Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: Episode 70
Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: A Selection of True Parents’ Speeches
Book 2: God’s Homeland and the Peace Kingdom
Speech 6: God’s True Love and Restoring His Relationship with Heaven, Earth and Humankind, pg 242-244
God’s True Love and Restoring His Relationship with Heaven, Earth and Humankind
February 6, 2003
Jamshil Indoor Gymnasium, Seoul, Korea Commemoration of True Parents’ Birthday
Respected current and former heads of state, leaders from the religious, political and academic worlds, representatives of one hundred and eighty-nine countries, family representatives, ladies and gentlemen:
I would like to truly thank all of you who have gathered here to congratulate me on my eighty-third birthday, and my wife, Hak Ja Han Moon, on her sixtieth birthday.
Above all else, I would like to return all this glory to God, who has protected and looked after me until this day. You cannot explain my life without God, and at this truly meaningful occasion I am speaking to all of you today with gratitude to God in my heart. The title of my talk today is, “God’s True Love and Restoring His Relationship to Heaven, Earth and Humankind.”
A new understanding about God
Throughout human history, all people have talked endlessly about God, the Absolute Being. They have praised Him and worshipped Him in many different ways. Others have felt free to evaluate Him. Some have even declared that there is no God or that God is dead. However, there has not been one instance in which God Himself appeared directly saying, “This is how I have lived.” There have been many people who have prophesied that, with the development of science, the population who believe in God would dwindle. However, the number of people who believe in God in contemporary society is not diminishing, for God is the living origin of all things, the Creator, the True Parent of humankind.
The God I have been teaching about is not just some vague or obscure God. Ever since the time I first truly experienced Him at the age of sixteen, when I was anguishing about the meaning of life and the universe, I have lived my whole life in communication with Him. The living God’s promise and my absolute faith in Him are the driving forces that have preserved my life during times of suffering, even when I was at the brink of death.
I searched every corner of the spirit world. There I met the five great religious founders and many other saints and sages, and I received their official recognition of my mission. Ladies and gentlemen, God is the most decent and modest being, and He is the True Parent of humankind. He is the origin of all our lives, and He is the Being with whom all people need to establish a relationship. Also, the one thing you all must know clearly is that the spirit world, the world where we will all go someday, does exist. Do not doubt the existence of the spirit world, and do not settle for merely a vague belief in God.
I have set a record in sponsoring many “God Conferences,” something with no parallel in history. The first three conferences that I held in the 1980s were attended by representatives from each religion and denomination as well as by outstanding theologians and scholars of religion. They caused a great sensation.
There were three main points I wanted to teach through these conferences. First, although each faith has its own special and unique character, religions actually have many more points in common than differences. Second, the conflict and disharmony that exist between religions is due to the narrow-mindedness of believers, and it is definitely not the intention of the Absolute Being. Third, God desires the realization of true love rather than any emphasis on doctrine or ceremony.
The papers and discussions presented at these conferences are still being used today as a textbook in the top theological seminaries of each denomination. From that time forward, a spirit of sincere dialogue and cooperation among all denominations began. Before this time, the high walls erected between them had blocked such dialogue and cooperation. Since then I have invested a great deal of resources each year to expand the International Religious Foundation and the Interreligious Federation for World Peace in each country and throughout the world.
For three days, beginning on December 26 last year in Washington, D.C., I held a God Conference on a different level. During that time, under the theme “God and a World of Peace,” 312 participants gathered, including religious leaders from all corners of the world and also representatives from politics, academia, the media, business, culture and the arts, and from various NGOs.
God is not just the God of believers. He is the God of all people. Especially at this time, we are living in an age in which God stands before the world not just as some vague and abstract Being, but as a God with a definite purpose and Will. It is an age of great change, when all people need to awaken to this God. All people need to awaken to the fact that the contemporary world is being sucked down into a maelstrom of individual, family, national and world-level problems, which we will never solve if we ignore God.
At this conference, the 312 participants adopted a resolution declaring the following: First, that they would recognize God and True Parents as the True Parents, True Teachers and True Owners, and establish them as the vertical axis of absolute value for the individual, the family, the nation and the world. Second, that they would cooperate with and follow the resolution of the five religious founders, and all the saints and sages in the spirit world, to join together and help people on earth bring about the completion of God’s Will. Third, that they would actively support and participate in the movement to realize true love, the movement to reform the United Nations, and with other initiatives of the True Parents to realize the ideal of world peace.
FFWPU, USA