The mission we are undertaking

The mission we are undertaking (1)

Sun Myung Moon March 16, 1975

Tarrytown, New York, Translated by Won Pok Choi

Good morning! "The Mission We Are Undertaking" is my topic this morning.

Man, without exception, has a mission or responsibility to fulfill, without which his life is meaningless. We, as human beings, must think of the kind of responsibility we have, and what we can do to carry it out.

You have a certain mission or responsibility in your own family. Before being able to take that responsibility, you must go through a period of preparation. For instance, in your own family, you must know how to behave toward your parents, brothers, and sisters. Whether or not you can carry out your mission completely will be decided by the manner and length of time you have prepared for it. If your responsibility in your family is more important than that of anyone else, you are going to be the center of your family.

Man is a social being, so you have to take responsibility in the society you are living in. At schools you prepare for your future in society by majoring in special fields. After graduation you will take a position where your specialized knowledge will be applied, and whether or not you are doing the job right or appropriately will decide your success or failure. In your office, in your company, if you accomplish your mission in such a manner that people admire you, then your position and your prestige will be expanded.

Your way of doing things will decide the level of work you are doing. For instance, whether you are number one in the office, or second or third will be decided by your own accomplishment. Thinking of the results of your work, people will not think of it on the horizontal level alone, but on the vertical level; that is, in terms of your past, your present and your future. From the way you are doing things now, they can see your past, your present situation, and whether your future will be bright.

Let's take a nation for an example. If the nation has a project ahead of it and has mobilized all of its people, we can determine the future of the nation by the way the people undertake the project. When you see the results of the people's activities in the nation, when they are burning with desire, ambition and a sense of mission, then the result allows us to envision the future of the nation. We associate appearances on the horizontal level, vertically with the future, so we can see the prospects of the nation, from the way they are doing things now.

In accomplishing the mission on a worldwide level, it is done successfully when the people are burning with desire and a sense of mission! The important question is whether they have attained the goal they have already set before themselves when they started the mission. For instance; if they have set up and met the goal, it's OK, but when they have accomplished 1% less than the goal or 1% more than the goal, there is a vast difference. Those who have accomplished 1% less than the goal will fade away while those who have accomplished 1% more than the goal will flourish and thrive.

As we well know, in the Olympic Games it is the ambition of all the participants To break the existing records. If you break a record by one second, then you are the record holder. If you win by one-tenth of a second, you are the winner. When one thinks of things in terms of being one step ahead, it means that person will be the victor.

When one thinks of things from that standpoint, one second less will mean a vast difference; you can be either a winner or a looser. If you defeat others by 1 second or one-tenth of a second then you are the winner and you are going to be recorded in history and be remembered by other people. That always comes from relating the vertical to the horizontal level.

It is common for one to be able to do 90% or even 98% or 99%, but the problem is how to do 100% or more. Those who accomplish less than 100% will not be remembered -- they will just fade away from people's memory. The value lies in getting beyond that level to do 100%. But it is not easy to break the record. For anyone and everyone, it is very important for him or her to set up the goal, get trained, and then work towards the goal. That is decisively important.

That's why for students it is important and necessary to take examinations. In general, students hate the idea of having to go through examinations, but because there are examinations, they strive hard to meet the goal. So, we conclude that if and when a school wants to produce many high-level students they have to give them more and harder examinations. Do you follow me? (Yes!)

People in schools, both the students and teachers, might think that there is no need of giving examinations. But then we are almost sure that the students would not meet any standard. In other organizations too, there are supervisors or those who inspect various details. Some may say, "Well, there is no need of having supervisors or inspectors. We are all working hard, so why do we need that?" A supervisory system cannot be avoided because we want to make the goal, and once a high goal is set, they must drive the people to meet the goal. That is why they have to inspect or supervise people.

Thus we come to the conclusion that once a goal is set, you must have someone who will drive you harshly toward the goal or else you will become lazy. You must have a person nagging all the time and driving you hard, always showing you the goal and reminding you of the goal. Do you see the necessity of that? (Yes!) Why is it necessary?

If you are pushed from behind and poked from the side, you cannot help but go towards the goal. You are compelled to go ahead because you don't want to be poked or pushed, so you will try to dash along the road on your own. While doing so, as time goes by, your way of doing things will make a vast difference between you and other people. One week later, one month, one year, ten years, fifty years, you will see a vast difference between what you have accomplished and what others have accomplished. The statistics will show your accomplishment after your struggle.

Suppose your parents are always waking you up and reminding you of your school assignments and things like that. Your results in school will be greater. You think you are struggling hard enough, but your parents are still expediting your study by waking you up every morning; you want to escape from it. Instead of complaining against them, if you feel more challenged and ask your parents to wake you up earlier than they used to, then you are going to be the victor.

Just imagine the difference between the accomplishments of the person who would always ask his parents to wake him up earlier everyday, and the person who would ask his parents not to do that, hating the idea of having to be awakened. Then you will see the difference in their future accomplishments.

Which would you prefer? Would you belong to the group who will always be thankful that their parents have wakened them early every morning, or the other group? Why? Why are you thankful? Because you achieved the goal. You profited more and the result is that you find yourself more successful than your parents who have been waking you up all the time.

Be it your parents or brothers and sisters, when they push you hard like that, it means that in the future they want to be dominated or led by you. They want you to get to your goal and they want you to be responsible for their future too. If you think of that, then you don't get hurt. For instance, you have the schoolmaster or the class advisor who is always poking at you and pinching you, saying that you must work harder than you have been. You know deep in your heart that he loves you -- he is concerned for your success. If he does not want you to be successful, he would not do that. You must be grateful for that kind of person.

