The Way of the Spiritual Leader

by Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Section 3 - Essential Elements of Guidance Given to Members [Part 2]

3. Love

1) Love That Can Bring Harmony to Everything

What is the one thing that God desires the most? What is the most central thing in God's opinion? Of course there must be considerations for things that connect everything in high and low positions, but among them, what is the thing that can fundamentally link everything together intimately? What is the thing that likes both the high and the low? What is it that the east, west, south, north as well as the center and the four directions like, and what is the thing that can bring harmony and unity centering on God's ideals and good and lofty thoughts?

This is neither God himself, the environment created by God, nor the thought of God. This cannot be realized only by thinking. Then what is needed? What is the thing that can link up the high and the low? What God needs is love. This is how it will be.

Only by centering on love, front, back, left, right, up, down or east, west, south, north, at the center can be harmonized and be connected; it can never be done without love. Love has the inner potential to link with the whole. It is needed in the east as well as in the west, and no matter how far to the end one travels, love is needed. Attempting to go to the end is in order to seek after higher love and when one returns back to the inside from the extremities, it is also to pursue more powerful love. You have to either seek after great love or powerful love. You have to have some internal content such as this.

When one goes far away, one seeks after something great, and when one returns to the center, one seeks for something powerful. Even if something is powerful, it is powerful in a flat manner, in sharp pointed manner, or in a round manner? With these considerations, when one returns to the inside, then one needs a powerful love that can draw a circular line.

Therefore, we can decide upon such concept of great and powerful love. If you like love, then you are to seek big and great love. It won't do if you just have love with great amplitude. Powerful love -- how powerful must it be? It should be love that can harmonize everything and can freely connect everything fundamentally; if God was to think about it, this is probably what he would have thought of. (164-69)


Have you ever made tofu before? Do you know how tofu is made? If you take the bean powder and before you put it in the cloth wrap, if you place it in salt water, then doesn't it coagulate? It will coagulate. Similarly, love will congeal everything. For this reason, a woman becomes a true woman by giving birth to a baby. She needs to experience the heart of a mother. (165-103)

2) The Universe Also Likes Love

Because Satan also wants to receive love, you have to have the mind-set that is prepared to love even Satan. If you possess this magnanimity as you proceed forward, Satan will also surely praise you, saying that you are a greater warrior than his own troops. Because Jesus possessed this type of heart, even when he was dying on the cross, he was able to pray for the sake of the enemy. Accordingly, he gave a lot before he passed away. (26-50)


The universe welcomes only those who have absolute attitude toward love. Do you understand? Those who think, "Rev. Moon is wrong," please raise your hand. For this reason, it is said in works of literature and poetry, "Love is something eternal, love is something powerful, love is full of surprises, love is something that is higher and bigger than anything else." Even if you threw everything away, all will be all right. Look. Even if we say that love is the only absolute unity, something that absolutely does not change, and is absolute for eternity, this cannot be said about life. One cannot say, "life is eternal, life is unchanging."

Are the most important phrases of praise found in the works of literature or poetry about life or about love? Which one is it? [About love] Is it about knowledge, power, or money? [No] Why is this so? Why is it this way, why? No one understood this. This is what people did not understand. They did not understand this simple thing. It is very simple. (132-79)


It is not only true in the case of man, but also for dogs, they like it when their owners love. Waving their tail like this . . . Is this true or false? If men love a garden, then birds will gather in it and sing. This is why love is so wonderful. Have you ever thought about what God's hobby might be? Works of literature? The only thing that God is interested in is love. Ladies and gentlemen, what is your object of interest? [Love] Whom did you take after? [God] For this reason, you are said to be the children of God centering on love. For the hope and happiness that we have just talked about, can there be hope without love? Is there happiness without love? Even if there is no hope and happiness, if you bring love along and place it there, then hope will automatically be attracted to it. Happiness will automatically be drawn to it.

