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When we say let us live well together, within "us" are included many elements. It involves man and woman as the center of the family, the family as the center of the country, the country as the center of the world, and so on, all the way to the cosmos. Everything is contained there, so is "us" a small, simple word or a complicated one?
There are many different concepts about living well. For instance, one woman might want to live well for her own selfish purposes. She might feel that living well means being able to accumulate beautiful things. Seeing an expensive gem such as a diamond, she will want to possess it in order to show it off to her friends. When she meets a handsome man, she would want him as her boyfriend in order to make other women jealous. That is her idea of living well.
What about a woman who wants to be close to God? Would she seek to serve God at His feet, or at His head? Would she want to live at the top or at the foot of God? Yes, she would want to be at the top.
Both a beautiful woman and a homely one will try to live well. Which would be more likely to wear cosmetics and make herself up? Actually, if you think according to their purpose, cosmetics are hardly needed by a beautiful woman. Perhaps she might need a little lipstick but not much more. The homely woman, on the other hand, needs to work a lot harder to make herself attractive. However, the reality is that the more attractive woman tends to wear more makeup. That is an example of confusion about living well.
What is it, really, to live well? Let us consider the air we breathe. Does the air live well? Imagine if air molecules were floating around and came to a big hole somewhere and said, "I don't want to go in there. I've been oppressed and pushed around all my life. I can't stand it! I want to go up, not down." That, of course, is impossible. The air goes wherever it is possible to go. If there is a hole or vacuum somewhere, air rushes in to fill it up.
The two major life-supporting elements are air and water. Without them, we could not survive. Water naturally flows downward and accumulates to form a main stream. In a deep river, the water underneath pushes forward, while the water on the top seems to be just riding along. Suppose one water molecule on the bottom decided, Y want to go up to the top where it is easier to live. I'm tired of being weighed down by all the other molecules." Of course, that is not the way water behaves. Water molecules just flow freely together, pouring down, filling in all the gaps that they encounter along the way. Water molecules never fight among themselves to gain the best position.
Let's compare water to people. One man is like the water molecules in the surging mainstream area. How much struggle and difficulty such a man must have had. The property and characteristic of water is to fill in everything and go wherever it is needed, whether that is downward or upward. Like in the capillaries of the body, fluid can be absorbed in any direction. This is why water has the ability to support life, which is most complicated and precious.
If water could speak to us, it would say, "I occupy the most glorious positions in the world and also the most lowly and miserable places." When we need to clean something, what do we wash it with? Water. Does water resist washing dirty things? It is capable of cleansing anything without resistance or complaint. That noble element even evaporates and travels around as a cloud. It does the hardest and dirtiest work at times, but it can also become a cloud and travel high above the rest of the world, seeing everything from the best vantage point. It has that lofty position as well. We should look at the clouds from this perspective. They do so many good things for us, and thus we should appreciate them.
People may enjoy the top of the mountain, but the animals there appreciate the lowest point in the valley as well. That is where their roots are. The lowest point of the valley is where everything gathers-insects, birds' nests, animal dens and so forth. Sediment and mud settle there and it is more smelly. Isn't it true that the bad, rotten elements will flow down, rather than up? Yet all the creatures want to live in that fertile area. The largest trees can grow there, and not at the higher levels. This phenomenon is true all over the world.
When subject and object come into a relationship of harmony, it is good. We recognize the goodness of that harmony. We all possess a mind, correct? If we follow our mind's lead, where does it take us? Does your mind want to stay within one country, or does it want to expand all the way to the cosmic level? The mind wants to go everywhere, from a castle on top of a mountain to the greatest, most exalted places. What about the body? It is drawn to the lower areas, as we mentioned before. Can we let our mind go one place and our body another? No, we need to live as one person, mind and body united, whether it is up high or down low. For the body to go to the loftier areas, we need a ladder. As we know, the body always prefers to avoid tiredness and difficulty.
I have occasion to meet with many people in different places. Imagine if I could give each person I meet a thousand dollars. Perhaps I would give away ten million dollars after a short time. How would my mind feel? It would say, "That is a good thing," and it would be happy, but it wouldn't want to stop at that point. My mind naturally wants to keep giving to all the people in the country, even to all the people in the world. The mind doesn't want to stop giving. When you do something good, your mind doesn't tell you, "That's enough." Instead, you want to do more and more goodness.
