Love Heaven after loving your country

Love Heaven after loving your country

How can people say they love Heaven when they don't love their own country? I'll have to recheck everyone. Those who do not love their own country cannot love Heaven.

During the time when Japan ruled Korea, the police followed me. The military police also followed me. When I went to northern Korea, I had to struggle against the Communists. In the southern part of Korea, too, I had to oppose the authorities. That was my destiny.

Did I go over their walls and plunder their belongings? Of course not. I loved this country and people more than anyone else did, and I worked harder than anyone for the Republic of Korea... I have cried so much for this country. At that time I shed so many tears that I can face any patriot without shame.

Overcoming hunger

Until I was thirty, not a day passed without my feeling hungry. I am well acquainted with suffering from hunger. Why did I do this? I had pledged myself to Heaven, and 1 had a mission given by Heaven. As the person with this responsibility, who had not yet established the necessary foundation, how could I eat? When I looked at rice it shouted abuse at me. Are you aware of that world? The rice shouted at me. So I ate only enough to sustain myself...

I used to tell myself that in order to gain good things and eat good things I must not eat much now. Even if 1 went to a restaurant, I never went to a good restaurant. In restaurants I always sat in the worst seat, but not because I didn't have any money. I was brooding over how I could set adequate conditions for me to feel prouder in front of God than anyone else could. That's why I lived as I did.

Because it was wartime, we used food coupons. I had some coupons, so I went with my friends to find out how many bowls of rice we could eat. There was a temple in the Takadanobaba area surrounded by many restaurants. One day, I ate seven bowls of rice containing chicken and egg at one of them. I couldn't even move my neck after eating so much. It was even more terrible than being hungry. I couldn't move. I have had that experience, but it is wrong to think that I always acted like that. For the most part, I was continually hungry. If you are always full, you lose touch with the situation of the people and you lose touch with God. I was hungry. I wanted to eat but I was determined to love God and people more. This is the truth. It is my creed.

Try eating two meals a day for the next four years. All of you, try it. I ate only two meals a day from high school until I was thirty years old. I lived without eating three meals a day. Not a day went by that I wasn't hungry. Sacrifice one meal a day for the world. That is a holy act.

Wearing old clothes, eyes downcast

Many of the clothes I wore were bought in a used clothing store. Some of the trousers I wore were the wrong size and shiny. Many people pay attention to their hair by getting a permanent, by blow drying it or by putting hair cream on it. They say their hair becomes a mess when it is windy or when a typhoon blows. But I never did those things. I never put anything on my head in any kind of weather, in spring or summer.

On winter days, my gaze never rose higher than 45 degrees from the ground. When I walked around, I asked myself how somebody like me, who had not yet fulfilled the will of Heaven, could shamelessly strut along the street. I couldn't do that without first paying the price and meeting all the requirements of heavenly law.

There were boys and girls, fellow students, wearing fancy clothes and acting with a superior air, who would ride on the same tram I did. I used to look at them and compare myself to them. I would think to myself, "Beneath your laughter, your life and your youth are passing you by; beneath my melancholy thoughts, a light is shining into life and the sun of hope is rising. My future is guaranteed and is full of hope, but for you, the future holds no hope."

For the first thirty years of my life, I never wore new clothes. All of my clothes were secondhand. Why? I had to hide myself. I had to remain invisible. There was a time for emerging; I could not do it earlier.

Uncomfortable sleeping conditions

In middle school and high school I always slept in an unheated room. It was colder then than it is today. I can't remember any time when I ate and slept well when I think about the past. All that remains are memories of sleeping on a cold bed, covering myself with newspaper and a sack, thinking tearfully about God's will. That is the only type of thing that can remain like a personal treasure. Because of the Fall, it is the only kind of thing I can be proud of in front of people from other nations. You have to suffer a lot to gain things you can be proud of.

My life was often wretched, like a beggar's. When it was cold, I realized that a newspaper is much better than a silk blanket. Unless you've experienced this, you won't understand it. Because I speak the truth, it is accepted as the truth.

Overcoming temptation, mastering sexual desire

There are tram cars in Tokyo, aren't there? I used to take the tram from Shibuya to Takadanobaba. Many women took that tram as well. I was not the smartly dressed type. I used to wear my hair like this [he demonstrates] and make myself unattractive. My clothes were old and torn and I wore them for so long that they smelled terribly. So, it is really strange that women tried to tempt me.

I often had strange experiences when I went to movies. When I was a student, I took off my school uniform and put on clean clothes. School uniforms smell bad, don't they? I used to press my hair down and keep my mouth shut.

