The International Peace Conference for Mongolian Leaders from Around the World
Establishing a World Culture of Heart and Lasting Peace:
The Significance of Mongolian History, Culture and Family Tradition
Dr. Chung Hwan Kwak
MPFWP International President and UPF Chairman
September 22, 2004
Seoul, Korea
Mongolian leaders from around the world, NGO leaders, scholars of Mongolian history and culture, all who seek the well-being of the Mongolian people. Ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to the “International Peace Conference for Mongolian Leaders from Around the World.”These days there are many international conferences on economics, politics, religion and culture. Also quite common now are conferences for nations with large communities overseas, such as Chinese, Jewish, and more recently Koreans. These latter conferences seek to bring together dispersed people of homogenous backgrounds.
This Mongolian conference however is different from these other international events organized by field or by ethnic group. For example, Mongolian people are represented in many different races, nationalities, cultures and religious spheres. For this reason this conference is tremendously meaningful and significant.It represents transcendence of race, nationality, culture and religion.
We all are aware that overcoming boundaries and barriers between ethnic groups, religions, races and nations can be very difficult.Yet peace can never be realized without transcending these barriers. Sadly no one dares to take the first step, and these boundaries and barriers persist, resulting in division and self-centered interests.
So how have we overcome these barriers today?I believe it is the instinct rooted in our lineage, our spiritual nature, and our orientation towards the common good that has led us to this place. Originally, we are all from the same family. We are bound together by blood. We come from one common ancestor.
Throughout this conference we will discover that we are all related, and share a common cultural root. We will discover that Mongolian peoples have a much longer and more deeply-rooted history than we thought. Surely we will return to our nations filled with wonder and inspiration. How wonderful is the joy of reuniting with brothers, family and kin who have been separated for a long time.
The Mongolian people were something like pilgrims. Among all races, no race has been dispersed so widely around this world, reaching to areas such as Asia, Europe, the Middle East, America and even the arctic areas of the North Pole. Ten thousand years ago, the common ancestors of the Mongolian people began their migration and pilgrimage to all parts of the world.
Historians to this day have explained the vast movement of our ancestors from a political, economic, or socio-cultural perspective. According to their explanation, this migration was caused and motivated by climatic change and food shortages among the people and their livestock. This explanation is entirely wrong, but I believe that historians have been only partially correct in this analysis.
Consideration of the phenomenal and visible aspects of economics, politics, society and culture can be useful in giving a certain understanding of history and human life. But when we try to explain human history more comprehensively, this method has many limitations.
The scientific study of phenomena such as politics, economics, society and culture alone is not sufficient to provide a complete understanding of the essence of history.It cannot provide the key to history, namely what is the purpose, origin and progression of history. We must approach history from a holistic point of view. This is crucial!
This is a conference about peace. We are here to ask if everlasting peace and prosperity is possible for the Mongolian leaders of the world,and for all of mankind. If we approach history and reality from a holistic perspective we can acquire clear answers about the essence and ultimate realization of peace.
A comprehensive look at history grasps the providence of God.It lifts us above external analysis that our Mongolian ancestors migrated due to climatic, political or economic factors. By looking at the history of our Mongolian ancestors in relation to God, and the invisible spirit world we see that history is driven more deeply by the search for salvation, liberation, release, freedom, equality and peace. We have to conclude that our Mongolian ancestors did not migrate simply because of natural changes and political and economic factors. Rather God's providence and the spiritual world worked behind the scenes, affecting our ancestors whether they realized this or not. This was not a simple but in truth it was a providential Diaspora.
What were our ancestors searching for as they moved towards the artic regions, crossing the Bering Sea to reach the southern tip of America? Why did they risk their lives in going to desert regions and to the highlands of the Himalayas? They sought salvation, freedom, liberation, release and peace. Our ancestor’s search for these ideals some thousands of years ago has made it possible for us to be here today.
True answers about history are only possible when we understand that God, the causal being, and our ancestors in spirit world are involved and working through this providential history.
From a providential point of view, the first human ancestors were Adam and Eve, born in the Garden of Eden. God had desired for Adam and Eve to become a true couple, and his partners of true love.
God, the invisible True Parent, created Adam and Eve as His children and endowed them with true love, true life and true lineage. Adam and Eve were to be the ancestors of mankind and the visible true parents. In accordance with God’s principles of creation, Adam and Eve were to perfect themselves as God’s substantial partners of love, embodying His heart, becoming the true love couple who would create a true family, and build the kingdom of heaven on earth and in heaven. That is the ideal of creation.This kingdom of God on earth and in heaven is by salvation, liberation, release, freedom, equality, and peace.
