The Words of Sun Myung Moon from 1978
|
|
The Words of Sun Myung Moon from 1978 |
Rev. Moon went out one day and bought sixty-one brand new instruments to create the core of four new brass bands. Why? The Unification Movement should open up a new age of witnessing to the truth with music. People don't have to come to church to hear the truth -- they can watch television and listen to the radio and become Unification Church members! Nowadays, music often has no life to it. But when people hear spirit-filled music more than three times, they will not be able to stop. They will want to hear more and more and they will want to come to the lectures.
I am happy about your strong will to learn. A man with strong will and hope has got it made; the rest is practice!
First of all, I want to remind you that these musical instruments are the most important token of the dispensation in Britain at this time. They will be a historical treasure for hundreds of years. How long each of them will preserve its original condition is up to you; it depends on how much you can take care of it with love. Maybe there will be a historical prize for whichever instrument among the sixty-one pieces keeps its original shape the longest.
A history should be made for each instrument, with a log-book recording the names of all the men and women who handle it. You should write your name down as the first person to play the instrument. When you turn it over to the second player, you have to sign the book recording the condition in which you transferred it, whether it was scratched or damaged, and so on. The book must travel with the instrument, and the person who takes it over will know it inside and out, generation after generation.
If you care for it properly, your instrument can last for hundreds of years. When the time comes that only one of these instruments still remain, hundreds and thousands of people will want to come and see it. That interest can be strong enough to restore one nation. Even more importantly, when you go to the spirit world your having possessed that instrument can be a source of pride.
All women care about their appearance, and therefore their make-up is very important. But caring for your instrument is even more important than caring for your own face. When you lay it down, for example, be sure to have some padding or cloth at the contact point. If the instrument is damaged, you have to feel that is like a scar on your face.
You must love your instrument before it can produce a good sound for you. When you polish it, don't use a coarse cloth but something soft, like velvet. Be especially careful with the instrument case, which often takes a beating. Study carefully how to transport the instruments without damage. Once I saw a brass band with dented instruments and it didn't look good. Sometime in the future, I will make an inspection to see how you are managing. Please take care of the instruments!
I have already instructed you to become competent revival lecturers. I already told you how to do this and provided you with the two, four and six-hour lecture manuscripts. You have to memorize these, and make tapes of yourself delivering each section. In this way you will soon be able to give a good lecture. You should be able to memorize the two-hour lecture within two days. This is the same task confronting an opera singer who has to memorize a two-hour opera very quickly. The leader of each band should be strong and diligent and make sure that everyone remembers this point.
Actually, no one else has a group that sings, lectures and plays instruments! You are doing all three; and I plan to have more than twenty groups like that. You will quickly become famous, and England will quickly see the significance of our work. Whenever you go to a village and give a performance of the band all the villagers will attend. You can give an instant performance anywhere; for instance, in the restaurant where you have lunch. Perhaps the second time you go there they will let you eat for free, not because you don't have money but because they like you so much. Soon everywhere you go you will receive a free meal! Then they may give you lodging too. Or you can visit some big company, and tell them 'We will entertain you in the lunch hour,' and give them a good performance. You can make the appointment in the morning and go there at lunch time. You must keep going. You can perform in the college dormitory, in the hotel, wherever you are staying. You can even stay outdoors with a sleeping bag.
When you are very tired from practicing and playing, learn how to sleep for fifteen minutes on your bus, so that you can perform almost 24 hours a day. I advise you to get a bigger bus, so you have some room for that. But make sure that the driver doesn't sleep! We will go on, 24 hours around the clock, giving one performance after another. When you do that you will get noticed and become really famous. By all means, welcome those musicians who want to tag along with you. If each one of you can lecture you will quickly make new members. By the time we have twenty teams England will be really fond of us!
I bought these instruments brand new, but I will not do this in future. By the time you build up a reputation, then when businesses ask you, 'How can we help you?' say that you need more instruments. Without really witnessing but through a good performance, you can add to your numbers and to your instruments. Some companies may donate enough instruments for a whole band. We have already improved a lot.
The British members have to give a straight talk about the purpose of the band. You can say, 'The country is declining and we have to do something about it, to revive the Christian spirit through rousing music! We have to have a new youth movement or England will be washed down the drain! We are doing that and we will continue to do it. So please help!' If you play a good number, they will probably not expect that you can also give a good lecture. But when you talk even better than you perform, they will be impressed and may donate a lot!
Each one of you should make your own script for speaking. Make notes from my talks and sermons, from the Bible and so on, and when the opportunity comes, speak out! You have to be like a movie actor or actress. They have to memorize their lines. The director gives them their part and they have to practice that. You too must read and practice many speeches, and later you will become a really good orator.
When people ask you to give a lecture, keep going for as long as they are ready to listen. Don't ever say, 'Well, it is time to stop now.' You have to be prepared to speak continuously! When people want to hear you speak, you must be ready to give not just one chapter, but the whole of Divine Principle. You must be ready to lead an entire workshop by yourself. Many people can't do that, but you can and you can play instruments too.
This is a new style of working, found only in the Unification Church. Even the Christian churches do not make every person play an instrument. All you have to do is perform with confidence, and big companies will like to support you. You won't have to fundraise as you did in the United States.
In this way we will begin an 'Electronic Church.' I have a plan under way to witness through broadcasting. Nowadays, people do not want to go to church, they want to stay at home. But they still want to worship if they can. In the United States, I have already invested a million dollars in the Manhattan Center to make a good studio. We will show good musical performances together with a good sermon, for an hour or half an hour, and distribute tapes of this performance all over America and the English speaking world, both on television and radio.