What is the standard for living well? Is a person who is capable of giving more and more, without end, someone who is living well? But giving without end becomes tiring, doesn't it? That can't be all there is to living well. So the body puts the brakes on the mind. The mind is always looking to give out and not stop, but the body says, "That's enough, now." The body is the control on the mind, so to speak. We notice a very important point here. Everything has two sides. There is the outgoing force and the pulling in force, and both are needed for balance.
Compare man and woman. They are very different in shape and character. A woman is indented, while a man protrudes at a certain point. When a woman laughs, what does she look like? She usually laughs from the head and bends downward. A man, on the other hand, starts laughing in the belly and that laugh moves upward to his head. Even in laughter, woman is saying, "I want to go lower" and man says, "I want to go up."
Can a man be happy living just among other men? Or can a woman dwell only with other women and be happy? Suppose the two most beautiful women in the world could live together? Suppose the winner of the Mr. Universe contest and the first runner-up were to live together. Which is the better combination-for the two most handsome men in the world to live together, or for Mr. Universe and the ugliest woman in the world to live together? Which is the better pair?
Some women may envy men for their freedom, particularly because men don't have monthly periods. Perhaps a woman wishes that men also had to go through that experience every month and had such limits on their freedom. But which is more secure, the indented shape or the protruding shape? Certainly the indented areas are more secure. A woman can walk about freely, swinging her hands and looking at the scenery. But a man, on the other hand, has to be more cautious. His protruding part has to be protected all the time. When you think about this, you men might envy women for their once-a-month inconvenience.
For whom must you men protect your precious area? It is not for yourself but for your wife. When a woman marries, what is the most important aspect of her husband? Is it his handsome face? Although you may not think about it, after you have lived together all your life, look back and see. We can laugh, but this is a serious matter.
Some people have large goiters on their neck or the side of their face. A goiter is undesirable because it is unusual; people don't want to look different. But imagine this situation: A princess insists that she will only marry a man with a big goiter. At that time, everybody in the country will envy the man with the largest goiter. He would be the champion. This illustrates an important point about life. Many times we decide what happiness or unhappiness means based on shifting standards. Sometimes what makes us happy can make us unhappy a little later on, and vice-versa.
The man who feels he is ugly need not worry about it. Perhaps a lovely woman will come along whose father resembled that man. Because she loved her father so much, she will want to marry the ugly man who reminds her of her father. That sort of thing actually happens. Does anyone doubt it? Therefore, you shouldn't complain about the way you look. That so-called defect can be the very thing to bring you unexpected joy and good luck.
All of these points have to do with living well. Is your idea of living well to live just within set limits, or to travel in many different places? Why do you say traveling around? If you move around, you will not encounter limits because it involves circular motion. If we just follow a straight line, however, there will be always be a limit to how far we can go.
Do you need a house to live in? Even the nicest, finest house can be boring to look at after a while. It would be nice to move around and live in a different area, to see different colors and furnishings and so forth. Many household items are made of plastic these days, such as umbrellas, shopping bags, and so forth. What about houses? How about a plastic, collapsible house which you can fold up and take with you. Perhaps that will come soon. If you want to live with the least amount of trouble, would you prefer a big stone house which needs lots of maintenance, or a small portable one?
If our idea of living well is to be able to move about to many different places, then we don't need a big house which is difficult to maintain. You can't build a big house everywhere you go. Kwon Jin Nim once said that he would like to live in a tent. I wondered what made him say that. He would live in a tent right now if Mother would let him. Thus even at East Garden, the idea of living well might be to live in a tent.
Recently there have been many guests at East Garden, so Kwon Jin has eaten bulgogi for dinner several days in a row. Now he is saying he wants to go out and eat a hamburger for a change. I just can't understand why he wants to go to some restaurant where you have to smell cigarette smoke and endure all that inconvenience, so I asked him if he was sure about that. He said emphatically, ayes!"
We can sum up living well as experiencing all the best things in the world in harmony in all four directions cast, west, north and south.
Two days ago, I visited a shopping mall to buy some gifts. It was a very beautiful mall. At one corner, some artist had erected a sculpture of painted tin cans, the sort one finds at a garbage dump. I realized that people enjoy the variety of the expensive items for sale at the mall and the decorated cans from the garbage dump.