There are many underdeveloped countries and some on the way toward development. If any of the political leaders in those countries get control of the population of the country and lead it to the goal by pushing them hard, then those citizens would be grateful to find themselves at the goal in the shortest possible time, while other nations were not flourishing as they are.

Instead of complaining, if the whole people of a nation are united in a strong bond, dashing forward to the goal, then they are sure to be successful – more successful than others are. If the leader of the nation would be nonchalant and ignore the advancement of the nation as a whole and say "Well, you can go any way you choose, I don't mind," then what would happen to that nation? That country is doomed to decline.

We don't like to use the term "dictator", but if the ruler or leader of the nation is a good dictator, having a wholesome influence over his people and getting them on the right road to dash on to meet the goal in the soonest possible time, then he is going to be remembered as the greatest leader in the world.

If the President of the United States, instead of setting a lofty goal and pushing the people hard, says, "You have your freedom. You can go your own way, whatever you choose. I don't mind," and he waits to see what happens in a lax way, then what will happen? Would your country flourish or not? It means that you would rather have a strong leader, a strong President.

In the Communist world they apply autocracy or dictatorship over the people and they meet the goal at the soonest possible date, while in the democratic world, that is not done and you enjoy freedom. There is no apparent goal set before you and you are not pushed hard, thus it is clear that your future is going to be one of failure while theirs is going to be one of victory. In that case, do you think that you can defeat them? They will swallow you up.

In the free world, as in the United States, do the people want dictatorship, or what the Communists call dictatorship of the proletariat? You hate the idea, of course, but would you want them to beat you? (No!) Then, which way do you chose? If your President is as strong as the dictator over there, what would you do? Would you just watch him with folded hands? (No!)

Then what would you do? (Follow him!) You must cooperate with him, urging the same kind of drive among other people. You want to have your President become stronger and stronger. Do American people think of the necessity of having that kind of President? (No!) Do you think we need such a strong President? (Yes!)

In that sense, President Nixon was a great man. He had confidence. He had the conviction of how to drive the nation. Even though he was not a revolutionary man, he was greater than other Presidents in that sense. In face of the formidable enemy, Communism, if your President would remain weak, always doing things as they were done in the past, then you cannot come up to the required standard and you cannot go against the enemy and win.

In the United States, politics is decentralized. You have state law different from federal law, so it is very difficult to get the two harmonized and make the law strong. If one whole state should come against the President, the President would be helpless. What if three of the states were to unite into one and oppose what the President is doing?

I can predict that in the future, the Communists will infiltrate and influence three or four states and have them unite against the President and the country. They can protest, saying the federal government is exploiting the people by imposing high taxes. Then their slogan is going to be "Let every state be independent."

That is the way Communists, will bring about a rupture in this country. Then your country will be shattered into pieces and be swallowed up by Communism. There are many such problems lying ahead of you. As it now stands, it is beyond your power to unite this nation into one to fight against this evil power. Where can you find such a leader? That is the question.

In the democratic world, especially in the United States, you do not have a clear goal to defeat the ideology of Communism, and you don't fight to beat them at the risk of your life. In the other world, the world of Communism, they have a clear goal and they would rather die than not achieve it. That is their attitude. Which of the two do you think will win if you leave both as they are? (Communism!)

It is logical that the Communists will win. Even as we sit here and think like that, they have already decided that, they are going to be victors over the democratic world. They are mobilizing all their forces and are dashing on the road to their goal. Their target, the goal of Communism and the determination of the Communist people, is that they are going to defeat America and other nations in the free world and achieve sovereignty over the whole world, not only Soviet Russia, Red China, North Korea and all of the satellite nations; the ultimate target is to defeat America.

Do you clearly understand? If you listen with attentive ears you will find in North Korea, the Soviet Union, and in Red China, that their propaganda states that they must exterminate imperialistic America and other such nations. Do you know that? (Yes!) With that knowledge, can American youth sit still? (No!!!)

It is an urgent question. What kind of goal must we set up ahead for this free nation of America, as the leading nation of the democratic world, which was founded on Christian ideology? We must go beyond Communism and we must know how to annihilate it. Unless we can do that, we shall be defeated and swallowed up by Communism. That is quite clear. Is it true? (Yes!)

Then what shall we do? Can we leave it as it is taking a wait-and-see attitude? Can we do that1? (No!) In America, in the democratic world, someone must appear and lead the rest of the people to that goal. If there is God, would He want to have such a leader in the free world or not? (Yes!) Then where can you find such a leader? In the Presbyterian Church? In the Methodist Church? In Catholicism? Where? (Here!)

The Unification Church. What is the Unification Church? Do you mean what you say? (Yes!) What is the Unification Church? A political group? What kind of group is it and in what way are we going to accomplish the goal? The starting point in that kind of group is that all the members should know what the goal is, should be able to take the steps to reach the goal, and be trained and armed with the weapons that they need to attain the goal.

Then, what is God's wish for us? It is to have us save the world. The purpose of the providence of God is to have all humankind back into His bosom. He wants to organize a group where people will assume the responsibility and if necessary annihilate all the opposing powers. By avoiding that kind of opposing power they cannot accomplish their mission.

If you find that hippies are obstacles on the way, you must exterminate them. Only by annihilating what is evil and encouraging what is good and putting all of the things in order, can we establish the world of God's hope. If free sex is such an evil idea that it will harm the world we are going to build, then we must exterminate that idea, and way of life.

If even the ideology of freedom plays an obstructive role then we must deny that too. Freedom may sound sweet to your ears, but if you find that the idea of freedom is always hindering you from striving hard enough, while there are so many evil enemies; then you must even annihilate the idea of freedom.

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