The River Does Not Reject the Waters That Flow into It

Religious conflicts in the world today pose the most painful irony to a sincere and thinking person. Many people ask, "Why does an omnipotent God allow so much suffering?" How much more pressing is the question, "Why does God allow so much conflict among religions?"

In this article, Rev. Moon shares his heartfelt conviction that God never intended relgious conflicts to exist. Rather, these conflicts cause the deepest pain and sorrow to God - as well as to humanity.

Selfishness is rampant in the world. Ironically, however, the individual is destroyed by this, and not just the individual, but those around him and the nation as a whole. The greatest obstacle to the world of peace is avarice in peoples’ hearts. It starts in individuals, expands to the nation, and hearts stained with avarice cause division and conflict at every level. Countless people throughout history have shed blood and died in conflicts caused by avarice.

To eliminate such conflicts, we need a great revolution to change the erroneous values and thinking that are widespread in the world today. The complex problems our societies face today can be resolved quickly if there is a revolution in peoples’ thinking. If each individual and nation begins to look out for the other first, working together with the other, the problems of modern society will be resolved.

Throughout my life, I dedicated myself to efforts for peace. Any time the word “peace” comes up, I become emotional. I choke up, it becomes difficult for me to swallow my food and tears begin to well up in my eyes. It moves me deeply just to imagine the day when the world becomes one and begins to enjoy peace. That is the nature of peace.  It links people who think differently, are of different races, and speak different languages. Our hearts yearn for this world and harbor a hope that it will be realized. Peace is concrete action; it is not a vague dream.

Building a movement for peace has not always been easy. There have been many difficulties, and it has required large sums of money. I have not done this for my own honor, nor to make money. All I did was invest my full effort, so that we can have a world where a strong and true peace takes root. For as long as I have been doing this work, I have never been lonely. This is because, ultimately, peace is the desire of every person in the world. It is strange, though. Even though everyone wants peace, it has still not come.

It is easy to talk about peace. But to bring peace is not easy. This is because people push aside the most elemental truth needed to bring about a world of peace. They pretend not to know this truth is there. Before we talk about peace among individuals or among nations, we must talk about peace between ourselves and God.

Each religion today thinks of itself as the highest, rejecting and looking down on other religions. It is not right to build fences against other religions and denominations. A religion is like a wide river flowing toward an ideal, peaceful world. The river flows for long distances before it comes to the wide expanse of peace. On its way, many streams flow into it. The streams cease to be streams from the point they meet the river. From that point, they, too, become part of the river. In this way, they become one.

The river does not reject any of the streams that flow into it. It accepts them all. It embraces all the streams and forms a single flow as it continues toward the ocean. People in the world today do not understand this simple truth. The streams that seek out the river and flow into it are the numerous religions and denominations of today. Each stream traces its origin to a different spring, but they are all going to the same destination. They are seeking the ideal world overflowing with peace.

Peace will never come to this earth unless we first tear down the walls between religions. For thousands of years, religions have grown in alliance with particular ethnic groups, and so they are surrounded by high cultural walls. Tearing these down is an extremely difficult task. For thousands of years, each religion has surrounded itself with such high walls, insisting that it is the only correct religion. In some cases, religions have expanded their influence and entered into conflicts and fights with other religions, using God’s name in places that had nothing to do with His will.

The will of God lies in peace. A world fragmented by differences in nationality, race, and religion, where people attack and fight one another and shed one another’s blood, is not what God wants. When we shed blood and fight each other in His name, we only cause Him pain. A world torn to shreds has been created out of the desires of people to promote their own wealth and glory. It does not represent the will of God. God clearly told me so. I am only His errand boy, receiving His words and carrying them out on Earth.

The path to bring about a world of peace, in which religions and races become united, has been exhausting. Many times, I was rejected by people, or my own abilities fell short, but I could not put aside this mission. When members and colleagues who worked with me would cry out in anguish because of the difficulty of the task, I would even feel envious of them. “If you decide this path isn’t for you, you have the option to stop and turn back,” I told them. “Or if you try and try and still can’t accomplish it, you have the option to die trying.” “But you should pity me,” I said. “I am a person with no such options.”

