Rearing Monarchs #28:

The practical value of vision
Unification Thoughts, September 2023

Welcome back.
Greetings! But just in case you’ve found this series for the first time, please take a few moments to catch its drift by reading about its purpose and focus.¹

The Power of Vision

While considering what to write for September, this idea came to the top: the importance of vision and its connection to philosophy. I’ve reflected on this matter periodically because, during my lifelong calling to share Unification Thought, I’d sometimes be asked what the “practical” value of our philosophy is. As my friends and acquaintances have grown golden, many have sought paths to self-realization that they felt were missing from the Community’s source texts. I’d read about it and I’d sometimes hear it directly. And many of our young people have the same question and have become fans of programs which they find more accessible or relatable. I can understand that. In general, it’s because key points in the Principle get overlooked.

Regarding philosophy, there’s a key point in the Preparation Period chapter. To recap, it explains a three-stage progression of immaterial thought from 1) the Period of Reformation & Renaissance, to 2) the Period of Religious & Ideological Conflict, to 3) the Period of Maturation of Political Structure, Economy & Ideology. That third stage is when prevailing thought becomes embodied in concrete institutions. And once institutionalized, those bodies control the direction of economics, of culture, of governments—and therefore of history itself. One only needs to note those bleak events of the 20th century that the figure above leads toward. In the third stage, monarchies gave way to democracies, but as the Principle indicates, they were of two major types. The consequence is that, despite the existence of some nations who term themselves “democratic republics”, in sheer numbers, it had the costliest wars. So because Father Moon understood the direct bearing of thought, philosophy and ideology on the real world, he forcefully emphasized the importance of “absolute values” through annual global conferences for thought leaders in key fields.

During our recent past in the Wilderness Era, it was necessary to focus largely on daily practice of the Principle of Restoration Through Indemnity. But times are changing.

In this Settlement Era, while the means to accomplish goals are necessary, a clear vision of those end goals is essential. After all, you can’t navigate somewhere without first deciding what the destination is or at least what you hope it’ll be. Nor can you build well what you can’t clearly envision. That’s why, in creative areas like design, the desired goal is established first (often painstakingly). Then, once that’s in hand, the means to achieve the goal are determined and utilized, or acquired, if need be.

While I was ruminating on all this, a remarkable bible verse came to me:

Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

• Proverbs 29:18 ²

The real examples of people faced with sometimes overwhelming odds, but who nevertheless overcome them because they are fueled by a powerful, driving vision are numerous. These have occurred in large events on the world stage, as well as with success stories in business and sports. Just one example is the remarkable story of Helen Keller, who was blind from birth. She said: The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.

Unification Thought and Vision

The visionary purpose of Unification Thought is “baked in”. Two of the reasons that Dr. Sang Hun Lee gave for it are “To present a new direction for all areas of learning” and to “establish a view of value as a guide to new life” (The Necessity, Character, and Method of Unification Thought, by Dr. Sang Hun Lee)³ And just FYI, the short list of purposes is footnoted here.⁴

If you’ve been reading this series a while, you might recall reading that an important way that Unification Thought differs from the Divine Principle is in the emphasis that it places on the first part of the Principle—the Principle of Creation. In the Exposition of the Divine Principle, a limited vision of the original ideal world is largely limited to the first chapter, and that’s about 30 pages long. The remaining 360 pages are split between deciphering the Human Fall and key Christian theological concepts, and then to explaining the Principle of Restoration through Indemnity—parts which the text’s Introduction describes as “the broken heart (God) felt when humankind, His children whom He could not abandon, rebelled against Him and His heart of striving to save them throughout the long course of history.” (Exposition of the Divine Principle, p. 8) We’d touched on these hearts earlier in this series.