Americans enjoy collecting antiques, don't they? In Korea, on the other hand, people don't like old things because everything there is old. New things are most precious and valuable. In America everything is relatively new, so anything which is 100 or 200 years old is very rare and precious. That is an interesting aspect of the human mind: if you don't have it, you want it. That is a very important part of living well, too, isn't it? To have something old, something new, something from east, west, north and south, and to live in harmony with all these things. Do you like to harmonize?
Can you imagine someone's face having to struggle to live in harmony? The eyes might be wide open but the ears might say, "We're tired, so we're going to close up and rest." Is that the ideal of living well for our face? When the eyes are wide open, the ears are open as well and the nose is also ready to receive smells. Each facial feature is eager to experience more things. Isn't that the way of living well for our face?
All the body parts cooperate to fulfill a specific need. When the mouth wants to taste something, the hands reach for it and guide the food to the mouth. Here we can see clearly that when one part wants to do something, every other part wants to participate. How sophisticated that process is! The more complicated the process, the more beautiful and satisfying the harmony. That is living well.
What is required for a religion to live well? Is it enough for one denomination to achieve something all by itself, excluding every other denomination? No, that is not really good enough. It is much better for them to embrace everybody else. But how complicated and difficult that is-to embrace all the different religions is the most complicated thing in the world. In that sense, what is the most complicated religion? It is the Unification Church. No matter how complicated the process, however, our goal is simple: unity.
Which is usually the more successful church, the one which does poor fund raising or the one which is good at fund raising? For the sake of the goal, Unification Church fund raisers work all day. You have to get up early in the morning and go out into the cold air. Pretty soon the sun comes out and warms you up. You might feel like complaining against the bitter cold morning air, but then you can think, "God wants to toughen me up with this. He wants to correct my complaining nature." Learning to control complaint is a great lesson. Opposite situations create harmony. Going from comfort to discomfort helps a person to be harmonized.
Do you all like me? You like me when I speak sweetly to you, but when I speak harshly, you don't like me, do you? Sweet words are good; they nourish the branches that are growing out from your tree. When I speak harshly, however, that nourishes the root which is coming down from your tree. Everybody appreciates the branches, but most people don't appreciate the root. Yet all the beautiful blossoms and branches come from the root.
Is it good for the Unification Church to encounter opposition from other churches? You have the opportunity to create a beautiful example of harmony when others persecute and hate you. When you feel no resentment in your heart and say, "You only do that because you don't understand. I still care for you and I do not hate you," that is a wonderful harmonizing action for you. For one man to hate and the other to love him in return is a beautiful historical incident. Do you understand?
The person who embraces and loves those who reject him will flourish; he will never perish. How have I become such a successful man? Was it by being welcomed and embraced, or by being opposed and rejected? Being rejected, opposed and persecuted and then becoming great is an accomplishment which no one can ever take away. The things I achieve will always be secure for this reason. From this perspective, what is the better way of life to live well by being persecuted, or by being welcomed? Be persecuted and grow; that is the better way of living.
Suppose someone walks up and slaps your face. Rather than striking back, you should think to yourself, "I wonder why he did that." You must have that kind of spacious mind. Just as Jesus taught, "When someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the left cheek." Ordinary people say, "If someone slaps me, I'll belt him." It's a reflex; people don't have any room to accommodate and think about such a thing. You must understand that when someone treats you harshly, you should treat him with the opposite attitude. When you do that, he will one day regard you as great.
Sometimes you feel so much pain from others' mistreatment, it is like a prickly needle in your heart. But by that experience, you feel something you never felt before and therefore you become a greater person. This is the way we must think all the time. Others may live well but never have this sort of thinking. Who is actually living better in that case? It is those who think in this manner. Isn't that true?
If a dull, plodding man marries a nervous, hysteria-prone woman, he has to maintain equilibrium. If he also became nervous, he could not survive. One person dwells at one extreme, and the other at the other extreme. It seems they could never tolerate each other's company. Yet suppose they manage to live together as man and wife for 20 or 30 years. By this coming together of extremes, they truly embody the ideal of living well together. A lot of people have different ideas of living well, depending upon what they enjoy doing.
I have been speaking for one hour and that was just the introduction! Now you can figure out the conclusion yourself.
Is God a lofty Being or a low one? Yes, He is the loftiest. God knows that all people, His children, have the desire to become high and lofty, just as He Himself is. God gave us this quality. Don't you think God feels inspired to see even a humble, poor man yearning to become great? When God sees us striving for greatness, He is excited. When we are in a low place, we have an even stronger desire to be higher. Isn't that the way people think?