There are some two hundred countries in the world. For all these countries to enjoy peace, the power of religion is absolutely necessary. The power of religion is in the love that overflows from it. I am a religious person whose role is to convey love, so it is natural that I would work for world peace. There is no difference between Islam and Christianity in their commitment to bring about a world of peace. In America, I lead a movement for peace, bringing together twenty thousand clergy who transcend denomination. Through this movement, we discuss ways that Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and all faiths can come together. We devote our full efforts to change the hardened hearts of people.

My purpose is the same today as it was yesterday. It is to create one world with God at the center, a world brought together like a single nation without boundaries. All humanity will be citizens of this world, sharing a culture of love. In such a world, there will be no possibility for division and conflict. This will mark the beginning of a truly peaceful world.

The More It Hurts, the More You Should Love

Heaven's call can turn one's life upside down! This was the experience of Rev. Moon at the age of 15, when Jesus appeared to him, calling him to fulfill an overwhelming mission - to love God and love the world with the same heart and fervor as Jesus had done.

The following is an excerpt from Ch. 3 of his autobiography "As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen"

I was thrown into extreme confusion. I couldn’t open my heart to my parents and share my huge secret with them. But neither could I just keep it to myself. I was at a loss over what to do. What was clear was that I had received a special mission from Heaven. It was such a huge and tremendous responsibility. I shuddered in fear to think that I might not be able to handle it on my own. I clung to prayer even more than before, in an attempt to quiet my confused heart. But even this had no effect. No matter how much I tried, I could not free myself for even a moment from the memory of having met Jesus. In an effort to quiet my heart and my tears, I composed the following poem:

                                  Crown of Glory

When I doubt people, I feel pain.

When I judge people, it is unbearable.

When I hate people,

there is no value to my existence.

Yet if I believe, I am deceived.

If I love, I am betrayed.

Suffering and grieving tonight,

my head in my hands,

Am I wrong?

Yes I am wrong.

Even though we are deceived, still believe.

Though we are betrayed, still forgive.

Love completely, even those who hate you.

Wipe your tears away and welcome with a smile

Those who know nothing but deceit,

And those who betray without regret.

O, Master, the pain of loving.

Look at my hands.

Place your hand on my chest.

My heart is bursting, such agony.

But when I love those who acted against me,

I brought victory.

If you have done the same things,

I will give you the Crown of Glory.

Between Fear and Inspiration

A personal encounter with Jesus in a spiritual vision is awe-inspiring - evoking both fear and inspiration. What would Jesus want to say to me? What is he feeling about the state of the world today? What new message might he have for these times?

The following is Rev. Moon's description of his encounter with Jesus Christ at the age of 15. It is a poignant and revealing story from his autobiography "As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen" - chapter 2.

"As I grew older and more mature, I became preoccupied with the question, “What will I be when I grow up?” I enjoyed observing and studying nature, so I gave some thought to becoming a scientist. However, I changed my mind after I saw the tragedy of how people were plundered by the Japanese colonial authorities. They suffered so much that they could not even feed themselves. It didn’t seem that becoming a scientist, even if it led to my winning a Nobel Prize, would be a way for me to wipe away the tears of suffering people.

I wanted to become a person who could take away the tears that flowed from people’s eyes and the sorrow that was in their hearts. When I was lying in the forest listening to the songs of the birds, I would think, “The world needs to be made as warm and tender as those songs. I should become someone who makes people’s lives as fragrant as flowers.” I didn’t know what career I should pursue to accomplish that, but I became convinced that I should be a person who could give happiness to people.

When I was ten, our family converted to Christianity by the grace of Great-Uncle Yun Guk Moon, who was a minister and led a fervent life of faith. From then on, I attended church faithfully, without ever missing a week. If I arrived at service even a little late, I would be so ashamed that I could not even raise my face. I don’t know what I could have understood at such a young age to inspire me to be this way, but God was already a huge presence in my life. I was spending more and more time wrestling with questions dealing with life and death, and the suffering and sorrows of human existence.

