Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: Episode 64
Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: A Selection of True Parents’ Speeches
Book 2: God’s Homeland and the Peace Kingdom
Speech 4: The Cosmos Is Our Hometown and Our Homeland, pg 225-228
The Cosmos Is Our Hometown and Our Homeland
February 2, 2000
Cannon House Office Building Caucus Room, Washington, D.C., USA
Second American Century Awards Ceremony
Respected members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives, members of the diplomatic corps, recipients of the American Century Award, whose contributions help make this country the most blessed by God, ladies and gentlemen:
I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude that so many leaders from a wide variety of fields in American society have gathered here today to celebrate faith, freedom and family. As founder of The Washington Times Foundation, I commend all of the award winners. All of you are champions who through your service have made significant contributions to improving the quality of life for all Americans.
I also want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for recognizing my life achievements and congratulating me on my eightieth birthday. I am particularly grateful to God, who has been my constant companion and protector, and to Him I offer all glory and honor.
I have lived my entire life with the earnest desire to solve the many problems related to actualizing God’s ideal of creation. When I came to America in 1972, I saw this country was facing a severe crisis that affected the world. On my first evangelical tour of all fifty states, I declared that God has three major headaches: the threat of communism, the lack of cooperation among religious people against evil, and the moral crisis afflicting youth.
Our responsibility as human beings requires that we meet God halfway and fulfill what God has asked us to do in the areas of freedom, faith, and family. Because God loves America, I initiated many organizations, including The Washington Times, to respond to these challenges.
I devoted myself because I know His heart
I am grateful that God gave me the opportunity to serve America, because American-led United Nations forces, in the process of saving my country during the Korean War, liberated me from a communist concentration camp where I had been imprisoned for preaching the word of God.
Since receiving God’s calling as a boy of 15, I have delved into the meaning of God’s Will and fought against tremendous odds to fulfill the providence of restoration for the sake of human salvation.
I came to realize that God does not sit on a throne of glory and grandeur. Instead, God is a God of deep sorrow and profound suffering, who endeavors to save His children, who fell into hell. As a result of the Fall, human beings fell into spiritual ignorance. This meant that humanity was fundamentally ignorant regarding God’s existence, the meaning of human life, and the entire universe. People did not understand how they needed to live their lives during their time in this world while they have physical bodies. They did not understand that there is a spirit world and that life in the physical world must be lived so that it would properly prepare them for the spirit world.
Knowing God’s Will and heart, I worked with single-minded determination as I devoted my entire heart and energy for the accomplishment of God’s Will, without regard to the time of day, changes in the seasons, or the environment around me. As I look back on the eighty years of my life and all the difficulties and persecution I received, I realize I would not be here with you today were it not for the help that God has given me throughout the years.
I have spoken publicly on some ten thousand occasions in many places around the world. These speeches have been published in a series of more than three hundred volumes. On this very significant occasion today when I am meeting some of the most distinguished leaders in the United States, I would like to share the essence of the guiding principles in my life and work under the theme, “The Cosmos Is Our Hometown and Our Homeland.”
The cosmos was created as an enormous house where human beings would live as the masters. Human beings, who are at the center of the universe, live in the context of relationships, fundamentally those of parent and child, husband and wife, and between siblings. The parent-child relationship can be described in terms of a vertical axis between above and below. Since a husband and wife are on an equal level, their relationship can be described in terms of a horizontal axis between left and right. We can say that sibling relationships are on a third axis between front and back. Every individual exists within the sphere created by these three axes. If the ultimate points on these axes are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, then God exists in the seventh position, at the center of the sphere. This is how God can guide us in our daily lives, even while existing at the central position that cannot be seen.
The ideal model of existence and true love
Since the Fall, human beings have existed in Satan’s realm of bondage and suffering. With God’s help, people can be set free. They can mature as true sons and daughters, meet their mates, and become true husbands and wives.
They can go on to have children and become true parents. This should be the normal course of human life. Thus, we cannot reject the concept of true children, of true husbands and true wives, or of true parents. To do so would be to violate a fundamental principle of the universe, thus destroying our own existence. Each of us has to participate in building a true family consisting of true parents, a true husband and wife, and true children, which is the model for the ideal existence.
In the context of the family, people need to fully receive the love of true parents and of a true spouse. Then, they need to fully receive the love of true children. Money, knowledge, power, or physical force cannot bring such human relationships to their completed form. Only the true love of God, which brings balance to the world, can do this.
True love is a force that invests and gives completely. It is a giving force, not a force that only receives. True love is total giving, to the degree that we ultimately reach a point where there is nothing left to give. Reaching that “zero point,” enlarges our capacity to receive, much more than we gave. This process of giving and receiving will achieve a balance that continues forever. Relationships of giving and receiving produce a world where people live for the sake of others, centering on true love.
All beings in heaven and earth exist in a mutual relationship with other beings so as to form a world of true love through giving and receiving relationships. In mutual relationships every giving force causes a returning force, and this is what gives eternal stability to the central point. God exists in the central position of true love giving balance to the entire universe. It is the position of the “lucky” number seven. Heavenly fortune advances by the process of receiving God’s true love and returning it. Within such relationships the flow takes the form of circular motion, as love, air, water, and light go round and round and return to their original place.
FFWPU, USA