As you all know, Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s laws of creation and fell into an illicit love relationship centering on Satan, thus establishing a spiritual and physical blood relationship which caused their fall. Originally, Adam and Eve were to become the objects of God, but instead they became the parents of both good and evil. Adam and Eve and all mankind, their descendants, became contradictory beings. Adam and Eve related to both God and Satan, depending on the goodness or evil of their actions. Man acquired the evil nature of Satan through the fall. As a contradictory being that embodies both good and evil, man is trapped within a world of conflict and struggle, instability, confusion, oppression, domination, violence, strife, disease, and chaos. It is from these horrible conditions that man longs for salvation, liberation, release, freedom, equality and peace. These horrors have expanded from the individual, to the family, society, nation, world and cosmos. As their descendants we and everybody in this world without exception long for freedom, liberation and peace.
Saints, sages, and pilgrims in search of the truth are in fact longing to be saved from this state of conflict between good and evil. They longed for eternal peace.
In order for mankind to attain salvation and everlasting peace, we must separate good and evil within ourselves. Until now, history has been characterized by confrontation and struggle. The purpose of history has been raise up a world of goodness – in other words to restore an individual, family, society, nation, world and cosmos of goodness without any trace of Satan to which God can freely relate.
God began the providence of separating good from evil through the family of Adam and Eve. As a result He appointed Abel to represent the side of good, and Cain to represent the side of evil. But Cain, who was the fruit of the false relationship of love with Satan, murdered Abel. The first murder in human history, when the elder brother Cain killed the younger brother Abel, came as a tremendous shock to God and Adam, leaving a scar on their hearts. In order to restore this tragic reality through indemnity, human history was divided into two Abel and Cain camps, in the form of East and West, religion and science, theism and humanism, theism and materialism, and mind and body. The tension between these two world views has brought about conflict, confrontation and struggle throughout human history.
The long course of history that ensued from Adam’s family was, according to the Bible, filled with strife, promiscuity, and evil. For this reason, God chose Noah and his family as His object of goodness and destroyed the rest of humanity through the flood judgment.
As the good family that restored the failure of Adam and Eve’s family, Noah and his family were in the position to relate directly with God. Noah and his family became the starting point for the good family of humanity.
God sought to create one race, one nation, world, culture, language and clan centering on Noah’s family. Through this He could build a unified world. A world no longer characterized by the kind of confrontation and struggle among races, religions, nations, ideologies, languages, customs and cultures that we see today.
Sadly thought, mistakes were made in Noah’s family, and they too came to stand in a position related to Satan and evil. God had to begin all over again to restore the good family and separate it from evil. The eldest son from that new start, is the ancestor of the Mongolian people today. The descendants of Shem were divided into the areas of South East Asia and Indochina, on the one hand, and the Middle East, North East Asia and America, on the other hand.
God’s providence of salvation is the providence for recreation and restoration. It seeks to recover the lost order and ideal of creation, and to restore fallen man to the position before the fall, characterized by freedom, liberation, release, salvation and peace. This providence guides mankind towards the eternal peace kingdom.
The position of the first son holds great significance within this providence and laws of creation. The first son is the fruit of the parents’ first love and is the center of the lineage. Thus, this position is entitled to the rights of inheritance, dominion, and equality. God has always searched for this first son of goodness, and has guided the providence of salvation centering on elder-sonship.
From a providential point of view the elder son must protect and preserve the purity of God’s lineage of goodness, and attend God, the invisible true parent, and the visible true parents on earth. He has the responsibility to live for the sake of his younger siblings and the entire creation through true love. The life-patterns of this providential elder-sonship is inherent in the history and roots of Mongolian people worldwide. Fore example, Mongolian people have a deep reverence to heaven, love towards mankind, and the awareness that nature and man are one.
Historically the founders of the world’s major religions, such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Confucianism are the descendants of Shem. Furthermore, many ancient civilizations that came forth and developed from the Sumerian civilization, also belong to this lineage.
There are many traits shared among the civilizations and religions built by the descendants of Shem. Among them we discover theism, an absolute value system, an emphasis on the ethics of the family, purity, a spiritual orientation, unselfish love, and other special attributes. These spiritual foundations will become the cornerstones in delivering mankind from many of the world’s problems such as the breakdown of the family, crime, alienation among youth, international terrorism, pandemic diseases, and poverty.