When I was twelve, I witnessed my great-grandfather’s grave being moved. Normally, only adults in the clan would be allowed to attend such an occasion, but I wanted very much to see for myself what happened to people after they died. I eventually persuaded my parents to allow me to come along. When the grave was dug up and I saw his remains, I was overcome with shock and fear. While the adults opened the grave with solemn ceremony, all I saw was a scrawny skeleton. There was no trace of the features my father and mother had described to me.

There was only the hideous sight of white bones. It took me a while to get over the shock of seeing my great-grandfather’s bones. I said to myself, “Great-grandfather must have looked just like us. Does this mean my parents, too, will turn into just a bunch of white bones after they die? Is this what will happen to me when I die? Everyone dies, but after we die, do we just lie there unable to think about anything?” I couldn’t get these questions out of my head. Around that same time, a number of strange events occurred in our home.

I have a vivid memory of one in particular. Each time our family wove cloth, we would take the snippets of thread from the spinning wheel and save them in an earthenware jar until we had enough to make a bolt of cloth. The cloth we made from these snippets, called yejang, was a special cloth used when a child in the family was getting married. One night, these snippets were found scattered all over the branches of an old chestnut tree in a neighboring village. They made the tree look like it had turned white. We couldn’t understand who would have taken the snippets from the jar and carried them all the way to the chestnut tree, which was quite a distance from our home, and then spread them all over the tree. It didn’t seem like something that could be done by human hands, and it frightened everyone in the village.

When I was sixteen, we experienced the tragedy of having five of my younger siblings die in a single year. No words could describe the heartbreak of our parents in losing five of their thirteen children in such a short time. Death seemed to spread. Other clan members lost their livestock. One home’s cow suddenly died, though it had been in perfect health. At another home, several horses died, one after another. At a third home, seven pigs died in one night.

The suffering of one family seemed connected to the suffering of the nation and of the world. I was increasingly troubled to see the wretched situation of the Korean people under Japan’s increasingly tyrannical rule. People didn’t have enough to eat. They were sometimes forced to take grass, tree bark, and whatever else they could find, and boil these for food. There seemed to be no end to wars around the world. Then one day I read an article in a newspaper about the suicide of a middle-school student who was the same age as I.

“Why did he die?” I asked myself. “What would drive a person to kill himself at such a young age?” I was devastated by this news, as if it had happened to someone who had been close to me. With the newspaper open to that article, I wept aloud for three days and nights. The tears kept coming, and I couldn’t make them stop.

I couldn’t comprehend the series of strange events, or the fact that tragic events were happening to good people. Seeing the bones of my great-grandfather had inspired me to start asking questions about life and death, and the series of unusual events in and around our home caused me to hang on to religion. The Word of God I was hearing in church, however, was not sufficient by itself to give me the clear answers I was seeking. To relieve the frustrations in my heart, I naturally began to immerse myself in prayer.

“Who am I? Where did I come from? What is the purpose of life? What happens to people when they die? Is there a world of the eternal soul? Does God really exist? Is God really all-powerful? If He is, why does He just stand by and watch the sorrows of the world? If God created this world, did He also create the suffering that is in the world? What will bring an end to Korea’s tragic occupation by Japan? What is the meaning of the suffering of the Korean people? Why do human beings hate each other, fight, and start wars?” My heart was filled with these serious and fundamental questions. No one could easily answer them for me, so my only option was to pray. Prayer helped me to find solace. Whenever I laid out the anguishing problems in my heart to God, all my suffering and sorrow vanished and my heart felt at ease. I began spending more and more time in prayer, to the point that, eventually, I began praying through the night all the time. As a result, I had a rare and precious experience in which God answered my prayers. That day will always remain as the most cherished memory of my life—a day I can never forget.

It was the night before Easter in the year I turned sixteen. I was on Mount Myodu praying all night and begging God in tears for answers. Why had He created a world so filled with sorrow and despair? Why was the all-knowing and all-powerful God leaving the world in such pain? What should I do for my tragic homeland? I wept in tears as I asked these questions repeatedly.

Early Easter morning, after I had spent the entire night in prayer, Jesus appeared before me. He appeared in an instant, like a gust of wind, and said to me, “God is in great sorrow because of the pain of humankind. You must take on a special mission on earth having to do with Heaven’s work.”