That is the way the universe is-when one element reaches the apex, it has to go low again. Then when it reaches the lowest point, it naturally starts going up again. God is so mighty and high, yet He doesn't want to stay up high all alone. Sometimes He wants to come down to the lowest places. When there is a balance like this, the motion is eternal. When God comes down and we go up, God enjoys seeing that.
If a woman and a man have the same kind of thinking, it cannot be exciting for them. That is a mediocre way of life. If you women look at your husband and he is always the same, day after day, is that exciting? What is your idea of a happy life with your husband-to live in a mediocre, boring way, or for exciting things to happen all the time? It's really great to have a great man.
When a woman has a lot of children and raises them well, they are constantly coming to her and trying to talk to her, telling her how much they love her and competing for her attention. That is actually quite difficult for the mother. You can imagine such a crowd constantly pulling on your attention. You would get dizzy. Yet, isn't that the ultimate happiness?
If you are going to be a mother, do you want to be the worst or the best mother in the world? Certainly, you want to be the best. Therefore, which is better: to be the mother of ten or one hundred? What about a thousand? The more the better. The mother of a thousand children will feel sorrow and regret because she will not be able to take care of all of them all the time. That attitude reflects the most precious mind.
So which is better-to have a large number or a small number of children? You American women especially, please answer me. I recently discovered why many American women are prone to nervousness. It is because they don't have enough of an anchor line. They just drift one way and the next. They don't know where they are supposed to go. But when a woman has a lot of children, they are her anchor lines holding her and making her stable. The hysterical woman can't maintain a relationship with a man because she doesn't adjus herself to him. That kind of woman will give birth to inferior children. A woman needs to be round-minded.
God wishes for all the Unification Church couples to have more than three children. Each child represents a season of the year which lasts for three months. If you only have one child, that is like living always in one season. How sad for the mother to have only one season in the family. Jesus had twelve disciples to represent all the months and seasons. In that respect, the mother who can have twelve or more children can become the greatest queen by rearing all those children. They are like the textbook of life for the mother. She learns from each of them. Each child is a base for understanding the rest of humanity. When the mother meets someone, she can think, "He is like my third son, so I know how to relate with him." She has her own "reference library" at home by which to study and understand the human race. The mother who has reared many children well can have no evil within her.
Of course, that is not an easy task. Even handling one child is difficult, so having twelve or more is exhausting. Mind and body are always pulled and tired, you are always solving problems, offering consolation, constantly being pushed and pulled. But do you think this is a happy life? The smile of such a mother reflects twelve different directions. That smile is the richest, most beautiful smile. By contrast, another woman who never married may smile, too, but the difference between those smiles is like the difference between heaven and earth. Do you understand?
How would you prefer to live, with each race clustered together, excluding the other races? Or would you prefer to live all together, including everyone and every race? The second way is certainly the better way of living. Is that true? Are you sure? How fantastic it is to live with many different people and elements all together in harmony. The process of attaining harmony is difficult and painful, but in the end we can smile and laugh with joy.
I have always been inspired by the contrast in the face of a black man or woman. They have dark skin, dark eyes, but when they open their eyes widely they show off a flash of white. It would not be beautiful if the whites of their eyes were also dark. I have been fascinated by the beauty of that flash of white in an otherwise completely dark human body. That is a form of beauty possessed by no other race. Only in black people.
Black absorbs all the colors of the spectrum, while white reflects all the colors. When the colors are absorbed, they can then be projected. How beautiful and fantastic are black people. White people also have their beauty, but since they are reflecting the light they have a fuzzier outline, so to speak. Black and yellow, on the other hand, have a sharp clear outline. Therefore, every race and individual is attractive. No one is inferior.
The person who lives this kind of harmonized life may not have a lot of money, but his face will be crinkled with joyful smiles. How wonderful is this harmonizing way of life! Even though a man may not be able to eat breakfast, as long as his mind is joyful and focused on this way of harmony, he is far better off than some well-fed rich person whose life is miserable.
Where does happiness lie? It is everywhere, but it is up to us to find it by responding properly to life's situations. Let's have a show of hands of all the women here who wouldn't like to have a queen's position. Likewise, all you men who don't want to be a king, raise your hands. No one raises his hand in this case. But before we can become queens or kings, what do we have to do? We have to accept and admire all the children. Is that an easy or a hard job? It is not easy.
