Founders' Addresses

In the founder's address at the first Assembly of the World's Religions, held in New Jersey, in 1985, I identified three essential tasks for religious people. First, all religious traditions should respect each other and, at the very least, work to prevent conflict or war between religions. Second, all of us, as cooperating religious communities, should serve the world. And third, in order to fulfill the mission of religion, we should contribute to the development of world peace by means of an organization in which all religious leaders would participate.

At the second Assembly of the World's Religions, held in San Francisco last year, I called for the creation of the Inter-Religious Federation for World Peace. Today, with your distinguished cooperation, we are witnessing its historical birth.

Now is the time when all the world's religions should take action for realizing world peace. The future happiness of mankind cannot be achieved only through economic prosperity, but by overcoming conflicts between ideologies, cultures and races through interreligious understanding and spiritual harmony.

The purpose of Man

God's ideal of creation centers on true love and calls each of us to exist for the sake of others. The purpose of human existence is to realize an ideal family, society, nation and world. However, through false love and self-centeredness God's purpose for man was not realized. The disharmony and contradiction within each individual has been magnified on the worldwide level. Thus we see the struggles among religions, races and nations.

The base for realizing world peace is not to be found merely by seeking global solutions, but rather through individuals and families who are successful in harmonizing God's love within themselves. True men and women who will form the base for true families.

The human fall, which came about through false love, created discord on every level of human interaction. It can be seen in value systems (worldviews), between religion and science, idealism and materialism, and value-seeking and fact-finding pursuits.

According to God's ideal for man, the individual should become united in mind and body, and all resultant activities which are extensions of the individual should also become harmonized in their internal and external dimensions.

God's Messengers

Why does God send saints and prophets? Because He desires to educate all people about his will of true love. Leaders of the world bear great responsibility in respect to the decisions that they have to make. They should humbly listen to the voice coming from heaven and follow the heavenly way. ReIigion in its present state cannot deny the fact that it lacks the life energy necessary for leading and purifying the world. I have been devoting all my energy to the work of reforming the world and restoring God's ideal of true love.

Through the activities of the International Religious Foundation, the Assembly of the World's Religions, the New Ecumenical Research Association, the Council for the World's Religions, the Religious Youth Service, the Inter-Denominational Conferences for Clergy, and the Youth Seminar on World Religions - I have tried to provide a model of inter-religious understanding and harmony.

Today, I announce the publication of World Scripture, completed after five years of cooperative effort among scholars of religion. World Scripture will become a shining light, a volume of holy scripture that puts together the universally valuable contents of all the world's religions. In particular it will become a precious textbook for educating the younger generation who are to live together in one global family. It will teach them to be able to overcome barriers between religions, races and cultures.

I believe that, through this text, all people will not only free themselves from religious ignorance and self-righteousness, but also realize the fact that, among religions, there are shared values and a universal foundation which are of greater significance than the differences which have historically divided religions.

Devotion to God and His great will of true love is the mission of each religion. This is greater than the study of scriptures or observing religious ceremonies. Since God is the Origin and Parent of us all, He does not discriminate between races or religions.

All religions should leave behind the pursuits of their own benefits, and take up the cause of world salvation. They should stand on the frontline in the effort to eliminate poverty, disease and crime in the world.

Respected leaders of religions: when we sincerely reflect on this age, we come to know that now is an urgent time when not only faith but also practice and action are demanded. I ask your active cooperation. When we unite as a true movement of the Inter-Religious Federation for World Peace then the spiritual foundation for guiding the world will be firmly laid, and the ideal centered on God's true love will be completed.

May God bless you and your families. Thank you very much.

Respected Current and Former Heads of State, Distinguished World Leaders, Ladies and Gentleman, I would like to convey deep appreciation for your many expressions of congratulations on this occasion of the birthdays of my wife and mine. But this is not for us. I would like to offer all of this as glory to God who has protected us until today. Early in our lives we were called by God and have devoted our entire lives to fulfilling His will. Therefore I cannot accept your congratulations without including God in this celebration!