Our ladies here, are you going to marry seeking after love or hope? What are you going to seek when you marry? [Love] Do you like love? [Yes) I do not like love! Even if you say that it is not true because you like it too much. Just as when you eagerly eat food, when you are too happy and too excited, as you swallow food it gets caught in your throat. It will get stuck. Do you really like love? [Yes] Look. Parents who love their children would want to embrace the hand of their child in their bosom no matter how dirty and ugly it is. They will not say, "Yuck! This hand is really dirty. Go to the bathroom and wash it with soap." Love is the only thing that can make hell transform into heaven. Accordingly, as long as you possess love, you can turn hell into heaven. (90-312)

3) In Order to Pursue the Path of Love, You Must Sacrifice Yourself and Serve Others

In order to pursue this path of love, you must sacrifice yourself and serve others. Do you feel good? [Yes] Without service and sacrifice, one who came with the content of love that amounts to ten cannot be connected to the path of hundred and thousand. If your ancestors are not good, then you cannot even take back love that amounts to ten.

However, even for one who brought love that is worth only ten, if there was a way for him to have a chance at claiming love that is worth a hundred, thousand, or ten thousand, then wouldn't he want to give that a try? [Yes] Because Rev. Moon of the Unification Church understood this, even though I have gone through unspeakable tribulations and have been subject to condemnations as well as suffering, pain, and torture that almost took my life in prison. I have been persevering up to now. Moreover, for this reason, I am trying to love people and sacrifice for their sake more than anyone else.

When you love people, even when you feel that you have given enough, if there is someone whose love and sacrifice is greater than yours is, then you will want to sacrifice and love more. People are greedy, right? Only when one becomes such person, can God pour out his love into that person. (44-203)


What do you have to do now as church leaders? [Servant of servant . . .] Although being a servant of servant is correct, it must be done with love. It won't do if victory is not brought by possessing love. Do you understand? [Yes] What kind of love? It is not Satan's love but God's love. It is self-sacrificing love. Where does such love emerge? It emerges from giving yourself completely to others. Giving completely is none other than the three great loves. The three great loves are loves that can be given completely and received completely. Isn't this love of God?

When you give completely, you can receive completely. What would you do if Satan runs away after receiving that love? Before absolute objective love, absolute subjective love will appear. Therefore, there is no need to worry. There is no need to be happy just because you are recognized by someone or to worry just because you are not recognized and understood. The problem is not being able to emerge with the complete love. This is the cause for concern. (48-34)


Spiritual leaders must know how to surpass time to deal with the people that are connected to them. Eventually, they must be able to completely offer their sleep time for the sake of others. Their mealtime must also be sacrificed for the sake of others. Their daily life must also be offered up for the sake of the others. Their life must become the sacrifice for the others. If one can become a leader who understand and fulfills one's own portion of responsibility from this position, then one can make progress. (72-313)

4) You Must be Certain About Love as you Lead Your Life

How much did your hands and feet work for the sake of loving the Unification Church? Although hands and feet worked hard and frequently to feed you and eyes have done much for the same cause, how much did they do things in order to love the members of the Unification Church? How much did you shed tears and toil for the sake of Unification Church? When you lay your exhausted body down to take a rest, to love, why did you do this? If you did it for your own sake then it is a shame and if you did it to love the world, then it is a glory. Each block or brick piled up to build the tower of heaven was laid down through this sleep after an exhausting day. Let us love. Let us love the nation after going beyond the church. This is what we are doing. (59-58)


If you love the members who have just joined, then you can set the condition of indemnity quickly. The reason that the church is not able to make progress is because this is not being done. This is the reason why God said to love each other and live in harmony. (18-40)


The pinnacle of love is the love of God. How can you become the child of God unless you can dwell within the love of God and consider other people just like your own children, brothers and sisters, and consider the other children as members of your own family? In order to become a child of God . . . If you become a child in a one-sided manner, then you cannot become the child of God. It is not enough to be someone like the saints of the past. Unless you can stand up as an eternal and absolute man through the past, present and future, then you cannot become the son of God. For this reason, we are to love the aspects that the past saints have not loved. This is how I think. (55-97)


You have to be crazy about love when you lead your life. You must live in intoxication. If the degree of intoxication goes beyond a certain level, then you will become crazy about it. What is there to a crazy person? There is nothing special to a madman. The order is reversed. He calls father a mother and calls mother a father. If this is said with love, however, people will not object, "Why do you call your father a mother and your mother a father?" All will be accepted. Because love is one, then this kind of theory can be established. For this reason, man should live in intoxication.

