Speeches of Hyo Jin Moon 2006-2008
Delivered Sunday at Belvedere Estate in Tarrytown, New York
Hyo Jin Moon Speaks on Indemnity, Page 216

Some episodes may contain explicit language. Listener discretion is advised.

Indemnity

November 26, 2006

Did you have a good Thanksgiving?

It's a turkey day, right? I don't know if it's purely for being thankful. (Laughter.)

When you talk about indemnity that's kind of a heavy topic isn't it? But should it be?

In the beginning God expected us to be something. He had a vision. He had the ultimate divine vision, the purpose of creation, and in that light we had a crucial role to play. Just based on that reality alone, that's something significant. That should be something that we should all celebrate, that possibility in itself. Whether it happened or whether it didn't happen, whether we're still struggling to make it happen—that's an afterthought, because hindsight is always 20/20 right?

It gives us something to try to strive for, to achieve that ultimate, the vision of God. We all have that and we all dream that we'd like to see ourselves living in a world where there are no wars, and you can trust somebody even if you never met them. Somebody in your life, where you can just walk up and shake their hand and somehow that alone can have a lasting relationship.

Because even in a personal relationship, if you try to build or even contemplate about making a true relationship, an ideal relationship, it takes a lifetime. You can't really say to yourself that I can know somebody just because I've been with them a few times. I see him do this. I see him do that. I see him in this extreme state, I saw him in the opposite extreme state. So, therefore, I can conclude that I know. But it's not that simple. People can change and there's all sorts of stuff in between that makes us unique.

So, even when you try to understand an individual and try to accept the basic kind of religious teaching about an individual being idiosyncratic—that they're unique, something special in the eyes of God, it takes a lifetime to really understand it.

Because if you don't try to understand people based on that kind of common sense based thinking, it's improper. The conclusion will be false, and you have to bear the responsibility in judgment. Because ultimately in the end what you are doing is judgment. But that should be left up to God. We should try to understand what God has intended and then try to create an ideal world in essence, before we try to be God.

If you don't have the basic understanding as to why you are here and what we're struggling to achieve in creating an ideal world there's no point in trying to say that “I'm great,” or trying to declare some sort of happiness that's just centered on you. That greatness is just centered on you. That has nothing to do with God. It has nothing to do with anybody else. 

So, before we try to define ourselves, including with the most difficult kind of concept such as indemnity, we have to try to understand why such a thing is necessary for us to become what God intended us to be.

Talk about indemnity. It's like you're compensating for some kind of stuff right? You cause some kind of loss and damage so you're going to redeem yourself by making compensation. That is the concept. So when you think about any kind of situation where a standard is set, and when that standard is breached what has to happen? Because you're going down the path of conflict—to diminish it, what do you have to do?

You've got to do something. You've got to do something to make that conflict into zero. If you don't do that you can't rebuild, because indemnity is about rebuilding. It's about recreating. It's rebuilding, but the process by which you rebuild and you recreate has a standard that you have to earn. It's not automatic. You have a specific responsibility within that kind of give-and-take relationship. You have to earn that to complete that process. And if you don't do that properly, you go into a process of conflict.

You have to pay indemnity. You have to neutralize that. You have to make that into zero first to make it true. That's the standard. Ultimately that's my view or concept of indemnity. The important aspect that we have to achieve first is to have that understanding of earning your way to your expected position, especially in the divine relationship, the relationship between you and God.

Unless you address that clearly, and you do it on your own—unless you earn it, it doesn't work. It's a very important process that you have to understand through action, through your deeds. Earn it. Earn that title. That's the natural way. That is the proper way. That is the divine way. That is the way that will last and have a meaning after you pass away from this earth, because you don't live here too long.

I try to tell myself the same thing. It's important if you want to have any kind of standard, if you don't remind yourself, it doesn't exist. It really doesn't matter, whatever you say, whatever you do. It doesn't matter, because you'll never measure up to it, even to your own standard in the end.

When you look at this world—and let's say this is one extreme and this is the opposite extreme (pointing to the opposite corners of the podium)—there are takers, and there are givers, and something in between. Takers will do anything and say anything to get what they want. For what purpose? You ask those takers. And there's the opposite and what do you think normal people in general are? I hope you can make an easy model and just take a little sphere and based on the center here, everybody just exists here and that's the world—that's the kind of bubble we exist in (Hyo Jin nim makes a ball with his hands at the middle of the podium).