For my address this evening, I would like to talk about "God's Fatherland and the Peace Kingdom."

What kind of world would have been realized if Adam and Eve, the first human ancestors, had not fallen? Adam would have become the head of that family, the tribal leader of that tribe, and the king of that nation. That world would have begun from that ideal of Adam, and would have become Adam's world where only the tradition, language, culture, and lifestyle of Adam would have existed. That world would have been Adam's fatherland as well as God's fatherland. But unfortunately, human history began with the fall of the first human ancestors. Our world was reduced to being under the dominion of Satan, a world that had nothing to do with God. Humankind was originally meant to establish and live in a peace kingdom for eternity, with God as their True Parent. But instead, the human race became enslaved to Satan, the origin of evil, residing in a world ridden with sin and suffering. This has brought great anguish to God.

Please think about this in the context of your own life. Contrary to the will of the Creator, our minds and bodies are in constant struggle and conflict. Has there been anyone who has completely unified his or her mind and body? Among the six billion people of this world today, has there been anyone who has lived according to the original relationship, where the body is in complete submission to the mind? What about the societies and nations of today's world? The barriers of conflict and selfishness rooted in the mind and body of the individual exist even between societies and nations like an impregnable fortress. Human beings were supposed to live as brothers and sisters, yet the interracial strife that we see today still remains as a crucial problem threatening world peace. Religions originally had the mission of reviving human spirituality, thereby accomplishing the will of God by bringing humankind back to Him. But religions have abandoned their original mission and instead are lost in the swamp of prejudice and conflict. This has escalated to the point where today, we see them being used as tools for bloodshed and war.

Where does our original mind lead us? Does it indicate that we desire to live oppressed within the many walls and boundaries that surround us? It does not. The world that we desire is a place where no barriers or borderlines are seen. It is a world of freedom and peace. All people long for that kind of original fatherland. It is the fatherland that for thousands of years God has sought to establish. Likewise, it is the fatherland that humankind has longed for throughout history. Of course, when we talk about a "fatherland" it may denote a particular nation, but the original fatherland cannot be compared to any nation of the today's secular world.

To establish a nation there needs to be sovereignty, people and territory. When we look at history we can see the rise and fall of nations, the countless transitions of sovereignties and a great many lives sacrificed in the process. All these martyrs died in the hope that the original fatherland would someday appear. But that does not mean that the United States, or Korea, or any other nation can become the fatherland which these people have longed for. It would be a place where there is neither democracy nor communism. Such a fatherland would have no need for any religion. It is a world that does not commit the folly of trying to measure the value of a person by the color of his skin. It is a place that does not allow any form of boundary or national border, including the barriers that divide the mind and body within each individual, bringing pain to them all.

Ladies and gentleman, this very planet earth on which we live, the entire globe, is the very fatherland that humanity has longed for. It is the fatherland for which God has longed for tens of thousands of years. Humankind now has the responsibility to establish a global nation in line with God's standard and to remove evil from this earth by rendering judgment upon Satan who has been the archenemy in front of heaven until now. In so doing, a heavenly kingdom of peace on earth, with goodness at its center, will be brought about. We must never forget that this has been the desire of God, the desire of Jesus, and the desire of our ancestors who have contributed to the course of God's providence by going the path of martyrdom.

But that kind of ideal world is not created automatically. It is not something that anyone can have by just wishing for it. It is impossible to attain unless we, the offspring of the fall, receive a new blood lineage through the Marriage Blessing and practice a life of true love. Then what is a life of true love? In a nutshell, it is "living for the sake of others." It is living for the sake of others before you even wish for the other to do something for you. It is a life of living for the sake of the others and forgetting that you ever gave.

It is not giving in hopes of receiving something in return. It is a life where you give and give, regretting nothing for not having given more. Even as you give, you bow your head in humility. Thus, Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." He also said that "For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." Even our almighty Creator, God, would not engage in creation and destruction at whim in disregard of the very principles of creation that He Himself set up.

