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R. Ram: Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon - Living for the Sake of Others
Written by Ronki Ram, Professor of Contemporary India Studies, Leiden University, The Netherlands
Monday, September 3, 2012
Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon will be remembered passionately by the coming generations for his concerted efforts towards building a viable peace and harmony in the world. He was, in fact, an angel of peace, family unity, and interfaith dialogue who invented new traditions and ways to organize universal gatherings of diverse religions/faiths in the contemporary world both within the forums of the UN and without for the sole purpose of learning the basic lessons of living together harmoniously and with compassion for one and all. Father Moon was not an armchair philosopher who philosophized idyllically in the realm of mere dreams and thoughts, but a karmayogi (a man of action) who firmly believed in practical actions now and here in the real world of our day-to-day existence.
Reverend Dr. Sun Myung Moon was no doubt one of the greatest spiritual leaders and champions of world peace in our times. He is affectionately known by millions of his followers and devotees as “Father Moon.”
Father Moon attached his life-long goal of world peace and the permanent faith in loving God with the bounties of simple but inexplicable nature. He used to say:
If you empty your mind and receive nature into your entire being, there is no separation between you and nature. Nature comes into you, and you become completely one with nature. In the moment that the boundary between you and nature disappears, you feel a profound sense of joy. Then nature becomes you, and you become nature.
Father Moon was thoroughly convinced that
Everything around us was given birth through a combination of forces so complex we cannot even imagine it. These forces are closely related to each other. Nothing in the universe was conceived outside the heart of God. The movement of just one leaf holds within it the breathing of the universe.
To know the mysteries of complex universe around us, Father Moon keenly urged his followers to get closely connected with the nature:
Nature creates a single harmony and produces a sound that is magnificent and beautiful. No one tries to show off and no one is ignored; there is just a supreme harmony. Whenever I found myself in difficulty, nature comforted me; whenever I collapsed in despair. It raised me back up.
And it is in the name of this benevolent nature called God that Father Moon wanted to create for us a world of perpetual peace and harmony. The time is not far when the world will come to realize and appreciate the genius, sincerity, humility, selflessness, and true love of Father Moon and the driving force of nature behind what he was striving hard to achieve and accomplish during his given limited life span: universal world peace and one human family under God.
Father Moon dedicated his entire life for bringing peace in our contemporary world and deeply touched hearts of the millions. He passionately taught the lesson of world citizenship and lived the life of a true world citizen. His philosophy of universal peace and world citizenship is vividly reflected in his life-long efforts towards winning the heart of others including his enemies and strangers. In his own touching words:
At times I would simply go for a while in an area of Shinagawa where poor people lived. I slept with them, using rags for cover. On warm sunny days I picked lice from their hair and ate rice with them. There were many prostitutes on the streets of Shinagawa. I would listen to them tell me about themselves, and I became their friend without ever drinking a drop of liquor. Some people claim they need to be drunk in order to speak candidly about what is on their mind, but that is just an excuse. When these women realized that I was sincere in my sympathy for them, even without drinking any liquor, they opened their hearts to me and told me their troubles.
Father Moon had the charisma to win over all. He taught his followers the indispensable lessons of loving one’s enemies and living for the sake of others. He always used to emphasize on learning to live for God and His People, and striving hard to overcome selfishness. For the purpose of living for the sake of others, Father Moon used to stipulate on the need of working hard in one’s life. He once said:
I did not spend all my time roaming the hills and meadows and playing. I also worked hard helping my old brother run the farm. On a farm there are many tasks that must be done during a particular season. The rice paddies and fields need to be plowed. Rice seedlings need to be transplanted, and weeds need to be pulled … After the seeds are planted, the furrows need to be weeded at least three times, and this is background work. When we were finished, we couldn’t straighten our backs for awhile.
Father Moon combined hard labor with his mission of world peace in such a manner that it became a new principle of peace to bring harmony through hard work, family unity and living for others. The roots of peace, according to him, are to be searched at the family level and in hard working selfless living. For him, the parents represent the present, the children the future and the grandparents the past. So it is only when the grandparents, parents, and children live together, said Father Moon that the children can inherit all the fortunes of the past and present. To love and respect one's grandfather is to inherit the history of the past and to learn from the rich experience of the past.
Peace can not be built in a day. It requires continuous efforts on our part. For a peace to become reality, Father Moon founded various non-profit international organizations (the Universal Peace Foundation, and the Family Federation for World Peace), interfaith service groups (the International Relief Friendship Foundation, Religious Youth Service and Service for Peace), and various print, electronic and digital media outlets publications.
