Interview of International President Hyung Jin Moon
December 23, 2012
Hannam-dong, Seoul, Korea
On December 15, Hyung Jin Nim speaks to an audience that included many religious leaders at an Original Substance of Divine Principle workshop in the New Yorker Hotel's Grand Ballroom
Hyung Jin Nim: On December 5, Father came to me. It was really like returning resurrection, like Jesus appearing to his disciples.
Question: It was a very strong experience?
Very strong. He was very clear in that dream, about jeoldoe song [absolute sex]. For years, we've been wrestling with what the core of Father's teaching is. We've tried to make models and to figure out how we could present it to the outside world. Father's corpus is so vast. How do you understand it? What is it fundamentally centered on?
Of course, there have been many explanations of it -- true love, give-and-receive action, blessed ideal families, the blessing, True Parents -- all those kinds of things. I'd heard all these things, but I still couldn't get right down to it. After Father came in that returning resurrection, it was so clear.
Actually, all his teachings, especially the Divine Principle, are about sex. In the purpose of creation, God wanted to establish absolute sex; and through that, love, life and lineage; and through that, the family, tribe, nation and cosmos and so forth.
It's what I call "good sex," referring to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; "good" in that holy way. It's biblical too, as "God is good." The Fall constitutes bad sex. And restoration is trying to get back to good sex. So, the Principle can be explained within this rubric in ten seconds, and it gets down to the core of what everybody actually is searching for -- deep intimacy and deep love, culminating in wonderful sex. Fundamentally, men think about it every ten seconds. Right? We don't want to admit it, but it's true.
The real issue is that only a few voices have dominated this conversation. That's pornography, Hollywood, the gay and lesbian groups; it's these very vocal liberal media types that have basically understood that sex can completely overpower people. They even have the slogan, "Sex sells."
Satan has dominated that whole realm. People representing God don't want to talk about it. They feel that it is too unholy a topic; that's especially true of those in traditions that are preparing for the Messiah with holiness, because the Fall was the representation of evil sex. Abstaining from that type of sex became a spiritual practice and a way to set conditions for the Messiah, which are valuable.
Even when True Father was alive, he would have our members make conditions by abstaining from sex. Those conditional aspects are still relevant. However, when I thought about Father, especially during his final years, I recall him incessantly going on about sex.
Question: Do you mean that Father would speak about the sexual act?
Yes, he was talking about the sexual organs very graphically. We get the translations of omog, bolog, concave and convex, but we don't get the translations of jaji, boji [penis, vagina] which is a very colloquial way of referring to the sexual organs. But Father would speak like this all the time; of course, with no shame. As soon as he spoke for more than twenty minutes, he would be talking about sexual Organs. I'm sure you've heard it many times
Question: Yes, he would speak on this topic on formal occasions, even, at times.
Once, the prime minister of Samoa was there, and Father was speaking about the penis and vagina. When 1 think about it, we were all embarrassed at that time, but Father was very much focused on it, because it fundamentally is the core of his entire mission. The core of his entire teachings boils down to absolute sex.
Nobody else could address this topic, which religions have shied away from, with words of fire, and fight the onslaught of what is our daily reality in the world.
Question: You mentioned in your December 15 speech that jeoldae has a deeper meaning than "absolute," that it has many shades of meaning.
Right, especially in context. In Asian languages, the context is critical. In context, "absolute sex" (jeoldae song), has a whole line of meanings -- unbreakable, eternal, faithful, loyal -- it can mean just this whole variety of things in that context.
Question: When we first heard the term "absolute sex" we were not sure whether Father was referring to the sexual act or an ethical, or philosophical, system of conjugal relationships. Would you say that the term absolute sex encompasses more than just the sexual act itself?
Sure, I think Father was focusing very strongly on the sexual act, but it also encapsulates all the elements of marriage and deep intimacy. 1 just did a sermon on this -- the Wednesday sermon. Historically, in all the love stories of all traditions, nations, and cultures -- Romeo and Juliet, Helen of Troy, Heloise and Abelard, etc. -- everybody knows that it is the most precious thing.