Therefore, this is the reason why I have been conducting the Marriage Blessing providence throughout the past several decades. Humankind, who had inherited false life, false love and false lineage due to the fall of the first human ancestors, had no choice but to live this false kind of life. Thus my wife and I began our God-given mission as the True Parents. Throughout our lives we have walked a lonely path to carry out this heavenly decree to eliminate Satan, the devil, through the Marriage Blessing providence and, as the True Parents, to bequeath true life, true love, and the true lineage to humanity. We knew that God could not do anything about the false blood lineage because it had been planted by the false parents.

Upon this victorious foundation of having fulfilled all the necessary indemnity conditions, my wife and I stand as the True Parents. We have been multiplying the true blood lineage by separating humanity from the blood lineage of the false olive tree and engrafting them to the true olive tree. A false olive tree will always remain as a false olive tree, even if a thousand years pass. Only by engrafting to the true olive tree can the lineage be changed.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the bright age of heaven is upon us now. Please accept my message with hope. The Marriage Blessing history began with just three couples in the 1960s has now reached 400 million couples around the world. Furthermore, there are more than 120 billion blessed couples living in the spirit world. The field of the true olive tree has now overwhelmed the field of the wild olive trees. All these blessed families are united in the life of living for the sake of others. The life of the true olive trees, through the true blood lineage, is now spreading like wildfire throughout the entire world. In this way God's Fatherland and Peace Kingdom, a nation of joy and happiness, a nation of freedom and equality with no walls or national borders will be realized on this earth.

For this purpose I founded the Peace United Nations' in New York, U.S.A. on October 3rd 2003. In doing God's providence, this Peace United Nations is developing initiatives of a revolutionary dimension that will rock heaven and earth. By educating each and every one of the six billion people on this earth, and giving them the Marriage Blessing, we are building God's fatherland, our fatherland, where the entire globe becomes our home, my home. Our goal is already set. The flag of the Peace United Nation is already waving high. The battle cry of victory is erupting across the world. Victories are won in America, Europe, Jerusalem, Palestine, Japan and Korea. Nothing is impossible with God and the numerous martyrs, patriots, saints and sages in spirit world running with us at our side.

They say, "blessed are those who have faith." On this meaningful day, I would like to ask you all to engrave this message in the deep center of your heart. I pray that you all join in the grace of the Marriage Blessing and create a great revolution of lineage. I dearly hope that you will all become the brave soldiers of heaven, courageously standing on the front line of God's providence in order to build God's fatherland on this earth, so that the Peace Kingdom can prosper for all eternity. Thank you very much.

Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon
Respected members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives, religious leaders from around the world, distinguished guests:
I would like to express my sincere gratitude for your presence here this evening in such a large number, in spite of your busy schedules. Ladies and gentlemen,
The starting point to unravel the problems humanity faces today is the certain knowledge of God, the Father of all creation and, on that foundation, the building of true families that live in attendance to God. This calls us to establish and attend God in our families, not as a concept but as the substantial Parent of us all. To do this, we first must clarify the relationship between God and humanity. God is the original entity of true love, true life and true lineage, and He is the True Parent of all people.

If human beings had not fallen, we would have reached perfection in God's true love as His true children and lived in attendance to Him as our Parent. God's plan was for perfected human beings to bond as true husbands and wives, bear and raise true children so that they would live in a Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, and then live together eternally in the heavenly world as families in the Kingdom of Heaven. Think about it for a moment. If your father went to hell and only your mother went to Heaven, what kind of Heaven would that be? If your parents were to go to hell and only you children went to Heaven, how could that be called Heaven? The Kingdom of Heaven is where the whole family lives together in an eternal peace kingdom. On earth as well, God will reside where a whole family has established a kingdom of heaven. In such a family, the world of God's original ideal, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, takes root. How, then, are we to bring about this family heaven on earth?

First, each member of the family needs to complete his or her individual character. Each person has to shed the fallen nature that has passed from the fall down through the generations, and achieve the perfection of his or her character. In other words, each person must be victorious in the struggle between mind and body. Then the world of harmony will bear fruit in each individual's perfected character, a state of one heart, one mind and one thought. Fallen nature, which causes jealousy, envy, greed, hatred and all other evils, will never again take root in the person who has achieved this state.