The message of Father Moon was very simple and lucid: live for the sake of others. Father Moon envisioned a peaceful world devoid of territorial boundaries, conflicts and wars. He did not want that sons and daughters of God suffer the wars of the sovereign nations. He did not find any meaning in diplomatic strategic alliances and dividing the world in mindless power hunting opposite camps. He did his best to help the world wriggle out of the sinews of the ‘not so-cold’ cold war with love and peaceful ways of persuasion and inculcation of the everlasting message of interfaith harmony and world citizenship. He wanted to replace the current world of sovereign nation states with the one where people could live as citizens of one world. For him nations and nationalities teach nothing but complex rules of the grammar of war and deceitful diplomacy. A world beyond the narrow legal boundaries of statehood, ethnicity, nationality, religion, power politics and strategic alliances was his most desirable dream. He placed God in the centre of his envisioned world of peace and harmony.
Father Moon told us in very simple words who God is. He explained ardently to his millions of followers all over the world how the God is doing. Moses told the humanity that there exists a God that governs the cosmos. Jesus told the world that God is father. But it was Father Moon who told the world how God is doing. He brought God near to mankind. Father Moon’s God is not the one who sits on a throne in distant heavens. On the contrary, He is the one who always feel pain and sufferings of all of us and want to redeem and liberate the humanity as soon as possible from the pangs of distrust, fear, war and cruelty. His God is a working God, who live amidst his people. His God reside in peace and the only way to realize Him, according to Father Moon, is to build a peaceful world of fellow loving citizens. He also explained ‘human responsibility’ as to strive for peace and the realization of God.
It is here in the very context of human responsibility that Father Moon’s principle of living for the sake of others makes an absolute sense. He never felt tired talking about the image of God who always work for humanity and peace. Even in his ripe age of ninety plus many witnessed him talking day and night ceaselessly about God, peace, one human family under God, universal brotherhood and interfaith harmony. He was eager to build peaceful world in his very life time. He wanted to create a peaceful world in the real image of the abode of God facilitating each and every one of us to recognize God as Father and all of us as his children. He tried his level best to bring people together in as diverse fields as sports, spiritual conclaves, peace meetings, rallies, international leadership conferences, platforms of the UNESCO and UN, and the ceremony of the blessing of marriage. He made the goal of world peace the most important task of his life. As a true father, Reverend Dr. Moon got tremendous support from his loving family and all of his followers. Father Reverend Dr. Sun Myung Moon and Mother Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon personify an ‘ideal couple’, and ‘true parents’.
For times to come, the institution of UPF, the principle of ‘one human family under God’, ‘living for the sake of others’ and a world of perpetual peace and harmony will remain the finest legacies of Father Moon. The world will remember him for ever for his life long dedication to peace and human unity.
I have had the honour and privilege to sit in his august company during his 93rd birthday celebration at Peace Palace (Cheon Jeong Goong) up in the mountains east of Seoul in the forenoon of January 24, 2012. Ambassador Krishna V. Rajan of India in his congratulatory message on the auspicious occasion said:
Father Moon’s simple but powerful message of boundless love and unconditional compassion, of service and sacrifice, of family values and spiritual leadership, is like a lighthouse which beckons the world.
The Ambassador continued,
His answer to conflict is the realization that we are one human family created by God. Living for the sake of others is the only road to real happiness.
Father Moon’s birthday celebrations, coinciding with the Chinese New Year celebrations, brought together over 200 participants from 72 countries of the world. To celebrate the auspicious day of Father Moon’s birthday, UPF organized an international Leadership Conference at Seoul January 21-25. It was during this conference that I had the rare opportunity to listen to the engaging lectures of Rev. Hyung Jin Moon, UPF International Chairman (appointed by Father Moon in 2009 as the one chosen to represent him) and that of Dr. Kook Jin Moon, Chairman of the Tongil Foundation in Korea, who deliberated at length on “Peace and Security in East Asia”, one of the two core themes of the conference. Dr. Kook Jin Moon was generous enough to provide me some time from his very busy schedule to talk on various aspects of peace in East Asia, which I later on published entitled "Envisioning Peace and Prosperity in Northeast Asia" in the Asia-Pacific Business & Technology Report (Seoul), Vol. 4, No. 1. 2012, pp. 26-29.
This conference also provided me a rich opportunity to meet various Ambassadors for Peace of Father Moon, almost from all parts of the world, discussing the ways to bring peace and harmony in the world. The central themes during all such discussions were the vibrant ideas and teachings of Father Moon and his various ongoing peace projects in the world.
Father Moon was indeed a Messiah of world peace who sincerely wanted this world become the most conducive place for everyone to realize his/her potentials to the maximum with an ultimate objective in mind to grow peace around. In his own words:
I have lived my life with just one thought: I wanted to bring about a world of peace, a world where there are no wars and where all humankind lives in love.
It would really be impossible to replace soon Father Reverend Dr. Sun Myung Moon, the angel of peace, who had left for his heavenly abode on September 3, 2012. Let’s pray for his holy soul which will keep guiding the whole world towards his pious mission of peace and one human family under God.
Ronki Ram
ICCR Chair Professor of Contemporary India Studies, Leiden University Institute for Area studies (LIAS); International Institute for Asian studies (IIAS), Leiden, The Netherlands