That day, I saw clearly the sorrowful face of Jesus. I heard his voice clearly. The experience of witnessing the manifestation of Jesus caused my body to shake violently, like a quaking aspen’s leaves trembling in a strong breeze. I was simultaneously overcome with fear so great I felt I might die and gratitude so profound I felt I might explode. Jesus spoke clearly about the work I would have to do. His words were extraordinary, having to do with saving humanity from its suffering and bringing joy to God.

My initial response was, “I can’t do this. How can I do this? Why would you even give me a mission of such paramount importance?” I was truly afraid. I wanted somehow to avoid this mission, and I clung to the hem of his clothing and wept inconsolably. "

The Injustices of Religious Conflict and the Way to Peace

Perhaps one of the most disturbing issues of these times is the violence we find in conflicts between religions. Acts of terrorism; terrible injustices done in the name of God... What could be a worse irony than the use of religion for hatred and division?

Below is an excerpt of a wonderful autobiographical memoir of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, As  A Peace Loving Global Citizen. In this first chapter, he shares his poignant reflections on our universal longing for peace - which many of us feel even from childhood.  He goes on to comment as a religious leader, and a global citizen, about the need for genuine inter-religious, inter-racial, international work for peace and reconciliation.

What I Learned about Peace While Being Carried on My Father’s Back

I have lived my life with just one thought. I wanted to bring about a world of peace, a world where there are no wars and where all humankind lives in love. Perhaps some may say, “How is it possible that you were thinking about peace even when you were a child?” Is it so astonishing that a child would dream of a peaceful world?

In 1920, when I was born, Korea was under forced occupation by Japan. Even after liberation, there came the Korean War, the Asian financial crisis, and other numerous difficult crises. For many years, the land of Korea has not been closely associated with peace. But these times of suffering and confusion were not matters related only to Korea. The two world wars, the Vietnam War, and the wars in the Middle East show that people in the world continuously treat each other with enmity, point guns at each other, and bomb each another. Perhaps for people who experience these horrors of bloodied bodies and broken bones, peace has been something that could be imagined only in a dream. Peace, though, is not so difficult to accomplish. To begin with, we can find peace in the air we breathe, in the natural environment, and in the people around us.

As a child, I thought of the meadows as my home. As soon as I could wolf down my bowl of rice for breakfast, I would run out of the house and spend the entire day in the hills and streams. I could spend the day wandering about the forest with all the different birds and animals, eating herbs and wild berries, and I would never feel hungry. Even as a child, I knew that my mind and body were at ease anytime I went into the forest.

I would often fall asleep in the hills after playing there. My father would be forced to come find me. When I heard my father shouting in the distance, “Yong Myung! Yong Myung!” I couldn’t help but smile, even as I slept. My name as a child was Yong Myung. The sound of his voice would awaken me, but I would pretend to still be asleep. He would hoist me onto his back and carry me home. That feeling I had as he carried me down the hill—feeling completely secure and able to let my heart be completely at ease—that was peace. That is how I learned about peace, while being carried on my father’s back.

The reason I loved the forest was also because all the peace in the world dwells there. Life forms in the forest do not fight each other. Of course, they eat one another and are eaten, but that is because they are hungry and need to sustain themselves. They do not fight out of enmity. Birds do not hate other birds. Animals do not hate other animals. Trees do not hate other trees. There needs to be an absence of enmity for peace to come. Human beings are the only ones who hate other members of the same species. People hate other people because their country is different, their religion is different, and their way of thinking is different.

I have been to almost two hundred countries. There were not many countries where I would land at the airport and think to myself, “This really is a peaceful and contented place.” There were many places where, because of civil war, soldiers held their weapons high, guarding the airports and blocking the streets. The sound of gunfire could be heard day and night. Several times, I came close to losing my life in places where I went to talk about peace. In today’s world, there is an endless series of conflicts and confrontations, large and small. Tens of millions suffer from hunger, with nothing to eat. Yet, trillions of dollars are spent on weapons. The money spent on guns and bombs alone would give us enough to end hunger for everyone.