Recently in my sermons, I've been unlocking Jesus references to the kingdom of heaven. In Matthew 13, Jesus is talking about the kingdom of heaven being like a sower sowing seeds in a field. It's in the parable of the weeds. Elsewhere, it's like the yeast that is needed for bread. It's like a treasure hidden in a field. It's like a merchant finding pearls. It's like a fishnet. These references are so unrelated. Jesus is not being clear about what he's talking about. I tried to do a sermon on this a couple of years ago, but I remember giving up, because the references are so unrelated to each other. He talks about the kingdom of heaven being like a sower and being like a treasure in a field. All of a sudden, he says it's like yeast. What's he talking about?
But Jesus understood the Fall and he understood the purpose of creation. He knew the difference between good sex and bad sex. If you have the key, absolute sex, if you have that password, you can start reading these parables and start unlocking them. They start making sense. Absolute sex is a key concept to these parables, which have been mysterious to Christians for centuries.
I unlocked the one about weeds in that speech at the OSDP workshop. I focused on the "parable of the weed," where Jesus made it extremely clear. Somebody is sowing seeds; the enemy comes at night and plants weeds in the field. Jesus says that enemy is the devil. So Jesus was very clear. If Father had been speaking in metaphorical language, which he was doing when he was in his thirties (because he could not speak so openly about "penis and vagina" and didn't have the foundation of tens of thousands of blessed families) people could have been equally confused.
But when Father was speaking like that in his later years, we know exactly what he was talking about. He was talking about the sexual act, the illicit sex of Satan and the Fall of man.
Question: Why do you think Father coined the term "absolute sex"? Was the focus more on reversing the effects of the Fall or was it more an expression of an ideal?
I think he chose it because it is the sword of truth that kills Satan. It really is the sword of truth. It slays the demon, and it allows us to focus in on something that actually is holy.
One of the questions was how we could transcend and unite all religions, races and nations. We were always talking about it, but nobody has an answer -- because we were irrelevant across these boundaries. There are so many boundaries and issues but what I realized through this was that there is one issue that actually transcends all these boundaries, whether it is national, religious, racial or age, language, gender.
One issue transcends every single demographic -- the issue of sex. Satan has dominated that, and that's why he transcends boundaries and nations and religions.
But no other religion, no other faith, has as a central theological core doctrine of absolute sex. No other religion sees it as central to its entire cosmic metaphysics and worldview. We're the only ones who can actually do this. What I realized was that by focusing on a good sex movement, as I call it (which is the Unification Church essentially), the issue of sex can be used to educate across every divide. It can be relevant across every divide as long as we're not shy about talking about sex.
A problem with our church is that we're so puritanical, even though Father was so amazingly open. We've taken on this shame. We bought into the thinking that the way True Father was talking was too lewdly. We had seen it as a shame and embarrassing that he was talking that way to dignitaries. But theologically, I don't think we understood where he was coming from. I think that's why he was so clear in his returning resurrection. And through this, I've come to find a great deal of hope in our movement.
My wife and I are now finally doing sermons together. A new system. It was impossible before. If you know anything about giving sermons, it's very hard to do with somebody else. Everybody has difference cadences, everybody has different energy levels. I had never been able to sermonize with my wife. She was part of the service, but I couldn't sermonize with her; I couldn't teach with her. That was always a source of sadness. I wanted to find a way we could do it together.
When we talk about sex, it's almost as it we have to speak about it together. We can't just have a man talking by himself about sex. That's a problem in our movement -- that only males have focused on absolute sex. No women have openly taught about sex. That's the problem with connecting to women on this issue. Men are happy when they hear about it, when they hear Father talking, "You've got to have this and that."
"Okay! Whoopee!" But the women think, Wait a minute! What if my husband is stupid and selfish and lazy? Do I have to just submit to him? This causes women to feel degraded. They almost feel violated. No woman wants to make love to a selfish waste of life. No woman. And she shouldn't want to, honestly.