Do you all love me? Why? You all look different- white, black, Hispanic, and so forth-and you all think differently, which is even harder to deal with. For me to harmonize with all of you is very difficult, a very complicated situation. Sometimes I feel a lot of concern about how to lead this complicated, mixed-up generation into the future. These next three generations have to be led over the hill, so to speak, and that is the challenge. After ten generations, your descendants will be much more harmonized. At that point, it won't be so important to mix races and cultures together. White and white can marry then and, after ten generations of mixing, they might give birth to dark-skinned children, since the blood of the previous ten generations will have been mixed. You only have to think about these things, but I am seriously dealing with them. How complicated it is!
White and black are the two extremes. At this time, the white race needs help in order to be turned around and saved. They cannot help themselves or save themselves. When the Pilgrims came to this continent, whom did they encounter here? It was the Indians, the native Americans. Those Indians helped them very much and even saved them. If they had treated those newcomers harshly, the white people would have had no chance of survival. Think about how outnumbered they were by the Indians. Now in the present time, this nation is on the verge of perishing. White America could not solve the problems and therefore this Oriental man came and taught them how to change.
White people have rejected and oppressed all the colored peoples of the world-black, Hispanic, Oriental-yet those colored people are all helping the white people now. Reverend Moon and his followers came from the outside to help. The white people may seem to have all the wealth and positions, and they may be considered as living well. But we who are suffering and helping them are the ones who are actually living well, according to the universal, eternal viewpoint. Why is that? It is because we are going over all the difficulties, digesting them, and harmonizing with everything.
Within God are all the characteristics we see in human beings, but do you think God is more like the hysterical, nervous person or the slow, steady, person? Even when He hears something exciting, He doesn't just immediately spring out in response. He is very steady and even stolid. God's way is not so quick and immediate as human beings. This is also the greatness of the Oriental philosophy, the attitude called "chung yong," which is not really translatable. Basically it means taking the middle course. Right in the middle, no extreme.
Here in the United States, it is not unusual for someone to take a job and then to quit it as soon as he feels like it. Not only that, he may not even say good-bye to his employer. In Korea or the rest of the Orient, this is a terrible offense. People will always say good-bye and depart from a job with respect. This is another example of the way of the middle.
Do we need both hands or just one? We need both, but why? Without two, there can be no harmony; one hand cannot function properly. What is good can turn around and be bad sometimes, and vice-versa. That understanding influences the way of life of Orientals. Even when they laugh, Orientals never lose control and guffaw at the top of their voice. They always reserve something, so it is like a halfway expression. Even if an Oriental man has a lot of money, he will tell himself he only has a little. He is storing his money for the sake of the country.
Do I have a lot of money, or not? My pocket is always hungry, always in need of more, because the money I have belongs to all the world. Is it a good thing to be in debt? It is not good, but I owe a lot of money. For whose sake? It is for the sake of heaven and earth, for people and all things. I always accumulate as much money as I can so that I can spend it for the public purpose. So when you go into debt for that purpose, is it good or bad? Why is it good? That is the only way for the universe to be preserved. This is why the universe wants to preserve Reverend Moon now. This morning I spent some time talking with my children about this point.
Once again we ask who is living well. Suppose someone as rich as Mr. Rockefeller is persecuting Reverend Moon and hating him, while Reverend Moon is loving that person. Who is living well in that case? When you observe everything and everyone following Reverend Moon, you can conclude, "He must be living well."
You might say that America was living in perpetual sunlight when I came to this country and introduced the night time. Yet only by harmonizing night and day can this country be preserved and endure successfully. Is America a rich or poor country? Should the world help America, or should this country help the world? Certainly, this rich country should help the world. By the same token, should America help or oppose Reverend Moon? This country has been opposing me, but even now, I am holding tightly onto the United States and preventing it from perishing. It is not yet obvious to everyone what I am doing, but in the future people will recognize it. It will become much more clear.
What are we doing? We are suffering people working for the happiness of those who are not suffering. Unhappy people helping happy people. It sounds absurd, but that is the way of living well. When you encounter difficulty, always look down and not up. Then you will see those with even greater difficulties. When you look upward and see those with all the things you lack, you can't learn. But you can learn from those who are lower and more miserable than you. Look at the oppressed and poor people of the world and recognize, "I am much better off than they." You can have the confidence that you will one day be able to live as well as anyone, even though your present situation is difficult.