Rev. Moon also lives in intoxication. You do not realize how tasty and exciting receiving condemnation is like. People in the outside world do not understand this. Because people in the outside world do not understand how tasty it is to be cursed at, they try to avoid it. However, I know its true taste. (148-323)

4. Devotion and Prayer

You are leaders of "The Way," but how devout have you been toward it? You must become very devoted. The results in witnessing corresponds to the amount of devotion and not to one's knowledge or capabilities. Have you not all had this kind of experiences in the sixties? Doesn't one who has exerted himself in devotion do better than one who has a college education and brags about his knowledge? The question is how sympathetic God is toward you.

What is the thing that the regional leaders must accomplish with united heart and mind? Is it eating? It is not. They have to have the sense of mission toward the issue of how to resurrect people's lives in this world of sin and transfer them to the kingdom of heaven. You should try to carry out to the utmost with a strong sense of mission. See if there is any thing that you cannot accomplish.

Before a perfect subject, a perfect object will emerge. Therefore, a subject must pray for the sake of the object. In regards to prayer, if the object gets up early at dawn, then you must get up before him or her to pray for him or her. People will sense it when you pray and exert yourself for their sake.

Leaders must exert themselves while maintaining their position. If you are leaders, then when you pray in the morning, you must at least keep at least twenty people in your prayers. In this way, you must at least keep seventy people in your prayers. You are to eat and live together with the members.

The most serious times for men are when they are eating and sleeping. The reason is that when you eat to satisfy hunger or sleep to relieve exhaustion, all of your concentration zooms into it. On the contrary, when you get up, because your concentration is at the lowest and most relaxed state, you are not so serious. Therefore, during a day's course of life the times for eating three meals and sleeping are the most serious times. You should pray for the sake of the dispensation in this serious position. The prayer you offer in such times is several times better than prayer offered during normal times.

You must always think about the members with the mind-set that you are eating meals and sleeping together with the members. When you do so, you will be able to sense what so and so is going through. When you become that sensitive, then a far away person seems to be close and a close person may seem far away. You will be able to tell right away. How can people who are supposed to guide the spirituality and faith of people do their job without even such basic capabilities? The question is how much you have exerted yourself for the sake of one's life.

You have to understand that the reason that Jesus said, "What good would it be if a man gains the whole universe but loses his life?" (Matthew 16:26) is because he considered one person's life more precious than universe, and such was the anchor of his heart. When you reach the state of Jesus who forgot all about the world and fought one on one for the sake of one life, then you can finally build a connection to a member.

What have you accomplished centering on the will of God with the parental heart? Among the people that you have been close to, you must not take lightly those who have comforted you when you were experiencing difficulties. For the rest of your life, you must always think of that person and pray for him. For this reason, God is always the subject. If you build such a relationship, then those who have such a relationship with you will seek you out even if you have not told them to do so. This is the reason that you are being asked to pray.

How can a leader sleep while members are praying in devotion? Doing so would be becoming indebted. You cannot make progress if you do so. Because devotion cannot be made at once, you must one by one decide upon those whom you know and pray for them. You are to pray for people one by one.

The reason that Jesus failed is because he did not have the time to pray for one person at a time when he was taking the twelve disciples around. There was not even one person whom he taught in great depth the internal content that would make the deep impressions in that per. son's heart.

Until you complete your portion of responsibility, you must never give up, no matter what people around you say to you. If you have decided upon something and have started to pray for it, then no matter what happens, you must completely satisfy the amount that you have set down in prayer. Even if the person that you have decided upon has left the church, you have to go look for him to fulfill your responsibility to the full. In other words, you are not to be indebted to any one.