I wasn't attractive but women in their twenties and thirties used to sit beside me and take my hand without realizing it themselves. I shouted, "You're holding my hand!" And the woman would say, "What? Really? Oh, dear!" and let go of my hand. [Laughter] They held my hand without realizing they were doing it.

Women have written letters to me in their own blood. There was an only daughter of a famous rich man. The daughter of one of the richest families in Hwanghae Province went to school in Japan. Every month she put an envelope with money in it inside the drawer of my table when I wasn't there.

On several occasions when I was in Japan, naked women got into my bed, but I never sinned with any of them. Because I am the very person who has been entrusted with responsibility for women, I had to fulfill that kind of mission.

Please do not become foolish people who dirty God's proper tradition. You have to control your sexual desires. If you men go into a room full of beautiful women, you must not become sexually aroused. You have to control yourself. Knowing that the roots of the Unification Church are deep, you have to graft yourself onto the true tree and grow into a green garden, becoming a tree similar to me.

The unification of heaven and earth and of the cosmos are not big problems. These are decided by the achievement of mind-body unification. If my mind and my body are still fighting, what do I gain by the world becoming one? Where would I go in such a world? I have shed more blood and sweat over this point than anyone else. My motto was to dominate myself before seeking domination of the universe. You should have complete command over yourself before you look to dominate the universe and before you try to have any kind of connection to worldly, material things.

You do this by making your mind strong and your body weak. Forcing your body to fast is extremely difficult, isn't it? You have to firmly set your mind on this. You have to pray. You have to train your body to follow your mind. It must become a habit. For from three to five years, you have to invest all of your mind's energy into dragging your body around after you.

What causes the most difficulty for the mind in controlling the body? The body's desire for sleep. Hunger is next. Sexual desire is next. These are the three great enemies. So I trained myself by staying awake all night.

Walking and reflecting

I never sent any telegrams while I was studying in Japan. It was about twenty ri [8 km] from the train station to my house. If possible, whether the wind was blowing, or it was cold, I used to walk in prayer, saying to myself, "How great the Creator is!"

When my parents or my brothers and sisters came to the station to meet me and chattered away, I lost my appetite for visits to my hometown. But there were times when I walked home from the station. I'll never forget the memory of walking home when the sun had set, night had fallen and white snow was drifting gently to the ground. I walked along, passing the small gift I had bought for my parents from hand to hand. I imagined what kind of expression they would have when they saw me. On reflection, it was a deep and precious time for me. It was also an extremely blessed time for me.

Experiencing the lowest and highest in life

You cannot do great things without first understanding all the different lifestyles. For that reason, there is nothing I have not done, starting with begging for rice in the slums. I could experience God's heart there. I could realize the world God has been longing to establish. Having these kinds of experiences, I longed for Korea's liberation.

I did every kind of job. I researched all the different kinds of joys and sorrows people have. I determined that I would take responsibility to completely liberate all the people, who are suffering from all of life's sorrows. I have researched every kind of person from the lowest to the highest. I make friends wherever I go.

In order to do something great, in order to bring about a revolution, you have to break through various kinds of environments to reach your destination. I, too, was full of hope, but because I have to free countless people from slavery, I also had to become a slave.

The Shinagawa slums

When I was a student in Japan, I went everywhere from Tokyo's Shinagawa slums to the red-light district, but I didn't do anything improper. I stayed for a long time in the Shinagawa slums. These experiences were important for me.

What I remember most clearly is life in the slums. I can still remember wearing rags and catching the lice in them. They used to stay in the seams. If you squashed them, they left streaks of blood on your clothes. I have lived in the slums and acted as a boss of the slums, begging for rice. I have done all manner of things.

Shinjuku back streets

When Japan was at war, I was living there. I used to roam around the back streets of Shinjuku. Wherever I went, women would tell me their life stories. I used to come away thinking that I felt more sadness and sorrow than their parents did, or cried more than their elder brothers would to see them in such a situation. You have to have this kind of heart.

I did not search out prostitutes to do anything bad with them. I wanted to completely understand their situations and become a comrade in tears who would find a way to liberate those women. I used to help them get out of that evil environment. I was greatly misunderstood because I did this kind of thing.

Pulling a handcart on the streets of Ginza

Long ago, when I was about your age, I was living in Tokyo, and I used to deliver things by handcart to twenty-seven different areas. I did it because I wanted to, not because I needed the money. I did it because I wanted to train myself. If you work for a transport company, you have to be able to persuade people who are connected to the transport business.