The whole issue is that we didn't have a woman explain a woman's side to this. That's what my wife is able to do so wonderfully; she's able to share that. It's fundamentally a deep relationship of intimacy, trust, respect, and small things that show the husband loves his wife -- and that allows them to culminate in wonderful, great, good sex. This is all very important in understanding those two perspectives, men's and women's.
That's why I'm so excited about this ministry, because I think it goes leaps and bounds beyond what I've ever been able to talk about before. Even 1 -- being so formed by the Buddhist monastic and other monastic traditions -- was shy about speaking about these things. You've got to be bold and brazen to talk about this issue.
But after Father came in his returning resurrection and gave me that clear direction, it was like night and day. I just had to go out and declare it.
On December 15, Hyung Jin Nim speaks to an audience that included many religious leaders at an Original Substance of Divine Principle workshop in the New Yorker Hotel's Grand Ballroom
Question: Did Father just say two words to you?
No, there was a whole episode. But he made it clear -- absolute sex. Then, that started clicking after I woke up; everything started making more theological sense. 1 could start seeing into Father's teachings. It opened up; everything was unlocking. I was getting right to the core of it all. That was huge. And it's because of that that I'm doing the good sex ministry.
Question: The pornography industry enslaves many people. Do you see the good sex movement as providing a practical counter-proposal to the pornographer's invitation?
If you're a husband and wife, and you are deeply in love, and you have true intimacy and deep affection, that other stuff becomes irrelevant. However, I've got to be honest with you, it's important to be having great sex. You've got to be very clear on this. It's not just holding hands all the time. It has to culminate in good sex. That's very important. That's the reason that men, husbands, are becoming addicted to this stuff -- because they're not having sex with their wife. She has issues with him, he has issues with her, or whatever it is.
This is fundamentally getting back to the same issue: there's a fundamental dissatisfaction. Because when it comes down to it, God's purpose of creating Adam and Eve was to share good sex and truly be in pleasure and in joy and in happiness and in fun -- all that wonder is supposed to be there.
And so does that provide an answer? Does it become a counterproposal when we're making our own "good sex industry"...? I don't know, but it proposes the only real solution, which is true, lasting, eternal love -- and good sex! Because in the end, pornography is all about sex. For the men who are watching it, it's all about sex, because that's all they're thinking of. Especially if they're not having a wonderful sex life with their wife, they're going to be tempted in every other way. That's why men get addicted to that stuff.
One connected point to clarity about good sex is taking care of yourself and taking care of your spouse, living for the sake of others in the sense that you're trying your best to be healthy and beautiful for your husband or handsome for your wife. Such things are important -- putting in that kind of effort and not being lazy about it, doing that 5 percent responsibility of keeping your body and mind healthy, your lifestyle healthy, and your sex life healthy.
But in the end, we don't talk about these issues at all in our movement. We push them under the rug. Couples don't have sex for four or five years, and then all this stuff is just boiling. It goes back to that issue.
Question: Within the movement, people hold private seminars or workshops to try to help other members with blessed family relationships, but it hasn't been our mainstream.
I think, fundamentally we haven't been clear that this is the core of our theology. I've never heard anybody in this movement ever say that the entire corpus of Father's teaching could be understood through absolute sex. For me, it's a new thing. Whether you're talking about true love, True Parents, love, life, and lineage, give-and-receive action, blessed families, blessed couples, or the blessing -- let's be very clear -- in the end you're talking about sex. But I've never heard anybody in our movement clarify that. That's why I was also unclear. So this is a big "eureka" thing for me. Because of that theological clarity, nobody can deny that that's actually the core of our teaching. Every major aspect, the central core concept by Father, in the end, boils down to absolute sex.
Question: I remember hearing the term "physical love" used in our church to describe sexual relations, but actually we know making love is not meant to be just a physical experience.
That's right. It embodies the whole anthropology of the person -- the spirit, mind, and body and the physical mind and body. Of course, it is the true physical symbol of husband and wife becoming one, but also their spirits, minds, and bodies share in that oneness.