5. Abundant Experience

1) You Need Training and Experience

A man's character is limited. The question is how many people could be in harmony with a man's character. How many people can relate to that character? For this reason, I must match them up. If they do not match, then they have to be made to match. You have to understand that because such a task can only be done based on experience, unless you go through such experience, then you cannot become a true leader. If you become a leader after having gone through that, then based on those experiences you can become a competent leader who will leave behind a new eternal tradition that will be praised by God and be respected by all the people of the group that you are guiding.

For this reason, you must make such preparations. You must realize that you have to willingly receive any kind of external or internal training. Do not dislike them. Do not think that you cannot do them. (72-328)


It is not so easy to become someone else's teacher. It is not easy to become the teacher of the Unification Church. It is extremely difficult. It is the same feeling as wearing the prisoner's costume and walking toward the execution chamber; he is someone who is really heading there. Do you understand what I am saying? [Yes] You probably don't understand because you have never been to a prison. I live in luxurious mansion, but I do not need it. I can just as well live in a hut. I have the training to live in a hut. I trained myself to become the best laborer if I were to take my clothes off and work in a construction site. If there is someone that God loves there, then I have trained my heart to grab on to him and completely having dominion over the environment, become a friend whom he can cry with. (85-43)

2) You Must Guide With Wisdom

A wise leader should embrace twice after hitting once. Moreover, you have to let people feel, "He did it for our sake;" otherwise, they will scorn you and oppose you and in the end, Satan will invade. If you do not take care of the situation well, then the disciple will become your enemy. If he becomes an enemy and tries to take revenge, and if he cannot go to the side of God, then the leader must take responsibility for the behavior of that person centering on that mind-set. (54-207)


If there is something bad, you are not supposed to get rid of it right away. Even if there is something bad, centering on that, you have to find some condition that will improve it. Even if the good aspects are less than the bad aspects, you have to have the flexibility and capacity to center on the smaller portion to preserve it and get rid of the bad portion. If a person was cut off on account of his mistake made a year ago, then he would have died completely. But if he is preserved without being cut off for one, two, or three years while the bad aspects of him are being resolved based on the belief that they are mere extras, then after one, two, or three years there might be a way for him to live. (72-313)

3) Bear the Cross for the Sake of the Members

A leader is a pitiful person. He is a miserable person. Even if he is living happily with his wife in their bedroom, when someone knocks on his door he has to allow the guest to come into the bedroom. Eventually, what it means is that he has to love members more than his own wife. If your wife has something nice, then you have to sell even that to give everything to the members, and if his children have something nice then he has to use all that for the sake of the members. This has to become the way of life for the leader.

If a leader lives such life, then what would happen to the family? Such life will most likely make his family miserable. If such mission is inherited and continued for the rest of the life, then success would be attained but if it is stopped after several years, then all will be in vain. Therefore, wherever the leader goes, it is his responsibility to bear the cross.

When you eat, as you pick up the spoon you should not be saying, "Oh I am so hungry." You have to think about the members. You have to think about members even as you wear clothes, and no matter what you do you have to think like that. Time that you take a rest is also being on the cross. You must repent for the times that you took naps because you are exhausted and cry out, "I feel good" as you get up. When you live such a life style, the spirit world and God will completely work with you. You will come to realize this is true through your experiences in your life of faith.

In regards to your body, you have to reflect on how much your hand has lived for the sake of the members, how much your eyes have lived for the sake of members, and yearned to see them in the public position. Reflect on how much you have wished to listen to their voice and how much you have comforted them. All must be done not for your own sake but for public purpose.

"How to become a leader," is the topic of today's sermon, yet can you bear that kind of cross in order to become leaders? [Yes] In order to do so, this kind of training is necessary. Before becoming a leader of a thousand people, can you pass such training as one leader? You must ask yourself. We must undertake the training based on the question of whether or not each one of us can become a leader who can be completely trusted as a friend or a teacher.

In order for you to become a leader, in order to be in charge of a church, you need to have the training to act as a leader on behalf of one absolute person. In order to become a leader over one person, one must take responsibility for both good and bad aspects of that person. You should not be thinking that you will be responsible only for the good things and not for the bad things. You have to first be responsible for the bad thing and say, "You be responsible for the good things." What separates you from that person is not something good but something bad. The conclusion that we arrive at is that unless one becomes a leader who can be responsible for the bad things, there is no other way but to be separated.