Therefore, you black people should not be sad or complain against your difficult situation. Instead, watch the white people and how full of complaint they are in spite of their comfortable situation. Say to yourself, "I am worse off than they, but because I can live without complaint, I am actually living better." Sometimes the black people are not motivated enough, but you black people in the Unification movement must be very diligent. There are many ways to become better, to improve.
Is Reverend Moon a man of success or failure? You say success, but how do you prove it? What is the greatest result? You can see that I am successful because I came from a tiny country and worked here to help this gigantic nation. Now there are people of every race in this nation following my teaching. How many of you here ever wept because you missed seeing me? You have done that because of love.
Love is not clean and easy, is it? The United States has everything, including great religious leaders like Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham. Those leaders certainly speak better English than I! Yet you are all here with me. Why? Which river is greater, a long river or a short one? I came here from a remote area and traveled a long road. Do you suppose my journey was a happy one, or was it filled with difficulties? The river of Reverend Moon's life has a lot of history and a lot of sections in it. After traveling so long, I am preparing to go to the ocean, which is the spirit world.
This river, which we call the True Parents, is the true ancestor of all those to follow. After you came to this river, you learned about history. You know what to expect in the future, you have learned about your present situation. But other religions, like short rivers, get stuck and then stop. The Unification Church is composed of people with great talent and genius from all different origins and backgrounds. That's you! You people of talent have joined with me because I, too, am a man of talent. It is natural.
Are there more things which I do, or more things which I don't do? Ask yourself, is there anything that Reverend Moon doesn't do? I can do any sort of occupation. What if God decided to change my mode of life? You don't know what God might do or what He might require of me. What is the strongest whiskey available in this country? Suppose I started drinking such strong alcohol, taking swigs from one bottle and then another, and became totally drunk. Then while I was drinking so many liquids, I would naturally have to relieve myself Would you say, "Well, he used to be good, but I don't think he is anymore." How many of you would still follow me if I was drinking? If that were the only way to open the golden heavenly gates wide so that everyone in the world could come in, it would have to be done. Certainly, God would command such drastic things to be done if that happened to be the only way to open up heaven. Well, it's possible. In God, anything is possible.
By just looking at each of you, I can discern what you are thinking. Do I like exciting or mediocre things? Even when a person is old, does he still like excitement? When I get very old and weak, I may not be able to walk upright, but still I want to have an exciting life. Regardless of how old I may get, do you think I will be old or young? That is my problem! Even now I am working very hard. I have been standing up here and talking for almost three hours, not even thinking about the time passing. Nevertheless, don't you think my legs hurt?
People follow many different paths and ways of life, but the greatest way of life is to adjust to all the different people and situations in the world. Harmonizing and digesting all this and then living well is the greatest life.
Let's consider God. Is God living well now? People are constantly crying out to Him, "Oh, help me, please help me!" Does God enjoy hearing that all the time? What does God feel, however, when He hears someone praying strongly, "I will help You, Father. Please let me do whatever I can for You." God is so consoled by that kind of prayer. It is the first time in human history that God has heard such prayers.
Many theologians have been claiming that God is dead. Now it is time for us to stand up and shout, "What are you talking about? God is alive and well!" We must push that God-is-dead theology into the ocean. God will say, "Go ahead and correct that theologian, but please don't push him into the ocean." Suppose you accidentally hurt that wrong-thinking person. God would say, "It was an accident, so you are not to blame."
If you feel that you are an unhappy person, please raise your hand. You mean you are all happy people? In spite of all the hardships you endure and all the harsh treatment I give to you, are you still happy? That is true faith.
I have this attitude toward God: "No matter what You do to me, I will believe in You. No matter what kind of treatment Satan inflicts upon me, I will accept it and digest it. I won't refuse anything." Through that way of thinking, I came to know Satan's secret and his characteristics. Also, I came to know the character of God.
I watch everything with great interest. There is nothing that does not interest me. I see the things which are really bad in this country and I always tell myself, "There has to be something good behind that." When I see people indulging in free sex, I feel outraged and it is such an impossible thing to deal with. Yet, I know that there is some meaning and reason for people doing that. Then I realize that they are looking for true sex. That is 180 degrees different from free sex. So even though free sex is so bad, the right, good way is exactly behind it.
Look at those people called Hell's Angels. Whoever behaves 180 degrees opposite from them must be Heaven's Angels. They will be the ones to sweep away Hell's Angels.