In this way, Mongolians stand in the position of the elder son crucial to God’s providence for the salvation, liberation, peace and restoration of mankind. According to this providential context, we must understand that our ancestors, without their knowing, spread the light of God’s ideal in accordance with God’s guidance, the support of spirit world, and the urging of our original nature. God raised the chosen nation from within the realm of the restored elder son. From the chosen nation He sends the savior and saints with the words of life through sacred revelation. Through this savior and his words of life, humanity can finally obtain salvation, liberation and peace. In proportion to God’s great blessing, the Mongolian people have the responsibility and duty to sacrifice and devote themselves with true love for the sake of other clans and races.
When we observe history from a partial point of view, and only as social phenomena, history may seem to be a constant search for clothing, shelter and food, or for political hegemony. Yet this kind of historical perspective and world view will never bring about everlasting peace.
We need to know the origin. The origin of peace is God. Mankind can safely settle down in a world of everlasting peace only when we separate ourselves from all evil in accordance with God’s laws and principles of creation. We must be restored through true love, true life, and the true lineage, into a position where they relate only to God.
Respected Mongolian leaders from around the world,
The founder of this conference, Dr. Sun Myung Moon, recently declared the advent of the era of heaven. The era before heaven was one of division, confrontation, domination, oppression, resistance, struggle, and pain. The conflict and struggle between good and evil will not end until we find and establish the true family, true parent, true teacher, true owner and true king that inherits the true love, true life, and true lineage, and opening the way for us to relate directly to God.
There is no way to avoid the struggle between Satan, the false parent who seeks to eternally dominate man, and the God of goodness Who seeks to deliver, release, and liberate mankind, and restore to us our rights to freedom, equality and peace. Providence seeks to separate good from evil. Consequently, languages, races, nations, regimes, ideologies, religions and cultures have been divided and scattered with barriers built in between.
From this point forward, in the era of heaven, the providence is not the providential age of restoration through indemnity which called for the separation of good and evil through conflict, struggle and division. It is an age of reconciliation and unity centering on God’s object of goodness – the family, tribe, nation, world and cosmos of goodness. The walls of self-interest dividing religions, races, nations, and ideologies will be brought down, and we will witness the glorious birth of an age of one human family with God as the parent and mankind as His children.
This era of heaven does not come without a price, however. Throughout history God raised sages and chosen people centering on goodness, enabling this era to grow slowly based on the sacrifices and devotion of these people. The individuals and groups who were appointed as the center of God’s providence had the responsibility and duty to overcome all barriers, forgive the resentments of the past and be the first to sacrifice and love the other. Providential history was built upon their sacrifices.
For this era of heaven, the Mongolian people have a providential mission to protect and preserve God’s good lineage, attend to God as the true parent of humanity, overcome egocentric barriers and live for the sake of humanity and creation. In this International Peace Conference for Mongolian Leaders from Around the World we will discuss how to fulfill our mission as the providential elder son in the era of heaven, and how to realize true liberation, complete release and everlasting peace for God and mankind. The purpose and significance of this conference can be realized as we create true solidarity and cooperation among ourselves.
God, humanity and our Mongolian ancestors have all longed for peace. Yet peace cannot be realized without knowing God, without developing our spirituality, including direct experience of the spirit world, and without a true heart that arises from our original nature of goodness. This is dictated by God’s principles of creation and the law of heaven.
God is not satisfied to live in solitude nor is He self-complacent. He needs an absolute object of true love. Love cannot be experienced alone but can only be perfected and made absolute through an object partner. In creating the universe and all of creation, God had to invest and sacrifice Himself completely for the creation of the entire universe. We can understand the pain of creation as we reflect on the act of a mother giving birth to a child. God’s true love reached its highest expression when God gave birth to man, His substantial children of true love, true life and a true lineage of goodness.
As we give, sacrifice and devote ourselves unselfishly and in accordance with true love, a world of harmony, unity and peace, and a new order of creation will unfold before us. We have to remember from now on that self-centered actions always create foes and enemies, and lead to a destructive end.
Everlasting peace for mankind begins by first knowing God and spirit world. All the barriers that appeared during the course of the restoration of man in the era before heaven must be overcome. Only by practicing the principles of true love can complete peace be realized. This is the basis of the absolute value system.
During this conference I hope that you all open your hearts and experience the true love of brotherhood and sisterhood with those around you. Through this conference I sincerely hope that your spiritual eyes will be opened, and that you will experience the spirit world, and God’s grace. By understanding God’s heart, as you open your spiritual eyes, you will realize with full clarity what we, the Mongolian leaders of this world, need to do in creating world peace.
May God’s blessings be upon you and your families. Thank you very much.
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