Then no one will have to go to church! Our sermon will be a hundred times better. We will ask people to send contributions so that we can make more tapes. Now we are making investments, but later we will be making money. Then we will build our own broadcasting station. The day for just building a church is already past.
You will have a direct connection with this project. When your performance is successful, you will become an important part of the electronic church. We need many band teams, even as many as 40. Each team will make live video recordings that will introduce you to the public and to the television stations. If you are selected to perform twice-yearly that will be enough to pay your way.
In this way, the broadcasting providence can be expanded to all different countries. As our standard goes up and our spirit becomes greater, I would like to add dancers to the groups. This will be a hot thing. Now we are beginning to organize this spiritually. After England is organized, then France, Germany, Italy, Spain will all organize their own teams. We will go on, and become very active in this way. The band will also be a good recruiting station. The best people will be picked up to play for the New York City Symphony. You know we have our own performing center in the Manhattan Center, once a famous opera house that we are now restoring.
We are opening up a new age where we are witnessing to the truth with music. People don't have to come to church to hear the truth. They can watch television and listen to the radio and become Unification Church members! Nowadays, music often has no life to it. But when people hear your spirit-filled music more than three times, they will not be able to stop. They will want to hear more and more and they will want to come to your lectures.
As I said, you are full of will and full of beans and you have to have the confidence that one day you will be on top of the world. Have the determination that you will never be a second-rate player. You should get a tape recorder and tape your performance and listen to it. Every three or six months, you should listen to the tape and compare, and see how you are improving. If you are not improving much then you know you are not doing well!
So we will have to buy 61 tape-recorders for this group. How much is such a machine? About fifty pounds? A good one will cost at least a hundred pounds. Well, perhaps we only need one good quality recorder per group. But everyone should have their own cassette player for studying the Divine Principle lectures. If you study a tape twenty times, you can surely learn it by heart. When you memorize a lecture, then you can give it by yourself. I will buy 61 tape recorders right away.
Every week or so, the leader of each group should change around so that they can see how the situation is changing. Every week there should be improvements in your playing from the week before. Each week you should also be able to lecture for 15 minutes longer. If you follow this plan you will a good musician and be able to give good public lectures in six months.
Normally, a school for musical and artistic training takes ten or twenty years to establish. But when I started the Little Angels, we had nothing, no one dancing even a step. But within three years the children were ready to go to the world.
When you are hungry you want to eat food. You must practice with the same feeling and urgency. The first thing in the morning, you must be thinking of your music; you have to fuse it into your life. When you listen to music over the radio, try to learn from it. You can think, 'If I were a music writer, I would not write in that way. I can do better' If you practice and are eager for that, you will soon write famous songs.
You can forget everything else, but not what I have said today about the way to success! The first point is to be emotional. When you play joyful music, you should express the happiness of someone who loved for years and years without being noticed, then finally was recognized by the beloved. When you play sad music, you should express the passion of someone who was rejected by their lover and is ready even to die. You have to experience this and reflect it in your music.
The second is to practice with the hunger of a person who hasn't eaten for a day or more. When you eat food, you will become bigger; when you practice you will become better. Do you follow? When you eat and are happy, think 'This is the way I must feel in practice!' If you do that, it will soon become a habit. When your feelings are very intense, you still need to have good technique or it is no good. If you practice like that, then one day you will surely be recognized by the entire world. Do you have confidence? If you keep that vision and practice like a hungry man, you will definitely be able to do it. But if your stomach is already full, you will not improve.
Thirdly, you must take care of the musical instrument as you would take care of your own body, so that it can last hundreds or thousands of years. The last instrument left after a thousand years will be irreplaceable. Have that feeling, don't abuse but always love your instrument. Finally, since the Unification ideology will unite the world, I am teaching you to master it for that purpose, and to make it your own.
Once in a while, when you are all alone, get up early in the morning when the sun is rising and nature is really beautiful. As the birds start to sing, you can really melt into nature. You can feel, as all the activity for the day is about to start, that it is you who will give the starting signal. Likewise, in the evening, when the birds have gone back to the nest, and the sun is going down, you will give the command 'the day is over.' In the middle of the night, when the moon is shining, you have to send good dreams to people, don't you? And in the middle of the day, when the sun is hot you can invite people into the shade while you play some cool music.
When you try these things, you know how to be one with nature. You will see symmetry and harmonize with it and that will help you to play beautiful music. You can see a waterfall and play like that; or see in the step of horses a march for hundreds of people. If you play like that, harmonized with nature, you will do much better.
In some movies, you will notice that the music is inadequate, and you will know how to improve it. Although I have never been a professional musician, I know that music can be no other way. Since you know how to play, you must feel even more strongly about music than I do.
Music and prayer are really close and go hand in hand. If you play in harmony with nature, your prayers will become harmonized too. Even though you don't know what you are praying, those prayers will be answered. When you are sorrowful, you must shed tears in prayer; when you are happy, you can smile. In natural prayer, you could even be lying down and rolling in the grass! Harmonizing with nature and creation is the way to pray.
Really bring your character into your music. If you are serious, bring that characteristic out and harmonize it with others in your playing; do the same with sorrow or joy. I do the same job of harmonization at the matching; I always matches the serious with the joyful, the happy with the stoic and so on.
If you live this way you will be recognized by the world. So please practice and live like that!