Good and evil are not so different at their starting point. Goodness begins at one point, moves in a circular motion and completes the circle at the beginning point. Evil, on the other hand, starts at the same point but becomes twisted and turns and does not move in a circle. For goodness to happen, there must be a stable axis. Law is that axis. If your actions are in accordance with the law, then you are accepted, but if you deviate from the law, you are not accepted. If that axis which moves things in the universe is in the wrong position, the universe could not exist. Do you follow? That axis never changes.
We see this in reality. When an emergency arises in a country, such as a war, particularly desperate action needs to be taken, so desperate people have to be recruited for that. Some convicted murderer may be chosen from prison to take on a special mission for the country. There have been movies, such as "Dirty Dozen" and "Guns of Navarrone," about this point. Do you understand?
Getting back to our topic, when we see a person who can dwell harmoniously in any sort of society, we say he is living well. Whether he is in white or black society, he lives with harmony and acceptance.
You white people are sitting here on this cold floor without any chairs. Is that what you call living well? Isn't that living poorly? Why not? It is good because it trains you to adapt to the Oriental way of life. I have observed many Westerners sitting on the floor in front of me, and sometimes they extend their legs. Just one leg is not so bad, but both legs is considered a total breach of etiquette in the Orient. Anyone who does that in Korea is almost considered less than human. The master of the house in which such an offense occurs will tell his own children later, "Don't you ever do that!" You are learning how to digest and harmonize with the Oriental way, so that is living well.
If you learn to control your temper, striving to be considerate to everyone, you will become the center of the society in which you dwell. This is good advice, particularly for you American women. That is because you don't understand how to follow the middle path. You so often tend to be extreme, expressing everything you feel. If a woman claims herself too much, she becomes isolated. But when you are the kind of person who listens to others, the talkative people will come and bow down to you in humility. Be a listener rather than a talker. Those who are more silent will have dominion over those who talk too much.
Also, those who laugh immoderately are going to be controlled by others who are more reserved. Remember the middle path. Have you ever observed an Oriental woman being chastised by her husband? Even though he yells at her, she pretends she is not listening. You might wonder how she can do that. But what happens? Eventually, that woman has control over her husband. Those who can keep silent are formidable persons.
What do you think? Is God a talkative, immoderate type, or a silent, formidable person? Then would God be moving around all the time, or is He stable and unmoving?
Which wild animal sleeps without worrying about being attacked by other animals? It is the lion. The lion can even sleep stretched out on his back on high ground, unafraid of any other creatures who might approach him. If a rabbit sat on high ground like that, he wouldn't last long, particularly in broad daylight. The lion sleeps all day long, but then at night he wakes up hungry and growls. He wakes up the whole countryside with his roar, and when he moves, he moves very swiftly. If lions are like that, what about God? God is the Being of absolute power, so why should He be nervous or in a hurry? For God, one thousand years can pass without His saying even one word.
During the 43 years in my lifetime from 1945 to 1988, everything was progressing very slowly. How tedious and difficult it was. Those were very long years. This year at the World Media Conference there were journalists from China, Russia, and many other nations. Their applause for my work was truly from their heart. Did that momentous event come about easily? Has the time changed, and has a new time arrived? Yes, but how many years have I worked, how much have I waited for this time?
To you, 43 years might seem an impossible time to persevere, but when I look at God's eternity, even those bitter 43 years is as nothing. My ordeal will always be less than God's, and that is always how I look at it. Ten times 43 equals 430 years; ten times that is 4300. To fulfill the indemnity for 430 years in just 43 means that those years must be ten times more saturated with suffering. It has taken God 4300 providential years and still He has not been able to completely achieve the victory. Because I have only one life, I had to do it within 43 years. Otherwise, I could not have done it. Could I do it within my life span? That was the question.
No matter what happened, I decided I would never complain. If I had, I would not have been able to continue. Whatever happened, I had to persevere. So my life is never monotonous, never simple. It has been very complicated in many different ways. During that 43-year period of my life, I had to resolve all the conditions that were never resolved during human history, including the basic problems of Adam's family. That means my family had to relive those problems and solve them according to God's will. Likewise, Abraham's family and situation had to be resolved. I had to relive each biblical indemnity point and succeed where perhaps 100 people had failed before.
