The Way Of The Spiritual Leader

by Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Section 4. The Responsibility And Attitude Of A Minister (Part 2)

5. An Appointed Person's Attitude Towards Their Mission

At work, if you are appointed as a manger or director, there is a definite set of duties and an amount of responsibility that needs to be taken care of. Also, there is a limitation when it comes to accomplishing this responsibility. It is not something you can do forever. It is restricted to a certain time period.


Then, how much is the time period and amount of responsibility? When you estimate your lives to be seventy or eighty or around 100 years, the question becomes, how much can be accomplished within a century's time? Also, how do you go about doing it? If you want to put in the same amount of dedication as someone else, if someone else does ten hours, then you too must do ten hours. If someone else does ten years, then you must do ten years. However, if you try to do it more quickly than the other person, you will have to do more than ten hours.

In order to do this you need an increased effort. If you have only ten hours, but you want to accomplish it faster, what must you do? You must invest an increased effort and dedication. So you must save every moment and throw all of your dedication into it. If you are a person who lives with the feeling that even a moment can decide victory or failure, then your days will be bright days.

In receiving an appointment and completing your mission, there is always a time period. When you build a house, you have to prepare a comprehensive plan of how you are going to build that house and by when you will have it finished. Just like one has to start building under a specific plan, you must also receive a mission under a specific place before you start. If you have started that mission, you must finish it within the allotted time.

In regards to completing within the given time frame, if you can complete more than the plan within the time frame, it will be worthy of commendation.

If you do a more complete job than the plan required, that is not a normal job. It was done abnormally. What does that mean? It was possible because the person's effort and dedication was increased. If you do it according to the plan, there will be no problems. Anyone can do that. However, if you anticipate a completion better than the plan, not everyone can reduce the amount of time necessary.

So, what is the privilege that someone who is appointed can have today? This privilege has a fixed volume, and an established time with which it must be completed. This is something anyone can do. The privilege received by an appointed person cannot be interfered with by anyone, even the planner. It must be an absolute authority. If you worked together with someone for ten hours and slept together, you would have shared many thoughts. Also, when the suffering and dedication that you put into your job gets doubled through someone else, the results that are realized through the other person are going to be given the highest honors by the cosmos.

As long as these kinds of people remain, the world will last forever. That is if someone with an even higher standard does not appear. In athletics, before someone breaks an established record, it seems as if that record will remain forever. Therefore, you must plot a course set for that record. As an appointed person, this is inevitable. If you are able to complete the task assigned to you in the available time, you can win a medal and high commendations. This is your mission. It is a direct mission.

If it is a job that an individual can complete, it is wrong for two people to do it. When you receive a prize, two people can't receive that prize. When seen from this view, the person who received the command wants to accomplish it centering the responsibility on himself. Interference from anyone is disliked. This is because you have individual authority. You cannot forget that you have such a serious authority.


What am I going to do? What kind of person am I going to become in front of my people? What kind of person will I become before the world and before heaven and earth? This type of heart has not been instilled. A person without this heart has no qualifications to be appointed. It is in order to understand these things that questions such as philosophy and religion gave rise. An appointed person with a subject's authority does not like to receive interference. However, if an absolute being who is able to interfere appears, then he will receive interference.


When today's people say, "Love me. Love me forever," it ends only in words. In order to become a person who can love from the absolute position, you must love before even asking for love. If it is returned from the object's position, that becomes an absolute standard.

When seen from this viewpoint, you have all abandoned your lives to become chosen. That is something that absolutely no one can interfere with. Even God cannot do anything about it. Throughout the historic times of past, present and future, absolutely no one has been able to interfere. That is because in front of an absolute standard, there must be an absolute object standard.

The larger the scope of the appointed duty, the larger the amount of time that is allotted for it. There are instances of giving thousands of years and several generations worth of dedication over the period of one generation. The question becomes whether or not one can give that kind of thousand year dedication.

6. The Attitude That A Minister Must Have

1) You Must Start from the Very Bottom

The people who are starting to establish the traditional thought for the present time are you people. But there are too many people. How many people attended here today? (Fifty five people.) I am saying that fifty five people is too much. All these people must each go out and take responsibility for a region. It is not that you are going to be starting from the position of regional leader, but you must start from the very beginning. Before you become a devoted regional leader, you must become a devoted church-goer. If you become a devoted church member, you become a regional leader even if you don't want to be. Regardless of how deep a vein of gold is buried, you will get a professional to dig it out and reveal it's original value. Likewise, necessary beings become revealed.