I had an experience I can't forget. In Tokyo there is a bustling area called Ginza. There were many good young men and women dressed in fine clothes on those streets. It is the most prosperous district in Japan. I took off my school uniform and was pulling a cart full of telegraph poles. I used to look at all the people and think, "Are you going to get out of my way or not? We'll see!" I can still see them, scampering out of my way in all directions. I can't forget that.

Iron foundry and dockyards in Kawasaki

I don't know if they are still there or not, but I often went to work in the ironworks and dockyards in Kawasaki. At the Kawasaki docks, there was a barge that used to move coal around from one place to another. It would take a person several days to load 120 tons of coal on the barge, but I worked straight through until one o'clock in the morning and finished it in one day. I, a Korean, had to set an example for the Japanese.

I sacrificed myself in the position of a younger brother. I stayed awake all night in order to comfort them. I shed blood and sweat for them. Although I had not done much physical work before, I went to construction sites and invested my whole self, so as not to be outdone by workers who had done such work all their working lives. I felt great pleasure when I won some money for doing more work than they did, competing with them and beating them. I still remember it clearly.

On the weekends and on holidays, I often worked as a laborer. There was a lactic acid tank that workers had to go inside of in order to clean it by flushing out the remaining raw materials. The device inside the tank to do this becomes unusable after a few years of use. So you have to go inside the tank again in order to change it. You can't work inside the tank for more than fifteen minutes. I endured that. When it snowed or a typhoon blew, I didn't go to classes; I went to a laborers canteen to find work. I felt great at those times.

Some say they have to go to a solemn, quiet place or to a place deep in the mountains in order to cultivate themselves. It's not true. I don't believe you can only study in quiet places. I have studied in factories next to huge machines running on several thousand horsepower. I often did that kind of a thing. I prepared myself by doing various kinds of jobs.

If you don't become a worker among workers, the father of workers, you cannot save workers. You have to become the father of farmers, and as such, you have to love farming. If you go to a fishing village, you have to fish with the fishermen.

I did every job conceivable. I've laid floors. I've laid bricks. I've built chimneys, and I am good at carpentry, too. There is nothing I can't do. On a salt farm, do you think I wouldn't be able to carry sacks of salt? I have even learned how to make charcoal. I know how to drive a post into the ground. I can make anything if I have a saw. There is nothing I haven't tried. If I go anywhere, take off my suit and put on work clothes, I can help with anything.

I have been everywhere in Japan. When it was difficult, I had digging jobs. I tried my hand at everything. I've even worked as an errand boy in a big company building. I've been a secretary for a cabinet minister. Because I speak more quickly than others, if I met somebody I didn't like, I soon dealt with him or her. I've been a writer for famous people. I've even done diplomatic work.

I have worked in companies. I've written things and sold them. In one construction company, I was the site foreman. If I set my mind to it, there is nothing I cannot do. If I meet somebody who is a good talker, I become a good talker, too. If I meet an academic, I become an academic. When I was a student, I used to tease the professors, and when I was hungry, I used to go to the professors and ask them to buy me lunch. It's true. I am not making this up.

These days I don't do it, but long ago I used to go out to the street and try to sense what other people were thinking just by looking at them. Whenever I got an impression of what a person was going to do, I used to follow him or her to find out whether I was right or wrong. I would also sometimes just sit down and say who was or wasn't in a room and whether what they were doing was good or bad, or whether a bad person or good person was living in a place. I always got it right the first time.

You have to tune your spiritual antennae and develop that kind of skill, too. The life of faith is a life of becoming a discerner, one who can understand the relationships in the universe. So in the life of faith, through experience, you have to develop yourself by evaluating things around you rather than being aided by the spirit world.

I can catch what kind of person someone is just by looking at him or her. I know about you just by looking at you. As soon as I look at you, I feel it immediately, "Ah, that person is lacking in this way, because his nose is shaped like this, his shoulders are like this, and his ears are like this." I can understand everything about a person immediately. I trained myself in that kind of thing.

Developing a well-rounded personality

If I were to pick up a pen and record the scenes of my life, the result would become the yeast of a new thought, which would help a flower to bloom within the hearts of the youth of the twenty-first century. It would be quite splendid. In this regard, it is as if I have been on a stage and have given the grandest performance, unprecedented in history. You should study me.