I think we've clothed it in unclear, poetic language. In this day and age, that is unhelpful, especially when every other secular institution is talking so openly about sex. It's saturating our children's minds. They hear about it so openly, everywhere.
Yet nobody [in our church] has been talking about it openly, and nobody has had a clear theological understanding of why this is fundamental, God's cosmic purpose.
Question: In your sermons, are you going to expound on this, perhaps?
I will only sermonize on this topic. The point is that all the theologies go right back to the center. In our church, we had slogans like "One family under God," "Living for the sake of others" and "Inherit the true love of God." But what are we talking about? It's not clear. That's why the whole live-for-the-sake-of-others thing became just service work. How we're going to change the world is unclear.
That is why this is so different. The world has been destroyed by bad sex, so it can only be rebuilt through good sex -- it's the only way. It's not going to be done through service work; it's not through education, not through these aspects only. Fundamental to all that is good sex, a true husband and true wife in true love. And from that happy household will come better children, happier children who will want to get blessed. From that relationship of love and intimacy conies a desire to share this with other people, to have other people be blessed as well, to become blessed families and enjoy what God intended for them. There's a natural process of wanting others to have this blessing as well. That's how we're going to change the world -- through good sex.
It's never been clear to me. We've had all these slogans and initiatives, but it hasn't been clear how we were going to change the world. So many organizations are a hundred times better than we are in service work, education, running universities or businesses, or whatever. But nobody has as clear picture from the cosmic beginning, rooted in the fundamental understanding of the entire world, cosmos, time and space, and in God Himself, as the Unification Church does -- because the Lord in his Second Advent has come and he has brought clarity on the fundamental issue of the universe, which is sex.
Question: Do you envision the "good sex movement" translating into seminars, workshops and counseling?
It's going to translate into everything from lectures to sermons to music to art to education. It's going to translate into all that, because it is the core of everything. Every Korean drama, every movie, is about people trying to find love and sharing that kind of intimacy. You can find that nowhere more than in marriages blessed by the Lord in his Second Advent. That's because it's not just tying the knot. You understand the cosmic reason for a true husband and true wife to have great sex. You understand the entire universe's purpose; God almighty's purpose for good sex. So it is the richest, and not only physical experience, but endlessly profound spiritual, theological and cosmic experience.
We've got to get over being shy about sex. We've got to talk about it all the time. Our families have got to be talking about sex all the time. Why? Because had sex is being talked about all the time You're not going to fight this by hearing about it once every Sunday. The only way you're going to fight this is by continuously having good sex in your mind.
Question: I recall you mentioned on December 15 that we have to replace thinking about bad sex with good-sex meditation...
You've got to be thinking about good sex all the time. Meditations have different forms. You can have analytical types of meditations, in which you are thinking of the theology of good sex. That is, you're thinking about how that interrelates with every single concept in our faith, whether it be True Father or True Mother, true family, the blessed family, the blessing of marriage (our major sacrament), God's original purpose, or the destruction of the world. You can meditate on this, but it's all centered on sex. That's good sex protecting you from the bad sex that's trying to get into your thoughts. You can also do visualizations, where you're visualizing having sex with you wife. This is a wonderful protection against had sex images coming into your mind, even though you're ninety. Father was ninety, but he was still reminisced about Mother when she was young and beautiful in her twenties and thirties. This is beautiful. This is like good sex meditation.
So we've got to get over the shame. We've got to understand that True Parents had lots of sex. True Father has a holy penis, and True Mother has a holy vagina. We've got to get over the shame. They had lots of sex, which is why they had us -- a lot of us! [Hyung Jin Nim laughs.] The Messiah had lots of sex with his wife, and God loved it. That's the point. That made God the happiest.
We've got to get over any shyness. If we are able to talk about sex in this incredible way, every conversation with blessed families will be enjoyable, fun and stimulating. It reminds us of our common purpose of good sex and powerful marriages. It turns away the bad-sex world that tries to invade us all the time.