Among you, there are people who think, "If I do this, I can become regional director from a mere village director." These people are the ones who are living for themselves.

You must have the heart to be able to live one hundred years for the church. There are many people such as person X and person Y in this world. Among them are people who have lost their children, lost their spouses, have nothing to eat and have nothing to wear -- thousands of different kinds of people who can be pitied. You have to become the closest friend of these people. This is living for the sake of the world.


If you try to find the side of yourself which can endure a lot, fight a lot for the sake of the whole, Heaven will naturally support you. No matter how long you may have stood in that position, you may not boast about it. If you set yourself up, you will fall. However, if Heaven sets you up, you will not fall.


That is why it is not good for a leader to stand in a position which he has setup for himself. You must seek a position or the environment around which you can establish a foundation in which you can stand. Then you can stand there and not fail. All things are this way. It is wrong for you to assert yourself. If you assert yourself there is no way for you to become God's son or daughter.

When I left prison, why did I take with me the rags that I wore while incarcerated? Even if I sold it, I couldn't get one cent for it. Even if I gave it to a candy dealer, I wouldn't get a candy for it. Why was it that during that period of nearly three years I gave away all my silk clothes to others and wore only these rags? Why would I need these rags that are falling apart when I touch them? This is because in ten years, or a century, or tens of centuries time, they will be such treasures that you could give all the world's fortunes and you could not buy them.

Hot-blooded young people today may laugh if they heard this, but because it was more valuable than any fortune, I overcame difficult circumstances to bring it out. To the average person, it is not worth a set of satin clothes, or even a single coin from their wallet.

Precious treasures gained by all sorts of severe hardships have all been lost by the Unification Church. The one and only precious treasure has been lost. Even if you give all the money in the world, you could not buy it. Then, would I do this in order to leave something for myself? No. If you go forth with this kind of heart, then God will want to leave something, and afterwards he will want for your descendants to leave something as well. Because God's heart is such, and the heart of future descendants is also such, I am doing it for God and future descendants.

This is the life-view that must be taken by people in a public position. You must know the sense of value for someone in a public position. Even if I am tortured and throw up blood and fall over, I say "Dear heaven, please do not shed tears over my blood. This is going to be shameful blood, and any tears will be soaked in lamentations and resentment. I do not want heaven to sympathize." That is how I will not pray when I go to prison. In light of the world of the heart, this is what one must do.

2) You Must Go Forth with Faith

The place where faith comes from is ideals. This ideal is not just an individual ideal, but a world-centered ideal that can make comprehensive connections, and an ideal with step-by-step systematic content. It is from this type of thought-based ideal that faith arises. That is why someone who claims to have a ideal or a doctrine, must also have faith, you must have a faith that no one else has.

It is the same for us who have taken up the new Unification ideal and Unification thought. You must be filled with a strong and resolute faith in the new cosmic view, life view and lifestyle view centered on Unification Thought as Unification members, and be able to say, "This is the best. If not this, then nothing at all." This is the problem. You must first have ideological knowledge, and then a faith that it will work, If your thoughts and faith are not influenced by it, then it cannot become yours and can easily be taken away by someone else. But the foundation that I have realized and strengthened, and the ground which has roots that have been firmly planted, cannot be taken away short of the application of a strength and faith that is greater than them.

You must have that confidence in many subjects and areas. First, faith must come. First, faith! You must have tried many things and have faith to be able to say, "I am doing this without any doubt." If you are someone with ability who can take on and process many difficult situations, you can adapt and develop in any place.


No matter what kind of work you do, faith is a problem. Even if you go to your post and suffer, you must have faith and live and work within faith. When we see movies, we enjoy scenes that are dangerous and risky. In the same manner, when we work, all creation and heaven and earth look on to see if the risky crisis can be successfully navigated.


When fishing with a net, you must cast the weights a little bit further to be able to catch one more fish. Since we are in the position of the weights, we have to move with the heart to try to bring in even one more person from Satan's domain.

In regards to God's Will, if you have the determination to have greater loyalty than me, everything will unfold easily. Do you understand what that means? If, for instance, I have gone to a depth of ten meters, but you have only gone five, Satan will attack. Do you understand? It is not the same level. If you inherit the foundation of my having gone ten meters, it is okay if you go eleven and then come back and stay at ten. If you cannot fulfill this and remain in that position, it is not horizontal or level and an angle forms. You have to know what I'm talking about exactly. In order to become horizontally level with the foundation that I have set, you have to be correctly educated in my ideals, traditions, and abilities to produce results. You must have the ability to produce results.

