Leading the Spiritual Renaissance

Hyo Jin Moon August 24, 1990 7th CARP Convention of World Students Paris, France

Distinguished guests and fellow students:

It is a great pleasure to once again address the world students gathered here for the annual CARP convention.

I hope the time we spend together in this beautiful city of Paris will be enjoyable and memorable for you and that you will have an opportunity to experience the rich cultural heritage of the French nation.

Since our first convention in Korea in 1984, these gatherings have always been very exciting and have inspired great hope among the participants. Whenever thousands of young people from more than 84 nations gather in one place for such a noble purpose, it is bound to encourage feelings of optimism and expectation.

But this year is especially exciting. As we meet here in Paris in August 1990, it is perhaps easier than ever to see the potential in our world for universal peace and friendship. We have not yet seen the end of tyranny but it is clear, judging from current events, that tyrants who prey on their weaker neighbors will face a world united in opposition against them.

Since we met in London last year, our world has experienced some remarkable changes which were unthinkable a year ago.

Many of you attended the fourth CARP Convention in Berlin in 1987. I hope you still have vivid memories of our march to the Berlin Wall. There were songs of liberation and we prayed together with our hands on that wall which had divided Berlin since 1961. The banners read "De Mauer Mus Veg" ("The Wall Must Go") and I am sure many Berliners saw us as naive and idealistic dreamers.

But that dream has become a reality. The wall has gone! With the help of these university students, the heavy cloak of oppression has been rolled back and most of the nations of Eastern Europe are free to decide their future direction.

The relationship between the superpowers is improving almost daily and we are witnessing a truly remarkable degree of friendship and cooperation.

But the real importance of all these changes lies not so much in their immediate results as in the opportunities which they provide. It is not a time to sit back and expect that new freedoms in Eastern Europe will somehow produce universal happiness.

The experience of the United State shows us that political freedom and material prosperity offer no guarantees of a healthy society. Crime, prejudice, disease and drug abuse continue to plague the American cities. Clearly, this is a time that demands our involvement.

In spite of these continuing social problems, we find ourselves presented with a unique opportunity to assist and to participate in the shaping of a new world order.

This is a time when many of the world's nations are discussing the ideological foundations of their future development. Marxism-Leninism has clearly been exposed as a flawed and outdated worldview while democracy also seems incapable of resolving the problems which divide humanity.

At such a time, it is appropriate that we are gathered here in France, the birthplace of many of the ideas that have shaped our world. From Jean Jacques Rousseau to Jean Paul Sartre, French philosophers have been major contributors to the discussion of human life.

The question which particularly concerns us here is, "What will be our role in the 90s? How can the world's students best seize the opportunity of these times?"

Our first task is to lead and encourage a spiritual renaissance as a precondition to social, economic and political progress. Universal values such as love, honesty and fidelity represent the foundation of a healthy society.

Recognize God as our Parent

When we recognize God as our common parent then we can regard all of humankind as one family. Without a spiritual renaissance, apathy, cynicism and moral decay will prevail on our campuses. Disillusionment will continue to lead young people into self-serving materialism.

It is up to us to make God's true love a reality for the world's young people. But most importantly, we must put into effect true love as the basis of our values. Since true love cannot be formed without a reciprocator it is clear that sacrificing for others is the way to attain true love. Indeed, this is the principle in which agents involved in the process of reciprocation must abide.

The unity of man and God is never a simple thing to accomplish. This is because of the disunity between the mind and the body. The desires of the body are often in conflict with the principles to which the mind adheres and can weaken our commitment to them.

This is why Rev. Moon's teaching emphasizes the importance of the unity of the mind and the body and the need for an ideology which can strengthen our resolve and our commitment to a God-centered life.

Unificationism promotes the family as the cornerstone of society since it is there that we form our worldview and learn how to relate to others. What then, is to be done about the declining health of the institution of the family? Can we legislate family unity? Will increased funding be the solution? Clearly not.

The one thing we can do to restore the health of the family is to become true parents ourselves. We must make God the center of our marriages and allow God's true love to flow through us to our children. Our children should know clearly of God's existence through the unconditional love that we as parents give to them.

The Purpose of Life

The joy we experience in love is the very purpose of God's creation. In other words, the intoxicating joy of true love is the purpose of life. The more we invest ourselves for the sake of others, the more we experience what it really means to be alive.

This is especially true when we become parents. We want our children to be better than us and we do everything to make their lives more fulfilled than ours. This is God's heart and it is as true parents that we will experience God's hope and desire for mankind.

This parental heart is the very core of real leadership. When you relate to other people from a heart of love, you will naturally become a respected figure in your community and your nation.

In addition to becoming true parents, we also need to become true teachers, committed to what we know to be true and able to convey God's Will with a heart of love. Through our service in our communities we need to be examples that others will want to emulate.

Thirdly, we should be true owners, treating all things, including the created world, as holy. A true owner feels a sense of responsibility for the things in his environment and invests his energy in caring for them. With this heart, we can restore the right relationship of harmony between humankind and the world around us.

As true parents, true teachers and true owners, we can be the leaders for whom God is searching. This is the teaching of Rev. Moon. My father is particularly concerned about the role of students in the 90s. This is why in June of this year, he invited 380 students and professors from the Soviet Union to visit the United States. They visited New York and Washington D.C. where they were given a firsthand experience of American society and culture.

Also, they studied Rev. Moon's teaching about true love and the creation of God's ideal on this earth. My father hopes that these young men and women will become respected leaders who can inspire others by their example of integrity, industry and public service.

I am happy to see that some of those students and professors are with us today. Their presence here is the clearest indication of the way in which our world is changing.

When Rev. Moon met with Mr. Gorbachev in Moscow in April of this year, he expressed his love and support for the Soviet Union as it goes through this period of transformation. In his address to the World Media Association he told the Soviet people, "You are undertaking a new Soviet revolution, but this should be a revolution without blood or bullets -- a revolution of the heart and soul."

The Final War

History records many heroic deeds of student revolutionaries. The recent history of Eastern Europe shows how we students can make a significant contribution to social and political change. But the change that is now most desperately needed in our world is not political but spiritual. The final war which needs to be fought is inside ourselves; it is the struggle between the mind and the body: from selfishness to unselfishness.

Let your conscience be your constant internal teacher. Like a parent, your conscience urges you to be a good, unselfish individual and guides you to do the Will of God.

As this decade of the 90s progresses, the year 2000 will increasingly become a focus of hope and expectation. The people of the world will look to the dawn of a new millennium as the opportunity for a new beginning. If that hope is to be fulfilled, it will be by a new generation of leaders, proud of their cultural, ethnic and religious heritage but united by a common, God-centered vision of a unified world.

As you return to your campuses, please think seriously about the contribution which you will make in this time of hope. Make a determination to never give in to apathy and cynicism or to compromise your ideals in selfish materialism.

Live your life for the sake of God and mankind and become an example for your family, your campus, your nation, and your world. With God's help, we will gather again in the year 2000 to celebrate a world where all can live in peace and where all will know the intoxicating joy of true love.

May God bless you all!