A Life of Teaching by Example
Reverend Dr. Sun Myung Moon's aim in
life, as I understand it, is the liberation of God and the salvation of humankind.
This is highly evident from the spirit and life emanating from his sermons
(350 volumes of Sermons of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon) and prayers (Twelve
volumes of Reverend Sun Myung Moon: Prayers - A Lifetime of Conversation with
our Heavenly Father).
Conventional theology assumes that it
is the absolute and infinite God who liberates man, who is relative and finite.
In contrast, Reverend Moon has been teaching that it is we who must liberate
God, and lead a life of putting this conviction into practice. This arises
from a diametrically opposed view of the relationship between God and man.
Reverend Moon explains that the relationship
between God and man is that of parent and child. God created us in His image,
that is, as His children, and wanted to fulfill His ideal of creation through
us. However, after man fell into the realm of death, God's situation was that
of a grieving parent who had lost His children. God is the origin of parental
love, which motivates parents to go so far as to sacrifice their own lives
in order to save a child in danger. With such a heart, God has arduously pursued
His providence of restoring man to his original state. God's anguished quest
in search of His lost children has been filled with dashed hopes and renewed
heartbreak.
The biblical record is replete with
examples of people who in one way or another failed to rise to the occasion
in keeping with the demands of divine providence. God's unstinting efforts
in exercising His parental love have constantly met with rejection and even
betrayal. Yet God never gives up, continuing to pour out His infinite true
love, by virtue of His being our eternal parent. Now, Reverend Moon teaches
that mature children must liberate their disconsolate parent thereby demonstrating
both loyalty and filial piety.
At this point, I offer one of his prayers,
which crystallizes his life and spirit:
(Prayer)
We long for the day when we can live together with You. Please let us become
sons and daughters who long for You, and run towards You, and who can bring
all the things of creation into harmony by offering greetings of joy and gratitude
to You, having arrived at the day of glory when we can live together with
You.
Since our minds and bodies were
created resembling the external form of our Father, we earnestly hope and
desire, Father, that You will allow us to become sons and daughters who resemble
You completely.
Oh Father
Humankind does not know that Your sorrowful mind has permeated the earth,
and does not know that the footprints of human history are soaked with the
lonely tears of heaven.
We have not known that the endless
lamentations of heaven are encircling our minds and bodies. Now we cannot
help but admit that we are the descendants of rebellious humankind and that
we cannot establish our dignity before heaven or be trusted by heaven.
Father!
There is no one on earth who can stop Your tears, and there is no one to hold
and comfort You in Your sorrow, and there is no one to guard the path You
are going. Therefore, if there is grief on this earth, that grief is heaven's
grief which has permeated the earth; if there is sorrow, that sorrow is heaven's
sorrow which has permeated the earth, and if there is enmity, that enmity
is heaven's enmity which has permeated the earth. Therefore, humankind who
are living on this earth are facing a destiny of not being able to help but
be sacrifices of sorrow whether they want to be or not, and are facing a destiny
of not being able to help but overcome their grief-filled selves whether they
want to do so or not.þ
(Reverend Sun Myung Moon: Prayers - A Lifetime of Conversation
with our Heavenly Father; "Please let us be close to the Wellspring of Your
Heart" 24 May 1959)
While it would be foolhardy to attempt
to characterize Reverend Moon's life in an aphorism, I would venture to testify
that he has taught us by the power of his own example of living a life entirely
for the sake of the liberation of God and the salvation of humankind.
Throughout his life, Reverend Moon has
been single-mindedly walking the path of untiring devotion to God. As God's
representative, he has experienced God's pain and sorrow with all his heart
and with all his strength, exerting his utmost to plant love with a heavenly
heart amid a sinful world, forsaking all personal and familial concerns.
In teaching us, he would speak from
one dawn to the next without stopping to rest. With ever benevolent warmth
and engaging geniality, often with words so profound that one would not exchange
even for the world, at times persevering through stifling heat with sweat
pouring down his body and soaking his clothes, his face drenched in tears
as he strove to share the precious gems of truth won by dint of grim struggle
to the point of shedding blood - sometimes with raised voice, at other times
pausing meaningfully - he fully reflects the all-encompassing dynamism of
God, the origin of all existence. All his recorded words to date have been
published in no less than 450 books, which include some 350 volumes of the
on-going compilation of the Sermons of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, of which
seven have been translated into English.
This thematic work, Sun Myung Moon's
Philosophy of Education, is an assemblage of pronouncements made by him within
that context. Words fail me in expressing sufficient gratitude and appreciation
to the True Parents for their untiring toil and lifelong labor in seeking
to bring God peace and rest and lead the way for humankind in becoming true
original children of Heaven.
It is my sincere and earnest hope that
this book can inspire its readers to profit from Reverend Moon's noble life
and teachings, first by tracing his footsteps and then by walking in them.
Hwang Sun-jo
International President
Family Federation for World Peace and Unification
First published in Korean, 5 February
2002
Publisher:
Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU)
Sunghwa Publishing Company
Registration Number: 3-98
Address: 172-1 Chungpa-dong 1-ga, Yongsan-gu, Seoul 140-869, Korea
Tel: (02) 715-3894; Fax: (02) 706-9815
Price: $10.00
SBN 89-7132-194-6-03040
Printed in Seoul, Korea
Explanatory Note
This book is a compilation and translation
of excerpts selected from the 350-volume anthology of speeches given by the
Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Each excerpt is followed by a reference to where
the speech can be found in the original Korean, and when it was given. The
first hyphenated set of numbers refer to the volume and page number. This
is followed by the date on which the words were spoken, written in the form
year, month, date.
Theory
of Education