Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: Episode 49
Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: A Selection of True Parents’ Speeches
Book 1: The Principles of True Peace
Speech 14: God and a United World of Peace, Pg 175-178
Peace movement carried out amid misunderstanding
Respected leaders, going through indescribable hardship to follow God’s call, I have established the foundation for peace to settle in various fields of life. More than thirty years ago, I founded the Unification Thought Institute and began to guide the field of philosophy. Since 1972, I have sponsored nearly thirty global meetings of the International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences for the purpose of exploring absolute values and creating harmony and unity among the various fields of learning. I have founded and continuously supported a movement for peace transcending individual nations. This movement for peace includes the work of the Professors World Peace Academy, the Summit Council for World Peace, the International Federation for Victory Over Communism, CAUSA, the Federation for World Peace, the Federation of Island Nations for World Peace, the Federation of Peninsular Nations for World Peace, the Federation of Continental Nations for World Peace, and the Citizens Federation for the Unification of the Fatherland.
I have also promoted culture and the arts, fostered peace through sports, and developed elementary, middle school, high school, and university level educational institutions. I founded and supported the Women’s Federation for World Peace, various media organizations for the purpose of bringing about responsible and ethical journalism, the Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles, the Youth Federation for World Peace, the Pure Love Alliance, international conferences on the environment, the International Relief and Friendship Foundation, Service for Peace, the Religious Youth Service, the voluntary service organization Aewon, the World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations, and the Holy Marriage Blessing and true family movement. In addition, I have supported efforts to renew the United Nations for the sake of achieving God’s desire for peace.
These are some of the initiatives for national and worldwide salvation that I have instituted around the globe. I have pursued these efforts continuously, without funding from any government or corporation, even in the midst of unsympathetic public opinion and outright persecution. As I worked to lay the foundation for the establishment of the ideal world, all I had was my determination to fulfill the mission of humankind’s True Parent that God entrusted to me and to accomplish God’s Will.
In bringing about the ideal of peace implicit in God’s true love, it is most important for the various religions to achieve harmony with one another and provide a model for the world. Withstanding the cold-hearted attitudes and persecution by narrow-minded religious bodies in various countries, I have placed my greatest emphasis on creating a movement for unity and cooperation among religions, nations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). I have offered all kinds of sacrifices in doing everything I could to build one world in this area. For example, I founded an interdenominational seminary, the New Ecumenical Research Association, the Council for the World’s Religions, the Youth Seminar on World Religions, and the Assembly of the World’s Religions. Besides supporting conferences promoting harmony among the world’s religions, I commissioned the publication of World Scripture: A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts, and I founded the Interreligious Federation for World Peace.
Taking these efforts a step further, I founded the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace (IIFWP), to serve as an overarching structure for unity and world peace. This organization is intended to go beyond the goal of harmony among the world’s religions to embrace leaders in the fields of academia, politics, journalism, finance, and NGOs, which are areas where I have already laid the necessary foundations.
Since the founding of IIFWP in February 1999, we have appointed tens of thousands of leaders in a wide variety of fields from one hundred and eighty-nine countries as ambassadors for peace. In line with my philosophy of peace, these ambassadors are practicing true love by living for the sake of others and engaging in activities that help break down barriers between nations, races, and religions. Their practical activities range from AIDS prevention and service projects to the development of true family values, the education of youth and leadership, and the improvement of the environment.
My philosophy is known as head-wing thought, which is based on Godism. This thought places God, the standard of absolute values, and our True Parent, True Teacher, and True Owner, in the absolute center. We can therefore call it the “three subject partners principle.” During our life on earth and in the spirit world, we have to live in accordance with this thought, being God’s object partners and attending Him as our True Parent, True Teacher, and True Owner. We will then be creating the kingdom of heaven, the place where true love is practiced.
We have to surpass atheistic and communist philosophies that deny God and the spirit world, as well as secular humanism and moral relativism that ignore the importance of absolute values and the vertical standard. It is also time to rise above the hypocritical faith that uses God’s name and lacks true love and abandon all selfish works that violate original human rights and result in injustice. The head-wing thought that I propose transcends right-wing and left-wing philosophies, resolves the conflicts between countries, races, and religions, and brings about wide-ranging harmony and unity, with the absolute God at the center. This task will be carried out with the help of both heaven and earth. We are in a period of great transition, and during this time, the United Nations and the nations of the world need to unite and cooperate with one another.
Modern society lacks an understanding or philosophical system based on absolute values. There are no absolute values that we can consistently apply to individuals, families, societies, nations, the world, and the cosmos.
This is the reason our thinking is confused, human relationships are disordered, and human society is chaotic. In the face of unreflective pluralism and modernization, and in the absence of a fundamental guiding axis in their hearts and daily lives, people in the modern age suffer due to an ever-worsening confusion of values. We are endlessly tempted and live enslaved by our physical appetites, drifting aimlessly through life.
I need to tell you that we must never turn away from a life based on values. Absolute values form our vertical axis. At the center of absolute values is God’s true love, expressed in living for the sake of others.
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