3) You Must Be Crazy To Go On This Path

If you look at it a certain way, saints are somewhat foolish people. They seem somewhat stupid. They have the character of a bear. You have to have the kind of slow-wittedness that, if you had your arm cut off, would make you simply say, "Oh, this is not cut enough. Please cut more." If a bear or a wild boar gets shot and is slowed by the wound, they would chew off the wounded limb and run away. They last thing they think of is death and the first thing on their minds is the wound that is slowing them. You have to have this kind of slow-wittedness. Do you understand? You have to be a little foolish. Even someone like St. Steven was somewhat foolish in the world's eyes.


How pitiful was Jesus? Why did he go around, feed five thousand people, cause troubles, and end up dying like that? How good would it be if he just stayed quiet? That's why people say there is no prosperous loyalist. Prosperous ones are opportunistic. Men of blind-faith are ignorant and stupid and bear-like. There aren't many handsome loyalists. There aren't many pretty virtuous women either. If you look at statues of the exemplary virtuous women, they are all average or less in their beauty. Beautiful people give out sexual odors. So Unification Church members are all ugly. (laughter) Therefore, you should think that it's okay for ugly looking people like us to be treated like trash, so that when God does construction work to fill a valley, you can ask him to make you the first blob of dirt to be dumped. Then where will you be buried? You will be buried in the very bottom, at the foundation. Then you will be the king of all dirt used in the construction. Right? (laughter)

You need to know that this 70, 80 year-long life comes only once. Even though the course of indemnity seems extremely long in a lifetime, it's even shorter than one breath, compared to eternity. Isn't it? But how long is eternity? Starting with "e. . . and "ter. . ." and till "nity. . ." this is how long the time of eternity is. (laughter) It is that long. In this world, we can count how many times I breath. The number of times I breath in an hour, in a day, in a year, in ten years, and even in my lifetime, we can calculate. In this short period of time, please don't gasp and lead an anxious life. Everything is momentary.

To be a persevering person, you need to go through many things. That's how you get connected to God. Think about it. If you make good connections in a difficult situation, then in good times, you will have that connection without any effort. Ordinary people die to have that connection in good times. That kind of connection will end up to be temporary. It should be at the level of relationship where both would wish to die for each other in life and death situation, and it's the stage when you can even exchange your lives. Having walked the road of death together and having gone through difficulties together, you don't need to worry about happy times. The relations made in difficult times have different taste from those made in good times.

4) Endure and Persevere until the End

You should know how much God had endured. You complain and protest at little difficulties. How patient was God at those times? We need to be like him. We should endure thousands and millions of years. I'm not saying we shouldn't fight. Fight until both sides become good. We don't fight till one perishes. We should fight to educate and to bring them to our side, not to make enemies, okay? [Yes]

How much had God been enduring? How many sights He didn't like did he see and endure? What He didn't want to hear, didn't want to say, . . . from now on, make resolutions to yourself that you will endure all the curses from people in the world in order to perfect God's love. Look at God and make resolutions to learn his endurance.

Then, why do we have to endure? It is to inherit God's love and to make it ours. Because we know that He is looking for someone like himself, we ought to learn his patience, okay? [Yes] We need to learn God's patience. First in the history, we need to be kings of patience. Because God was a king of patience, I too have to be a king of patience.

So, how much God would have endured? The enemy who killed his sons and daughters, killed the king of the world, and destroyed God's ideals is the ultimate enemy. God had endured an enemy like that. Do you want that too? [Yes] Do you want that endurance or do you want love? [Love] (laughter) You shouldn't only desire love. Without desiring endurance, you can't possess great love. You know it now? [Yes]

I'm persevering. My ear, forget all! My eyes, forget all! My heart, forget all! Persevere even though the heart aches! For whom? For God and mankind. It's God who is to be consoled, not me, however sad I am. Without doing this work, you can't even pray. You must know that this is the path the church and I had walked. Why? There is no other way. This is the shortest way.

Think about it everyone. How persistent was Christianity. For four hundred years during Roman persecution, Christians went underground and suffered, but they struggled to overcome the circumstances. I can't help wondering if the Unification Church can survive in this world or not.