But in church if we're never talking about sex, all we will hear is about had sex. As soon as we walk out of the church, it is tempting us from every direction. From every little alcohol ad....Even in Korea, all over they've got billboards with alcohol ads featuring girls in miniskirts. On the streets, they've got girls walking around in miniskirts. I know what men are thinking when they see these young Korean girls walking around in miniskirts. I know exactly what they're thinking. It's all had sex. But, as blessed families, if we have the culture in which we are talking about good sex, that will stimulate us in a heavenly way.
Question: I'm sure that will help young people growing up and experiencing sexual feelings.
That's right, and they can air those feelings out, and understand how that should be channeled in a heavenly way. And when they get married, it should be totally incredible. They shouldn't feel as if it should be terrible, like some kind of "work." In our movement all we have heard about is had sex -- the Fall destroyed man...the Fall, evil sex, etc. But when you get married it's as if we are saying), See you later! Have lots of babies. Good luck!
All you've heard is about sex that was evil and terrible and that the woman was the evil temptress. This is a problem. When there are traditions that demonize women as evil temptresses, guess what happens? Homosexuality rises. In the Japanese tradition of Shintoism, for example, they see women as defiled and dirty, especially because of menstruation. This is similar to many forms of religion that see women as defiled and dirty because they bleed.
Of course, for celibate traditions, women are the biggest temptresses. You have some Catholic priests who in their consciousness think of a woman as evil, as a temptress, but apparently have no problem raping a little boy. Do you see what I'm saying? Because in their minds they've demonized women, major problems occur. This is dangerous.
That's why what the True Mother does is restore the holy vagina, where it's not the evil temptress, where it becomes what Father calls "the royal palace." And it is the pursuit of God. Pursuing your spouse sexually is pursuing God. So it doesn't lead to demonization of the vagina, or the clitoris, or any part of a woman's sexual organ. It becomes the sanctification and the beauty. That's what the True Mother does "heartistically" and theologically -- she's restoring the holiness of the vagina. It's so important.
That's why, in the artistic area, in the liberal arts world, they're drawing penises and vaginas everywhere. They think they're so wonderful; they're celebrating them. We have to be the ones celebrating them, because the True Father and Mother, with the holy seed and the holy field, or the holy penis and vagina, have restored the holiness of the sexual organs -- which Father talked about endlessly. Whereas we're just too shy to talk about it.
We still have that satanic residue. If we can get over that as a movement and talk about absolute sex all the time, not only will we be protecting our marriages, we will be protecting our children from the had sex that's constantly bombarding us. We've got something just as relevant and powerful, and we should talk about it all the time, too. No other religion has that power. No other religion can have the resources to talk about the sexual organs so openly, in a holy way -- because it is not central to their theology. This is why our movement is the one that can change the world. Bad sex destroyed the world; good sex can restore the world.
Education and universities are not relevant to every demographic. But I'll tell you what's relevant to every person on the planet and that can totally capture their attention: It is sex.
Question: It certainly has universal appeal.
Satan is the only one talking. Nobody is challenging that demon. That's why I say that women should go and cut off Satan's penis. [Hyung Jin Nim laughs.]
Question: Can I quote that?
[He laughs.] Don't be shy! If we have this amazing teaching, we have a clear path of how to build the kingdom of heaven. There is nothing to be shy about, only everything to be proud of.
The whole issue of sex and absolute sex is a very deep topic. It's the core of everything. It is the heart of the entire teaching. It fundamentally relates to every other major issue, theme and topic. And also to the world. That's why this is the age of liberation -- the new sexual revolution is coming, the good sex revolution, centered on God and True Parents. Nobody else can do it.
This is the beauty of good sex: even talking about it makes people happy. I have found this phenomenon with everyone. But, of course, when talking to women, you've got to understand that they need to make sure that you mean it's not only the sexual act, but that it includes a relationship of intimacy and trust, living for each other, sacrificing for each other, and then culminating in good, beautiful, romantic, passionate, ecstatic sex. Then, they're fine with it.