I have dedicated my life to building bridges of peace between countries that hate each other as enemies because of ideology and religion. I created forums where Islam, Christianity, and Judaism could come together. I worked to reconcile the views of the United States and the Soviet Union when they were at odds with each other over Iraq. I have helped in the process of bringing reconciliation between North and South Korea. I did not do these things for money or fame. From the time I was old enough to know what was going on in the world, there has been only one objective for my life: that is for the world to live in peace, as one. I never wanted anything else. It has not been easy to live day and night for the purpose of peace, but that is the work that makes me most happy.

During the Cold War, we experienced the pain of having our world divided in two because of ideology. It seemed then that if only communism would disappear, peace would come. Yet, now that the Cold War is past, we find even more conflicts. We are now fractured by race and religion. Many countries facing each other across their borders are at odds. As if that were not enough, we have situations within countries where people are divided by race, religion, or the regions where they were born. People think of each other as enemies across these lines of division and refuse to open their hearts to one another.

When we look at human history, we see that the most brutal and cruel wars were not those fought between nations but those between races. Among these, the worst were wars between races where religion was used as a pretext. In the Bosnian civil war, said to be one of the worst ethnic conflicts of the twentieth century, thousands, including many children, were brutally massacred. I am sure you remember the terrorist incident of September 11, 2001, when thousands of innocent lives were lost as the World Trade Center buildings in New York were completely destroyed after passenger planes were crashed into them. Recently, too, in the Gaza Strip in Palestine as well as in southern Israel, hundreds have lost their lives as a result of that intense conflict. Homes have been destroyed, and people are living on the brink of death. All this is the grim result of conflicts between ethnic groups and between religions.

What makes people hate and kill each other like this? Of course there are many reasons, but religious differences are almost always connected. This was true with the Gulf War, which was fought over oil. It is true with the Arab–Israeli conflict over control of Jerusalem. When racism uses religion as a pretext, the problem becomes extremely complex. The evil ghosts of the religious wars that we thought had ended in the Middle Ages continue to haunt us in the twenty-first century.

Religious wars continue to occur because many politicians use the enmity between religions to satisfy their selfish designs. In the face of political power, religions often waver and lose their way. They lose sight of their original purpose, which is to exist for the sake of peace. All religions have a responsibility to advance the cause of world peace. Yet, lamentably, we see that religions instead become the cause of conflict. Behind this evil we find the machinations of politics, with its power and money. The responsibility of a leader, above all else, is to keep the peace. Yet leaders often seem to do the opposite and lead the world into confrontation and violence.

Leaders use the language of religion and nationalism to hide their selfish ambitions. Unless their hearts are set right, countries and nationalities will wander in confusion. Religion and love of one’s nation are not evil in their essence. They are valuable if these impulses are used to contribute to building a global human community. When the claim is made that only a particular religion or ethnic group is right and when other religions and ethnic groups are treated with disdain and attacked, religion and love of nation lose their value. When a religion goes so far as to trample on others and treat other religions as worthless, it no longer embodies goodness. The same is true when love of nation is used to emphasize the righteousness of a person’s own country over others.

The truth of the universe is that we must acknowledge each other and help each other. Even the smallest animals know this. Cats and dogs do not get along, but if you raise them in the same household, they embrace each other’s offspring and are friendly toward each other. We see the same thing in plants. The vine that winds its way up a tree depends on the trunk to support it. The tree, however, does not say, “Hey, what do you think you’re doing, winding your way up my trunk?” The principle of the universe is for everyone to live together, for the sake of one another. Anyone who deviates from this principle faces certain ruin. If nationalities and religions continue maliciously to attack each other, humanity has no future. There will be an endless cycle of terror and warfare until one day we become extinct. But we are not without hope. Clearly there is hope.

I have lived my life without ever letting go of that hope and always kept alive the dream of peace. What I want is to wipe away completely the walls and fences that divide the world in myriad ways and to create a world of unity. I want to tear down the walls between religions and between races and fill in the gap between the rich and the poor. Once that is done, we can reestablish the world of peace that God created in the beginning. I am talking about a world where no one goes hungry and no one sheds tears. To heal a world where there is no hope, and which is lacking in love, we need to go back to the pure hearts that we had as children. To shed our desire to possess ever-increasing amounts of material wealth and restore our beautiful essence as human beings, we need to go back to the principles of peace and the breath of love that we learned as we were being carried on our fathers’ backs.