In order to digest bad things and supplement with good things, an individual cross must be born. When you become a leader in the future, you must think about this. You must answer yourself, whether or not you can become a complete leader as an individual leader. You must be able to answer "Yes." Next, when you ask yourself if you can become a leader of the family, as long as you can answer "Yes," you will have no problem in serving as a leader of a church.

When you make the determination to take responsibility for the sake of one family and lead them to the church, you must bear the cross of that family. If you are willing to bear the cross that none of the members of the family could bear and take care of the problem, then until that cross is brought to some resolution, that family will be in the position to obediently receive your guidance. This is the type of training that is needed.

Next, if this is done centering on one church, then you will have no problem serving as both the head of a household and the church leader. You can take care of a church. Looking at the issue centering on the church, you are to become someone who will say, "I will be responsible for all the difficulties of the church. I will take your responsibility in your place." When the church is experiencing difficulty, if you take responsibility for all the things that the members are responsible for, then until the leader completes the responsibility of the cross that he bears the members must receive the guidance of the leader.

This is also true for the leader of a nation. To us who have set ourselves on the restoration of the world for the coming days, the answer to the question, whether or not we can manage this responsibility is quite simple. If in making plans for America now, if I live for the sake of America and have faith in it more than God does, then what do you think would happen? We can conclude that God cannot judge this nation. In order to bring judgment, He must first give me something greater first. In other words, as long as I love, believe in, and live for the sake of America, God can only judge it after bringing something greater; otherwise, he cannot take it away or strike it. Do you understand what I am saying? [Yes] (72-313)

6. Serve Members Like Kings

In order to become a master, in order to become the master of ten people, then you must be able to serve the ten people. Otherwise, it cannot be done. You can never govern them. Accordingly, when each of you go back to your church you should become one with the members and become the two wheels, in other words, between you and the members, one should become the right wheel and the other should become the left wheel to proceed forward smoothly. If you are moving forward and pick up speed after having achieved such a state, then no matter what large house you crash into you won't even be scratched, and even if you crash into a big rock, you will be able to shatter that rock into pieces. For this reason, if you become one and move forward, you will certainly make a progress. (50-345)


You must treat those who come to visit you as kings, you must serve them as kings, and you must attend them like kings. Teaching them in this way, you should deal with them in such a way that they will wonder, "Our teacher is treating me who is nothing as if I am a king and serving like a king, so how can I serve he who is really like a king?" You must set such tradition. You must understand that this is where the qualifications as a son of God will be granted. (89-290)


Serving people like king is also a form of indemnity. Everything is the law of indemnity. No matter how evil that person is, if you serve him like a king, even if he does not receive your devotional heart, God will take it in. If that person leaves the Unification Church no longer believing in it, then you will inherit all the blessings that his good ancestors have accumulated. This is a fearsome tactic. This is the way to seize the blessings of the whole, of ten thousand people. It is harvesting them. It is reaping them. It's the same thing. What do you do about America opposing Rev. Moon? The same Principle will apply. Do you understand what this means? [Yes]

This is the path that the priest must walk. You cannot be so confident and proud without fulfilling your portion of responsibility. You cannot go astray. You cannot judge anyone in your heart. You yourself are the sinner, you are the priest who failed to complete your responsibility; so how can you judge others? Do you understand? [Yes]

When you go back now, you should serve all the members in this way. You are to serve members in this way. Now, can you sleep in the house that the king was served in? You must exert yourself to the utmost. When this can be done, from now on, a new tradition will be established in America. This is how I see it. Do you understand now? [Yes] Do you understand what the priest must do? [Yes] You must carve your own flesh and draw your own blood. You must take your blood and flesh out and offer them. Then, you must add your heart onto it to offer them together. Until now, you have only been wage-workers. Being wage-workers was good. You have been following me because I have been taking responsibility. However, you have to understand that now is a different time. Do you understand? [Yes] (89-293)

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