Shedding the fallen nature is not easy. The reality of fallen human beings is that we vacillate even when trying to break habits formed over the relatively short span of a few years or decades, like smoking or drinking alcohol. We cannot expect, then, that it will be easy to cast off fallen nature, which we inherit through lineages going back thousands, even tens of thousands of years. It is impossible by human effort alone. We need to stand on the foundation of absolute faith, establish God as our vertical axis, and struggle our entire life. Even then, it is a difficult fight. We cannot even think we will gain victory unless we enter a state of absolute love for God, loving Him even more than we love our own parents and children, and attending Him as our True Parent. We cannot hope to win this fight without a foundation of absolute obedience to God, following Him even at the cost of laying down our life. Herein lies the reason that religions place fasting, sexual abstinence, sacrifice and penance in the uppermost position. We must be born again, recast as new persons in whom Heaven can reside and with whom the spirit world can cooperate.

We cannot betray an iota of shame even if our entire life and being is exposed before all God's creation. Our character should be like a "high noon settlement," on the straight vertical line of God's grace without the slightest shadow, so that Satan will flee from our presence for eternity. Second, individuals who achieve such completion of character come together to form true families, and the members of these families work together to establish what I call the "four great realms of heart." Such families resemble, in form, an individual who has accomplished the complete oneness of mind and body.

I have said that the Kingdom of Heaven is a place we enter family by family. Not every family, however, is qualified to enter Heaven automatically. You need a foundation to be a true family and to complete the four great realms of heart. A true family that can enter the Kingdom of Heaven is composed of true individuals who have completed the four great realms of heart in themselves and who are of a lineage centering on God.

What do I mean, then, by the "four great realms of heart"? I refer to the perfection of the heart of parents, the heart between a husband and wife, the heart of children, and the heart of siblings. This is found in a true family bound by God's original true love, true life and true lineage through a chaste three-generational lineage of grandparents, parents, and (grand) children. Here, the love between parents and children establishes the vertical relationship between upper and lower; the love between the husband and wife establishes the horizontal relationship that brings left and right into definitive oneness, and the love between siblings establishes the relationship between front and back. In this way, God's ideal of creation is no longer a mere concept or dream. It is perfected in reality through the completion of the four great realms of heart centered on true lineages, family by family. The realm of parental heart is acquired naturally as parents go through the process of bearing children and then raising and educating them with true love. In other words, it is the heart that enables the parents to own true love with respect to the children. Without children, no one can own love as a parent. Next, the realm of conjugal heart is the love relationship that extends true lineage. In this, husband and wife each are grateful for the other having established them as an owner of love, and each learns true love through giving and receiving with the other. They enjoy learning of true love when the husband lives for the sake of his wife, even if it means sacrificing his own life, and the wife attends her husband with the heart of attending God. The perfection of the husband-wife relationship is possible only on this basis. The moment a bride and groom share love on their wedding night with God's blessing, they inherit the palace of true love, the palace of true life, and the palace of true lineage. The wife, through her husband, receives God's ideal son, who is also Heaven's older brother, Heaven's husband, and Heaven's parent. The husband stands in the corresponding position in receiving his wife. When the realm of conjugal heart is perfected, the relationship between the husband and wife also becomes absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal, because God is absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal. So the term "divorce" cannot even exist. Theirs will be a life of happiness, filled only with the blossoms of mutual respect and love.

Next, how can we describe the heart of children, and how is it obtained? The parents are the center, in God's position in the family, and it is impossible for a child to be born without parents. For these reasons, the relationship between parent and child is established not by human morality but by a heavenly morality. Thus the parent-child relationship is a vertical relationship, not horizontal. It is not a relationship of destiny, which means that human effort can change it, but it is a relationship of absolute and eternal fate. Children experience and learn the heart of true love as they attend their parents in daily life, placing their parents in a position higher than themselves. Through a natural process, they come to understand that the love, life and lineage that they inherit from their parents originate in God. Children who watch and learn from their parents in this way will grow up to become husbands and wives who have no fallen nature, and ultimately they will obtain the position of true parents themselves. The spherical motion of the family unit that continually repeats the three-generational pattern in this way is the basic model for building the Kingdom of Heaven.