In contrast, the 600 pages of New Essentials of Unification Thought are largely devoted to explaining the vision of the original world and life as it should be. It contains 11 chapters, 10 of which can be characterized this way. And it was the clarity and beauty of that vision which forced me to reconsider the Divine Principle, especially its messianic conclusion. Because, while I wasn’t sure of what the Principle contended, I was deeply impressed by Father Moon’s vision of an original world as laid out in Unification Thought.⁵

Because of that vision, I was compelled to put my reservations aside and join in the effort to build it, while I worked out my issues with the movement’s theology, on the side, as it were. I thought it was pretty likely that anyone who could have this clear and beautiful a vision of the original world would be the “central figure” of his age.

And so it was that, four decades later, these efforts culminated with Father Moon’s momentous declarations of the Foundation Day (of Heaven), the inauguration of the Nation of Cosmic Peace and Unity (i.e., Cheon Il Guk), and the closure of the Wilderness Era and our emergence into the Settlement Era. As well, to bring to light the different character of this new era, the 2014 edition of Cheon Seong Gyeong appeared and almost all of its 13 books were about life in an original world. Its first seven books largely correspond to the main sections of the Principle of Creation:

That’s about 900 pages in the Cheon Seong Gyeong on the original world as compared to 36 pages in the Exposition of the Divine Principle. This expansion was required because we needed to greatly augment our understanding in order to carry out the next stage of work in the post-Foundation Day, Settlement Era—the stage of nation-building.⁶

If one notes the dates of the passages on original life and love in the three Holy Books, so many are from the later stages of Father and Mother Moon’s life, after they’d declared the transition to the new era. And I think it’s illuminating that these expanded teachings also coincided with their own experience of being grandparents.

Mother Moon’s clear intention to address our need for greater understanding is well expressed in something she said ten years ago:

Actually teaching Divine Principle is not enough now. We need to teach them Father’s words. They need to do Hoon Dok. Don’t you think so? Divine Principle was revealed in the 1960’s. After that, we need to study Father’s words, don’t we? We need to publish (Chambumo Gyeong: Teaching of True Parents), and together with Peace Messages and Cheon Seong Gyeong, we need to educate them.

• Mother Moon on Parents’ Day, May 8, 2013

Given that 1960 is 60 years ago, and that Father and Mother Moon have not stopped teaching in all that time, let’s remember what was written in the Introduction of the Divine Principle:

The words proclaimed on these pages are only a portion of this truth. This volume is merely a compilation of what his disciples have hitherto heard and seen. We believe and hope that when the time is ripe, more profound portions of the truth will be published.

• Exposition of the Divine Principle, p. 12

A last thing that I’d like to share on this point of expanding our vision of original life and love is related to this quote from Father Moon:

You have to know the heart of God before creation, His heart during the process of creation, and His grieving heart after the Fall. You have to understand the sorrowful heart with which He has been leading human history toward restoration, and His heart of hope for a new world after restoration is completed.

• Cheon Seong Gyeong, p. 53

With the arrival of the new era, these words focus me on the nature of this “new world”. I then remembered this image that was presented in one session at a leaders’ meeting that Mother Moon hosted in Korea in 2017. Please take note of the points it mentions:

This is most of the slide (left and right edges are cut off) and it’s a bit blurry because it was taken from the audience with a cell phone. The sentence fragment at bottom left is “Era before the coming of Heaven”; the fragment at bottom right is “Era after the coming of Heaven”. The photo was later shared with me and I don’t know of any transcript of the presentation, but it appears that the audience was being urged to envision what the new era could be like. For that reason, I’ll share my brief take on some of the points:

1. Point 1: I think this is best said with Father Moon’s own words:
   “On the foundation of pure love education and the true family movement worldwide, I inaugurated the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification on July 31, 1996, in Washington DC…With the inauguration of the Family Federation, the providential age has begun in which families may receive salvation that transcends the boundaries of religion, nationality and race.”
   This is from the speech #9, in Fifty Years on the Providential Path to Realize God’s Homeland in Pyeong Hwa Gyeong, Book 2.
2. Point 2: Given the context of the other points here, I expect that this refers to the type of person who lives according to God’s original principles of creation, before the human fall. This would be in contrast to one who follows practices to repair a broken connection to God after the human fall.
3. Point 3: This point I think indicates the paradigm shift between living largely by the Principle of Restoration Through Indemnity to a life that more fully integrates living according to the Principle of Creation.
4. Point 4: Again, I believe that emphasizing Unification Thought in this era has to do with placing a greater emphasis on understanding and applying the Principle of Creation. This, after all, was the original manner of life and love. The Principle of Restoration through Indemnity only became necessary as a result of the human fall.