Since I successfully represented all those biblical families, I could truly represent human history in front of God. Therefore, the conclusion is that to God, Reverend Moon's value is unique in history. But have any of you really treated me that way? Suppose Moses were to appear from spirit world, with his beard and stern demeanor, and stood next to me. You are so accustomed to seeing and hearing me. Which of us would you respect more?
When you read Jesus' sermon on the mount or the lessons he taught his disciples, you feel awe. Yet, have you ever really considered the fact that you are here? Have you ever been awestruck by this circumstance? Have you truly felt more valuable because of your historic position? That is a very serious question. Are you aware of the sacredness and seriousness of your anointed mission?
If you were in my position, would you want your disciples to be more serious or less serious than you? The teacher wants serious disciples. When I spoke last time, I stated that if the United States did not fulfill its responsibility, then Korea and the other nations in the line would be called upon, up to five countries. Failure by the United States, England, France, and Adam's country gave rise to communistic countries. God could not take back His territory by Himself. His son had to come and reclaim it and dedicate it to God. What God loses can only be restored by His son. It was Abel's responsibility to restore Cain. To totally indemnify 4300 years of failure of relationship within 43 years could never be easy or simple. Do you understand?
When this restoration by the son is done, God cannot tell him what to do, or teach him point by point how to do it. That is because it is the area of indirect dominion, so God cannot dominate directly. Do you think it was easy or simple to find the way and to actually go that way, bringing other people around? How difficult it is. The only logical conclusion is that I have to become more serious than God and be willing to embrace more difficulty than God to be able to achieve that. The way was so difficult that, after a point, Satan didn't bother with me any more. He went around and tried to block my way, but he never came close to me; he couldn't tag along because it was so difficult.
Now we come to the conclusion. Somebody has to take responsibility for history. The people who can do that are those who are willing to do more difficult things than anyone else in history. To be responsible for America means taking care, not of the good things but of the bad, ugly, deepest problems. That is what we have to take responsibility for if we want to take responsibility for America.
When you see some evil in this country, such as the prostitutes who congregate on 38th Street, don't pass by and say, "That has nothing to do with me." Rather you should think, "I am going to have enough influence to clean up those people and restore them within ten years." That means you have to be able to teach those prostitutes the Divine Principle. Suppose you invited one of those women to a lecture, and you and she were the only people in the room. Don't you suppose she would try to seduce you? Are you strong enough to resist such temptation? You must think of her as your sister or your daughter and have the heart to educate her. Because of that heart, you would be able to change such a woman. Then someday she, too, will want to go out and teach others as you taught her.
If you pledge to clean up those dirty areas of New York within ten years, what sort of life must you lead during that time? It must be a most committed, serious life. Every single day you have to do something to fulfill that pledge. But those difficult days are the elements of a well-lived life. Do you understand?
That is my conclusion. Better than living a happy life ourselves, we must live to make other people happy. That is truly living well. When we are living this way, the more intensely difficult our life is, the better we are living. I have a dream that one American woman someday will make this commitment: Y want to live under the most severe mother-in-law." Then that woman's life will be great; she will be the eternal textbook for other women who have difficulty with their mothers-in-law. How does that sound? Is that woman living well or miserably? By the same token, a woman might volunteer, "Give me the worst man as my husband, and I will restore him to the best person." By spending her whole life doing that, she will have lived well.
Reverend Moon came to America and pledged, "I will reform Christianity here. I will solve the youth problem. I will take care of eliminating communism in the world." Those formidable problems were beyond any government or agency to solve. Did I provide the solutions or not? As a result of my work, young people who were living according to the free sex philosophy have changed and are now responsible persons. We can now have absolute confidence to win over communism. Likewise, you young people here are confident to reach out to Christians and liberate them from decline. Therefore, you are all part of the textbook which Reverend Moon has written here.
You know that following me and my teaching will bring about liberation for you and the rest of the world. That is why you are able to spread this message to others. But it was not an easy path. Do you say, "Well, Father is Father so it was easy for him"? No, I have lived a very difficult life, but I have lived very well.
Not only members of the Unification Church but also other people in the United States have seen Reverend Moon's textbook and they are following it. That is the only way for them to live. Therefore, did Reverend Moon do well, or not? But behind that victory, how many bitter experiences did I have to live through? The meaning of doing well is handling difficulties. History is evolving and we have to live accordingly. That is living well, too.
Those who will say, "For the rest of my life, I will follow the pattern which Father has taught in order to live well," please raise your hands. I don't need to explain any more to you today about why you should live well. Let us pray.