To remain in a welcomed place is not a problem. The problem is how to remain in a place where you are opposed and persecuted. Long time ago I thought that we should be flexible enough to change our shapes or make our selves smaller when we are pressured.

If you look at it that way, I have been persecuted for thirty years but gone through it quiet well. When hit once, I retreated. . . That's a strategic retreat. Again I go into it strategically. We should have inner determination to reach up even further whenever it's possible.

So, think about the seeds of trees and fruits. In this frigid zone, a pine tree from a tropical region wouldn't grow and die off. But if you grow the seed in tropical region and move it to frigid region and back to tropical region and so on, it will grow in any region. Therefore whichever the seed is, it shouldn't grow only in proper climate. If it wants to grow in any place, it should either absorb all the elements of different environment, or have the power to oppress them. Even if the Unification Church reaches a miserable end, we should say, "We work for a greater cause than any one else. We work for the world. ." Even if we die, this is how we should die. Is there any organization that died like that?

Right now, our Unification groups are moving for the whole world. In accomplishing God's will, if we endure and persevere, God's Will will accomplish ultimately. Right? Even if I don't say it, there is a saying of "luck will come after enduring and persevering."

In enduring and persevering, what is the 100 percent standard? The standard is to risk your neck. If you risk your neck and die, mother and father will cry and say "why don't you live longer?," and little siblings will say "why brother and sister, why die now?" and the whole family will be turbulent.

Most of the people in the world withdraw if they fail first, a second and a third time, but our Unification youths should have hearts to start again after several failures.

Wild boar hunting is fun. When first people depart toward a ridge, everyone tries to be on the front, but after a few ridges, they get tired and think "It would be good enough not to fall behind." But if they get more exhausted, they think "What if I take a short break?" and if they go a little more, they hope "I can stop now." This is when wild boars run away.


When you go fishing in the ocean, you feet as though you will catch every fish, but after you throw the net in the water a few times with all your might, the spirit disappears and it gets tedious.

5) To Defend the Dignity of Heaven

Therefore wherever you go, you need to defend and keep the dignity of heaven. The dignity of heaven, dignity of Unificationists, dignity of our apostles who followed the principle, dignity of us who confronted the evil world centered on God's heart. This dignity cannot be compared to that of any soldiers. It cannot be compared to dignity of the world's best army.

In this dignity, the historical response and imminent response live. You shouldn't forget that the straight historical road to eternity will be established only based on this dignity. At the same time, it is continuous. Therefore, if I can't go, I have to prepare a successor for me. I plead to you to have this kind of spirit and beliefs.

6) Results Should be Connected to Causes

God's providence doesn't aim for some individual purpose but aim for whole purpose. If you look at a tree, it always has roots, stems, branches and leaves. To look at it in stages, branches existed before leaves, stems existed before branches, and roots existed before stems. Yet, is it possible to have a leaf without roots, stems, and branches? Then its own body cannot exist. Thus, in order to complete a tree, each has to do its own part.


Throughout my life, when I earn some kind of glory, I never thought of it as originating from myself. It's because I know it originated from heaven.

For the cause of Heaven, we ought to connect the result to Heaven. In other words, when you look at your daily purpose as completing your responsibility, you should connect the cause to the result. Then, how do we make cause and result match? This is the problem. This social environment doesn't do that. Because it's 180 degrees different, we need set up conditions for indemnity and overcome the environment.


Nowadays numerous people devote themselves in cultivating their moral sense. They are all receiving something from God's spiritual providence. They think each of them are best in the country. They actually get that type of revelation. However, since that is a consequential thing, they should pursue the fundamental root. In pursuing the cause, it shouldn't be done centered on oneself. Why not? It's because the result appears when one becomes one with God's heart and one with True Parents' heart. Hanging onto the result without knowing the cause is like a rootless branch, and therefore will end up being miserable.

Without having same cause and result, you can't say that you have completed your responsibility. Therefore everything has to be one. One centered on what? It has to be one with God's heart and parent's heart. Parents don't exist because of me. God doesn't exist because of parents. Parents exist because of God, and I exist because of parents. Therefore, Unification Church members, who are in a child's position, should possess the heart of God and parents.

Today we shall stand on one basis which transcends our previous perception and entire beliefs. You must know this clearly. If each of you look back on yourself till now, you will see that you've had your own notion of thinking. Some complain and some say all different kinds of things about the church headquarters, but this is unacceptable.

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