Cheong Pyeong Training Centre, February 20, 2018
On February 20, 2018, during the 2018 HyoJeong Cheongpyeong Great Works Commemorating True Parents’ Birthday and the 5th Anniversary of Foundation Day, FFWPU International President Sun Jin Moon spoke to more than 5,000 members at a special meeting in the main hall of the CheongPyeong training center and answered their questions with a loving heart.
Hoon dok material, from True Father’s autobiography, read by International President:
Global Harmony Starts on the Korean Peninsula
(As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen, p.276-p.281)
I miss my hometown so much that I visit it often in my dreams. My hometown is far beyond Seoul, in Jeongju, North Korea. It is an area that has both mountains and the sea. Wherever I am and whatever time it may be, my heart is always reaching out to that place where there is love and life.
All of us are born into our parents’ lineage, and as we grow up we are nourished by our parents’ love. We cannot forget our hometowns because that is where the ground is soaked with our parents’ love. That is why the older we get, the more we miss our hometowns. It is where our roots are and where we must return. It is difficult for people to cut themselves off from things that are fundamentally important to them. In 2004, I ended my activities in the United States after thirty-four years and returned to the Korean peninsula, where heavenly fortune resides.
We are not aware of the exact time when morning becomes noon. Neither are we aware of the exact time when evening becomes night. In the same way, human beings have no way of knowing the moment when Heaven does its work. That is how it is with our lives as well. Our moments of success and failure all pass us by without our being fully aware of exactly when they began to unfold. The same is true with nations. We cannot know the moment when good or ill fortune comes to a nation. Heavenly fortune is a force that moves the world; it is a principle that makes the universe go around. Though we may not know it, there is clearly something called heavenly fortune, which the One who created this world uses to conduct His providence.
The universe moves in perfect accordance with its own order. All beings in the world bear within them a certain principle that is put there even before they exist. When a baby is born, no one has to teach it how to breathe or to open its eyes. The baby does these things without being compelled. Things that happen on their own hold within them important keys to the secrets of the universe.
Many natural phenomena seem to just happen on their own. In reality, though, they don’t happen in this way. Hidden within natural phenomena in the universe is a directional force that we are not aware of and do not understand. This is the same with the forces of fortune in the universe, or heavenly fortune.
As the universe turns, it is certain that there will be a period of powerful fortune. If we understand the principle of the universe whereby spring follows winter and is then followed by summer, then we can foresee a bright future for Korea after a long winter of misfortune.
Those who are wise will align themselves with the laws and rhythms of the universe. When I was in America I would often fish in the Hudson River near my home. I have been a very skilled fisherman since I was a young boy, but there were days on the Hudson when I could not catch so much as a tiny minnow and had to return home disheartened. Fish have paths that they travel and certain times when they pass along those paths. If we don’t know where these paths are and what times they are on these paths, we won’t catch any fish. Just because there is water, it does not mean that there will always be fish passing by. A person who doesn’t understand this could keep his line in the water all day and all night, and it won’t do him any good. The same is true with heavenly fortune. If we don’t have an eye to see the future, we will not see heavenly fortune, even if it is staring us in the face. That is why it is important to have a keen understanding of heavenly fortune and an ability to sense its movements.
Human civilization has developed throughout history in a westerly direction. Egypt’s continental civilization gave way to the peninsular civilizations of Greece and Rome and then developed to the island civilization of Britain before moving on to another continental civilization, this time in America. Civilization continued its westerly move, crossing the Pacific Ocean to Japan. The movement of civilization didn’t stop there. The force that raised Japan up to such a great position is now moving to the Korean peninsula. Civilization is about to come to its fruition on the Korean peninsula.
For Japan’s island civilization to link up with the continent, it must pass through a peninsula. Asia, of course, has other peninsulas, but only Korea possesses sufficient foundation to inherit contemporary civilization. The Korean peninsula is in a most exquisite geopolitical position. It faces Japan and the United States across the Pacific Ocean. It also is connected to the continents of Asia and Europe and shares common borders with China and Russia. This is the reason that Korea has been a focal point in the power struggles among the world’s great powers and has suffered a great deal as a result.
