Seoul’s Olympic Main Stadium is certain to be a testimony to the fact that humanity is one great family centered on God.
With the Unification Church as the root organization, I have founded many other organizations for projects in a wide variety of fields. These organizations are for the purpose of building a world of peace in which we, the human family centered on God, can rejoice in our freedom, ideals and happiness. For the World Culture and Sports Festival, I have gathered the most prominent of these organizations here in Seoul. During the festival, a new unified structure will be founded to facilitate stronger mutual ties and closer cooperation among these organizations.
The International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences, the Professors World Peace Academy, the World Media Conference, the Summit Council for World Peace, the Assembly of the World’s Religions, the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace, the Women’s Federation for World Peace, international performing arts groups, and the World Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles will meet during this time of the international marriage Blessing. They will provide forums to enlighten us and reaffirm our devotion to the cause of world peace.
The International Marriage Blessing of the Unification Church, which I will be conferring during this time, is the blessing of resurrection. Through this ceremony, human beings are able to cut clear from original sin and recover the true love, true life and true lineage of God. It is within the con-text of this ceremony that we can give birth to peace, by realizing the ideal of the great family of humanity that transcends race, nationality and international boundaries.
As the founder of these organizations and groups, I wish to reaffirm here this evening that their purpose is to bring about world peace, according to the ideal of God and humanity. They are not created for the benefit of any particular group or political faction. They do not serve the narrow interests of any particular nation or state. Rather, they exist to bring happiness, peace and freedom to God, the Creator of the universe, and to all humanity.
Our movement, therefore, brings salvation to all families, all nations, all continents and, finally, to the entire world. It is a movement to save the family, save the nation and save the world.
FFWPU, USA