Lastly, the realm of the heart of siblings arises through brothers and sisters who live as a family in attendance to the same true parents. I said earlier that the heart between brothers and sisters establishes the relationship between front and back. True parents are a husband and wife living in truth, and children who attend such parents will naturally learn the discipline of heavenly morality and ethics among siblings.

It will be a beautiful sight, where a younger brother attends and reveres his older brother as he would his father, and the older brother looks after his younger brother with a loving heart. The older brother represents "front" and the younger brother represents "back." The older brother represents the father, while the younger brother represents the mother. The perfection of the realm of heart between siblings is the foundation for all people to live for the sake of others through love and service.

Respected guests, as the number of "true peace family kingdoms" perfecting the four great realms of heart increases, "true peace tribe kingdoms," "true peace nation kingdoms," and ultimately the "true peace world kingdom" will appear. In this way this will become the original world of God's ideal, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, the eternal Kingdom of Peace on Earth. I am declaring this here today. Humanity has lived without the certain knowledge that establishing true families is the most serious, foundational commandment of Heaven.

A new era has arrived today. The number of people around the world who have received my teaching and are standing resolutely for the sake of building the Kingdom of Peace is growing by leaps and bounds. Heaven and earth are shaking with the cries of bright young people who are determined to build true families even if they must offer their lives in order to protect their purity. Already, we find hundreds of millions of blessed families around the world. These families are shoring up a world in which ethics and morality are rapidly deteriorating.

That is not all. The spirit world is one step ahead of us in breaking open the age of the peace kingdom. Starting with the five great saints, more than 120 billion blessed families are working day and night to cooperate with us on earth and prepare for the day that is to come. According to the Principle of Creation, God's ideal world should be completed first on earth. Although people today are descendants of the fall, God's unending love and the spirit world's cooperation now allow us to understand the nature of the heavenly kingdom. Please recognize that it is time to accomplish a true love revolution of overwhelming proportions, taking as our example the miraculous accomplishments of the spirit world.

The time has come for you as well to open your hearts and receive the secrets that Heaven is disclosing in this age through me. In one sense, I am a human being living with a physical body like each of you. But in the context of Heaven's providence, I am God's ambassador, sent to earth with His full authority. I am sent to accomplish His command to save the world's six billion people, restoring them to Heaven with the original goodness in which they were created.

The five great saints and many other leaders in the spirit world, including even Communist leaders such as Marx and Lenin, who committed all manner of barbarity and murders on earth, and dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, have found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new persons. Emperors, kings and presidents who enjoyed opulence and power on earth, and even journalists who had worldwide fame, have now placed themselves at the forefront of the column of the true love revolution. Together they have sent to earth a resolution expressing their determination in the light of my teaching of the true family ideal. They have declared to all Heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent. This resolution has been announced on every corner of the globe.

Respected guests, it is now only a matter of time. Look at the world. Do you see anything that gives you real hope for the future? Sooner or later, we have to give what we have to our descendants and leave this world. What gift could be more precious than that of completing the family ideal in your family, so as to guarantee eternal peace and happiness for your children? Surely no one who has such an opportunity should hesitate to take up the task of building the peace kingdom on earth, for which God has waited thousands of years. I have reached the advanced age of eighty-five, by the Korean way of counting. But I will continue to work harder than anyone else until the day the Earth overflows with God's true families, guns in the Middle East fall silent and give way to fireworks of peace and joy, and shouts of mansei [eternal victory] celebrating the unification of my homeland Korea echo across the Pacific to be heard in America. I hope that you leaders representing the world's six billion people in this ceremony will join hands with me. I call you to take the lead in building what is God's original ideal and the desire of all humanity, the peace kingdom on the Earth.

Thank you.