My teaching method is to persuade you, of your own volition, to go into a melting pot of despair and endure it until you reach the age of thirty. Within the melting pot of despair, you will find something new to help you develop. You will be able to create a new future if you become a man or a woman who shouts a joyful battle cry, feels renewed determination and thinks, "What if I had not had those experiences?"

So however difficult a situation you may be in, you need the inner peace of mind and versatile independence that expresses human beauty. You should become a person of character who can naturally go from the highest to the lowest place. You may go up and come down, but if you are not a person of character, when you go up, you will not stand on God's side.

Try everything. Experience everything as if you are reading from the first page of an encyclopedia to the last page. And when you can say, "Now there is nothing left for me to do!" the domination of yourself remains. Your subject-like nature remains. When you can say, "There is no one under heaven who can beat me," it is time to choose something you want to do and push for it with all your heart for the rest of your life. Then you will surely succeed.

Loving my country's enemy

When I went to Japan, I opposed the Japanese emperor, not the Japanese people under the control of the emperor. This is certain. When I went to Japan, I loved the Japanese more than anyone else did. At that time, Japan was a country that didn't know God. I thought I had to let Japanese people know about the Lord of Creation, their loving Heavenly Father.

If I had any money, I would give all of it to my friends. I thought, "I'll establish the condition of loving Japan more than anyone else does." I went to many different places. I hugged a huge Japanese cedar and cried. If I met a friend who was hungry, even though I may have been hungry myself, I gave him something to eat. If I met a starving student who was paying his own way, I used to embrace him with tears.

During the years under Japanese rule, we were hungry. I used to collect food coupons and say to a student who was paying his own way, "You're hungry, aren't you? Come to my house." There, I would say, "Eat! Eat! Eat to your heart's content." After about three days everything was gone.

Because I knew that if I didn't have the heart to love them as I did my brother, or as I loved my mother, I couldn't go into the realm of God's heart, I trained myself to do that even in Japan, transcending my nation. I paid the school fees of some of my friends from the money I earned as a laborer.

Some of my friends stopped going to school because of difficulties they were going through. I also quit school for a few months to act as their mother and father and help them graduate.

Fighting on behalf of the weak

When gangs would pick on a weak person, I dealt with them by myself. I fought them by myself, alone. I met them alone for the sake of the public good. The feeling you have when you are hit can contribute to making your philosophy of life. I assumed responsibility for other people's problems and I fought for them. Of my own free will, I said, "I'll teach you a lesson!" You need that kind of quality when you are young. I want to help create that kind of person.

There was a foreman on a work site that used to steal 30 percent of the workers' wages. I said, "You should not do that!" I resisted him strongly, refusing to give him mine. I didn't care how ferocious a person might be, I always said, "You should not do that!" I didn't submit to them. I often did that kind of thing.

Sometimes a smelly, sweaty worker got on the tram or bus and stood next to a lady. The smell was so terrible that the woman would elbow her way through the other people on the bus to try to get away from him. I also lived like that. When my mother saw me in that state, you can just imagine how much she cried, seeing the son she loved the most, the son she had raised like gold or jade, living like that. Whenever I see someone like that, I always think that that person also has a mother and father. I imagine how much pain and sorrow the parents feel to see their child trying to make a living in such a way.

Ability to make friends

Once I had to return from Japan to Korea, but I didn't have any money. So I found a lady who was rich, and I tried to persuade her to give me some. I said, "I have come to Japan and done different types of work, but now I need some money to go back to Korea. I think you have more than what I need in your handbag, so please lend me one third of it." I spoke so sincerely that the lady lent me the money. I bought a ticket and returned to Korea. Later, I paid her back threefold. I have had many similar experiences.

I could make friends easily if I wanted to. I also knew how to have fun if I wanted to. I am good at having fun. If I needed to sing, I would sing. If I needed to dance, I would dance. If I needed to beat out a rhythm, I could do it. I was good at it. I did everything. Anyway you like to look at it, I was good at everything.

I had many Japanese friends, too. Those were the days of Japanese imperial rule over Korea. Even though we were doing everything in our power to destroy Japan, I treated my Japanese friends well. Those friends came to me to ask for advice when they had problems. They would come and ask, "How is Korea?" Then they would reveal their hearts to me. They said I was their best friend. They confessed everything to me. I had Japanese friends who came to me saying, "I just have to tell you this, and you are the only one I can tell it to."

Wherever you go, become a person who opens your heart to other people. You must make them feel that they just have to express the deepest parts of their hearts to you. When they do, you have to receive their secrets within your heart and make them feel comfortable. You have to be a person who makes others feel at ease.