In fact, the Holy Books contain 108 instances of Father Moon explaining the role of Unification Thought. There, he also clarifies what the terms Godism or Headwing Thought mean. Here are three examples from Chambumo Gyeong (Book 9, Chapter 1, Section 1) on this:

(15) Unification Thought is Godism, or Headwing thought. …The reason for this is that neither rightwing nor leftwing can deliver us from self-centeredness. …Accordingly, we need a new world of thought that can oust self-centered thought. • Chambumo Gyeong, 1987.05.15

(17) Democracy is an ideology of brothers. Going beyond the ideology of brothers, we need to seek the philosophy of parents, or parentism. For this, we need a worldview and teaching based on parents. That very philosophy is Unification Thought. It is Godism, which is Headwing thought.… • Chambumo Gyeong, (1990.11.11)

(20) Godism is the same as Unification Thought. Based on true love, Unification Thought teaches us to invest and invest and forget that we have invested.… Godism teaches us that centered on the God of true love, the mind and the body become united, the family becomes united, and we become God’s sons and daughters and God’s object partners of love. This teaching is Headwing thought. • Chambumo Gyeong, 1992.12.19

I think the remaining points in Figure 2 (i.e. points 5–8) are either similar to the first ones, or more about organizational practice than vision, so I’ll pass on explaining them.

The main takeaway is that it’s no longer enough to proceed without refreshing and updating our vision for this new era. It doesn’t mean dropping our lifelong views, but it does mean expanding them to accommodate the present needs of the providence. It’s important in order to maintain enduring forward momentum. After all, we can’t build well what we can’t envision clearly.

In conclusion

The heart of the matter is that a clear and broad vision, informed by religion and ideology, feeds strength and endurance.

A memorable example of a vision that used to inspire young people was one particularly earnest speech in the second book of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, about the “good in this world…that’s worth fighting for”. You can see a two-minute version of that by clicking here.

And thinking of our young ones and the paradigm shift mentioned above, please consider this succinct reflection from the Applied Unificationism blog:

Our second gen is great, they see us as a little stuck in an old paradigm, so we first need to catch up with them if we as a movement want to flourish in the future, otherwise they might just go ahead without us, and without our informed support. I tend to think we still have something to offer, although I also think we have baggage we need to throw out. ⁷

• Science, Unification Thought and a Post-Materialist Era,
Prof. Alison Wakelin

Vision is what fuels heroic and especially messianic persons: they know what the true potential of humankind is and there’s just no way that they’ll forfeit it. So they’re willing to endure the most difficult things and the most painful sacrifices, because of that most treasured vision. On just this point, Father Moon said:

There is a reason I am doing this, despite all sorts of hardships; it is because there is something so real, something so worthwhile, that is calling me to continue. (036-121, 1970/11/22)

• Chambumo Gyeong, Book 7

Which is the tricky transition that we heavenly soldiers, who spent the bulk of our lives in the Wilderness Era, are now trying to navigate. Our awareness developed in ways that period required, and to change that—including healing from trauma—isn't a process that can be skipped over.

I observe that Father and Mother Moon had been trying to first prepare us and then later to ease us into the new era since the ’90s. And it’s important we—and especially our young ones—succeed in adapting.

Since a time comes in every child’s life when they must themselves become parents, teachers and owners, it would be well for them to learn and inherit the guiding vision of Father and Mother Moon, as well as of their own parents and grandparents, in order to continue to progress in the right direction and fulfill the promise of the new era. Indeed, a clear vision is crucial for our Community. As the scripture adjured us millennia ago: Where there is no vision, the people perish (Proverbs 29:18).

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