During the Cold War, we fought for our very existence in a war against communism. Even now, the concerns and interests of the world’s great powers continue to involve the Korean peninsula, so Korea remains a divided country unable to be completely at peace. The time has come when the Korean peninsula, where the interests of the great powers collide, will take on an important role in preventing conflict between these countries. As a result it will be in a position to lead the rest of the world into prosperity and peace.
Heavenly fortune comes with tremendous responsibility. Now that the Korean peninsula has come into its heavenly fortune, it must play a role similar to a ball bearing, making sure that these countries not only do not collide with each other but instead cooperate closely for the sake of the prosperity and peace of the world. The functions of a ball bearing are to hold the axle of a machine in place while also allowing the axle to rotate freely. Korea needs to maintain smooth relationships with the great powers and thus become a ball bearing that allows peace to rotate freely throughout the world.
For a long time I have been making intensive preparations for Korea to play this role. I supported the glasnost policies of President Gorbachev and pushed the goal of improving relations with the Soviet Union. I also supported the reform and openness policies of Deng Xiaoping in China, starting in the late 1980s. I began my work in China by supporting Yanbian University to establish a college of engineering. Even after the Tiananmen Square incident, when foreign capital was leaving China, we remained in China and invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Huizhou, in Kwangtung Province.
I did not do this just for economic reasons. I am a religious person, not a businessman. A religious person is someone who sees into the future and prepares for it. Russia, China, Japan, and the United States must learn to cooperate with each other while using the spiritual bearings of the Korean peninsula. The Korean peninsula is destined to become the axis for world peace.
When I began working to improve relations between Korea and the Soviet Union and China, I discovered that Korea did not even have something as basic as a Russian or Chinese dictionary. Very little was going to get done as long as we could not understand each other’s languages. When I heard that there were groups of academics who had the foresight to begin work on a Chinese–Korean dictionary and a Russian– Korean dictionary, I supported these two projects.
The Chinese–Korean Dictionary Project was led by Professor Il Seok Hong of the Korea University’s Institute of Korean Culture, and several professors in the university’s Russian Studies department were behind the effort to publish a Russian–Korean dictionary. These dictionaries are playing crucial roles in the exchanges between the two Koreas and China and Russia.
When a rock sits atop the highest mountain peak, once it begins to fall it will fall all the way to the deepest part of the valley. This describes the changing fortunes of Western civilization. It is common knowledge that the West achieved incredible development through the use of science, but now moral decay is sending it down to the depths of the valley floor. That valley floor is the East, which has been developing a spiritual culture for thousands of years.
In particular, the Korean peninsula is the place where Eastern and Western cultures meet, as well as the place where continental and oceanic civilizations meet. The historian and philosopher Oswald Spengler put forth a cyclical theory of the rise and decline of civilizations that took a dim view of democracy and described it as the type of government that is leading Western civilization into decline. He argued that democracy is driven by money and that democracy’s corrupting power and its signs of moral decline include the rise of materialism and cults of science.
Looking at today’s Western culture, it appears that some of his thoughts were prophetic. The Atlantic civilization that has prospered until now is clearly facing a new era, the era of a pan-Pacific civilization that is on the rise. Asia, with Korea poised to take a central role, is becoming the lead actor in a new world history. Two-thirds of the world’s population lives in Asia. All the world’s major religions began in Asia. It has long served as humanity’s spiritual root.
It is inevitable that the Western and Eastern civilizations come together in harmony on the Korean peninsula. As the world rapidly changes, heavenly fortune is moving in Korea’s direction at an everincreasing speed. However, if the Korean peninsula is to properly perform its important role in leading the world to harmony and peace during an era of chaos, then it must prepare itself well. It must do away with a past marked with prejudice and selfishness and greet the new age with clear eyes and a new heart.
