Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: Episode 364
Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: A Selection of True Parents’ Speeches
Book 9: The Role of Nations in Realizing World Peace
Speech 10: The Role of Peninsular Nations in the Twenty-first Century, pg 1362-1365
The shift of civilization to peninsular nations
We know that peninsular nations, extending into the ocean, have given rise to important civilizations in history. Many great religious doctrines and ideologies originated from peninsular nations to guide the world of the human heart. Greek philosophy began on the Balkan Peninsula. Christian culture flourished on the Italian Peninsula. Hindu culture and philosophy arose on the Indian subcontinent, another peninsula. Islamic culture arose on the Arabian Peninsula. Buddhist culture came to fruition on the Southeast Asian Peninsula. Furthermore, the art of navigation came from the Iberian Peninsula, Norman culture from the Scandinavian Peninsula, and there are other examples. As can be seen, peninsular nations have had great influence in the history of world culture.
If you study the flow of the development of civilizations, the ancient continental civilizations that originated in river basins shifted to the peninsular civilization of places such as Greece, Rome and Iberia. European peninsular civilization then shifted to an island civilization in England, which in turn passed to the United States as a continental civilization, and then moved to Japan in the form of an island civilization. From a providential viewpoint, this pilgrimage of civilization will now come to fruition in Korea as a peninsular civilization.
From a different perspective, the ancient civilizations on the shores of rivers such as the Nile and Tigris shifted to the Mediterranean civilizations of Greece, Rome and Spain, among others. This then shifted to the Atlantic civilization extending to England and the United States, and it in turn will come to fruition as the Pacific civilization connecting the United States, Japan and Korea. Since the will of the Messiah was to have borne fruit and become globalized from the Italian Peninsula, it is fitting that a peninsular nation is again to be the center of the providence of the Second Coming of Jesus, that is, of the Second Advent of the True Parent, and that it is Korea.
The planet Earth is made up of lands and oceans. I believe that the sea plays the role of the mother, including giving birth to the simplest forms of life. In this way, we can think that the sea symbolizes the feminine in that it nurtures and embraces, and the land symbolizes the masculine. Similarly, it can be said that island nations, situated as they are in oceans, represent woman, and continental nations and peninsular nations adjoined to continents represent man.
The citizens of peninsular nations have strength and courage arising from a life of defending themselves against enemies from both land and sea. Moreover, they are endowed with a progressive spirit of pioneering and adventuring. They have given rise to resplendent cultures and spread them to the world. Thus, at this point in time when we are on the verge of a new millennium, peninsular nations will play an important role in the providence. The Federation of Peninsular Nations for World Peace is compiling these nations’ meritorious deeds, contributions to world culture, and similar experiences to enable them to play a leading role in realizing a world of peace.
A life of pursuing world peace
Respected leaders, until now I have done more than just teach about the way humanity can live happily in a world of peace. I have also pioneered the way, founding multiple organizations for the realization of a world of peace and nurturing them with unending support while surmounting so many difficulties. I have inaugurated organizations such as the Federation for World Peace, the Inter-Religious Federation for World Peace, the Women’s Federation for World Peace, the Youth Federation for World Peace, the Student Federation for World Peace, the Professors World Peace Academy and the Federation of Island Nations for World Peace for this purpose. I am inaugurating the Federation of Peninsular Nations for World Peace at this time for the same purpose.
There are many obstacles blocking the realization of humanity’s happiness and ideal of peace. There are numerous destructive dynamics, including conflict over political and economic interests. Of these dynamics, the most fundamental has to do with the human condition itself, namely, the conflict and contradiction between mind and body. Through the long course of human history, the conflict between mind and body has never been resolved. The Fall of our first human ancestors brought a result that is this serious and wretched.
As people with inner conflict and contradiction formed families, could those families unite completely as one in harmony? Families are shaken and fall apart when the responsibility to love selflessly is forgotten. Without people gaining the complete experience of heart based on true love, they cannot establish the perfect standard of ethics and morality. When families thus break down, can we expect to see societies of peace, and nations and a world of peace?
From July 30 to August 1 of this year, I hosted the inaugural assembly of the Family Federation for World Peace at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. Representatives of one hundred twenty nations came together with two former United States presidents, Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, and former and present heads of state and prime ministers from more than forty countries. The Family Federation can be called the most important organization I have inaugurated. It aggregates the work of multiple global organizations, which are the foundation I have dedicated my entire life to build for the realization of the peaceful world of true love.
The way to peace on earth
The people of today need to recover their original nature by uniting mind and body as one in harmony in the true love of God. Through the Pure Love movement and the True Family Values movement, human beings need to prepare the ground for eternal happiness. To facilitate this, I have founded this organization.
From the viewpoint of God’s administration and the trend of history, all people constitute one great family that needs to live attending God as their True Parent, transcending nationality and race. All people are a community sharing a common destiny and can harmonize and cooperate with one another within the bounds of one global family. We have entered an era wherein we can no longer think that the difficulties of our neighbors and other nations have nothing to do with us.
We cannot just sit back and watch as humankind is engulfed and degraded by war and crime, drugs and violence, environmental pollution and ecosystem destruction, immorality and AIDS. We need to answer before God and history. We human beings, who need to harmonize and unite on a grand scale, need to declare how we can overcome the present reality and usher in the coming millennium with hope.
Furthermore, we need to consider how we can build a world of peace wherein we can think beyond the profits that individuals and nations can reap, and live for the sake of others and trust them. We need to consider how we can establish a new set of values that can maintain this. Rather than standing on the glittering pinnacle of science and technology, wearing the glasses of humanism to filter out our having fallen into a valley of sin, we need to open the door of our original heart and search for answers with humility. If we cannot find them on earth, we need to find the solutions through the voice we hear from Heaven.
It is my hope that the discussions you hold at this time will prove to be most beneficial and rewarding for realizing the dream of a world of peace.
May the divine protection of God be with you and your families always.
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