Noble Dream – part 1
by Rev. Sun Myung Moon
December 1, 1981, Belvedere
Translator – Bo Hi Pak
Edited by esgd
15 minutes
People are always contemplating doing something and are always seeking after something. The important thing is what they are looking for, what kind of dream they hope to fulfil. Men and women have dreams, as does a family, nation and even the whole world. On a wider level, the invisible world of spirit is also pursuing a dream. There is some entity which created all the universe and that entity must have had a dream or a reason for creating everything.
If you are living in the midst of a family and society that have a chaotic or confused situation, you feel dizzy, as though you were twisting back and forth, first one direction then another, without control. You want to be turning steadily in one direction, with order and joy. When you relate to some object for a certain purpose then automatically you have a common centre between you. The actions of winding and unwinding both have a relationship to the axis. If you are turning first one way and then another, but you are accomplishing something by doing so, then you feel good. Even your eyes want to have a purpose for looking out, not just stare aimlessly or move independently of each other. When a person’s two eyes are looking steadily at something, you know he has a purpose in mind.
People often think dreams are phantom things without order or direction, but that is not the kind of dream we are seeking. Our dream has direction, purpose and discipline. It is a high, noble dream. Suppose there was such a thing as a company that manufactured and sold dreams. What would be the highest-quality, most expensive dream? Maybe women would consider the dream of beauty to be the highest quality; the dream would include beautiful clothes and a beautiful face. A man might have the dream of being a broad-shouldered athlete. A woman may have great beauty but if there is no purpose to her beauty, does it have meaning? Would anyone like to be a beautiful doll that stayed all day long in a glass box? No one could tolerate it. Real beauty is not just external appearance, like a doll’s, but requires active motion toward a goal, with a purpose.
Do women want to be beautiful in order to impress other women or to relate with other beautiful women? Why does a person have beauty as her dream? Beauty is not an end in itself, but a means to greater fulfillment. The goal of beauty is love. A beautiful woman is searching for a man who will love her. Beauty finds its consummation at the terminal of love.
Men want to be masculine and well-respected, but for what purpose? Suppose you wanted to become the strongest man in the world, and you worked out every morning with weights. Once you became the champion, would that be the end? If a man won many boxing matches and finally became the world champion boxer, receiving cheers and a standing ovation from the crowd, how would he feel if some big, tall man came out and presented him with a bouquet of flowers to honour him? Wouldn’t he prefer instead to see a beautiful woman stepping forward to present him with the bouquet? You men, tell me, would he prefer getting an enormous bouquet with thousands of flowers from a big, burly man, or would he like a smaller bouquet given to him by a nice lady?
Beauty searches for its complement to find harmony. A man searches for a beautiful, feminine woman and a woman searches for a masculine man. When you see a strong man and a lovely woman together, you feel it is a beautiful sight because they complement each other.
I have observed the faces of American women, with their deep-set eyes and distinct features and I always notice that they have high, sharp noses. I have imagined how it would look to replace those noses with flatter Oriental noses, but decided that it would be totally unbecoming. On the other hand, a sharp, high nose would look out of place with the broad features of an Oriental face. The interesting thing is that though an Oriental nose is flat, it is well-secured! There is harmony among those facial features.
Why is the Mona Lisa so famous? When a happy person looks at that portrait, he feels happier. When a sad person looks at the Mona Lisa, however, he feels more melancholy. That painting reflects all different feelings, so all kinds of people can feel rapport with it.
Harmony is the central theme of the world God created. What would be the highest dream, then? It must be a dream of ideal harmony. You have to ask yourself whether your dream is to bring the entire world into harmony with you, or whether it is to make yourself harmonious with the rest of the world. Women might want to be beautiful so that the entire world will shine because of them. If you smile, then you should not smile for yourself but for the benefit of all. All your deeds, whether listening, talking, looking, or thinking should not be for yourself; you should do them to harmonize with others. You are a part of the whole, enhancing the value of all. You should become a living Mona Lisa who can have rapport and harmony with the rest of the world.
All men have a dream directed toward such a woman. However, if a man just wants to possess her beauty for himself, the woman will push him out. If she has an unselfish purpose but the man is thinking selfishly, they cannot harmonize. The man’s motivation would be destructive for all, so it would be a righteous deed for her to kick him out.
Men must live in accordance with the same principle. Men have a large, masculine spirit in order to serve others. When a man and a woman can be pulled together, both living in harmony for the sake of others, then the entire universe will be influenced by them. Their center is a noble dream of love. That is the epitome of beauty, which other men and women would look at with admiration and longing. Heaven and earth would respond in the same way.
How would God respond? Would He shout, “You make me nervous when you behave that way! Be selfish and live for yourselves!”? No, God is attracted by the beauty of harmony. If we can grab that nucleus of the universal principle, then the entire universe is pulled by us through that principle. The focal point of the universe is harmonizing, noble love. When you move with such a heart, the whole universe is turned by you and you feel joy. When you are moving in love for eternity, you will never get bored, even if you repeat the same actions over and over.
In love you find eternal give and take. Where is that action of give and take begun and consummated? It can only center upon harmonizing, noble love. Let’s assume there is a God. He could not find any better formula than this; so this must be His blueprint for the world. Why are parents the center of a family? Not because they are the oldest, but because they are the center of love. More than brothers and sisters or relatives, the father and mother are symbols of harmonizing love in a home.
That is how the national sovereign should be, as well; ideally, he should be the harmonizing center of love for the nation. Is the American President in that position? Far from it. Presidents have always sought to gain power, rather than give love. Democracy is based upon competition and the central theme is winning over someone else. An ideal society cannot be created in such circumstances. This is the inherent defect in democracy. In politics the contenders rejoice at defeating their opponent, without caring what happens to that individual. They don’t think about harmonizing with him but are like people who want to have only day and no night. To achieve political ambition, almost anything has become acceptable.
You never know when a beautiful face may be masking something ugly. Can a beauty queen say she is so beautiful that she never has to go to the bathroom? Even a beauty queen has to use the toilet every day! Is the bathroom any more fragrant when she uses it? Most people can tolerate their own smell, but they criticize someone else’s bad smell. When you say “I”, you are including not only your beautiful face, but also your insides and your smells in the bathroom; you cannot separate these parts of you.
What kind of high or noble dream do you want? To gain a lot of money? Maybe you want lots of power or knowledge so you can boast about it. However, there must be a deeper, more important dream we can have, some dream that can be welcomed by all of history, everywhere, even by spirit world. That could not be a dream of money or power. Think about it. If you felt every day that you were inching closer to such a dream, would your life be a happy one? Would you be easily bored or tired, or wouldn’t you be exuberant every step of the way? I think you would be excited.
When you are pursuing the dream of love, you have no time to be bored or tired. You know you are going in the right direction, and that some day you will jump into your dream and live in the intoxication of the ideal. Even when tears are rolling down your cheeks, they will not be tears of sadness, but tears of joy. Sometimes a person who is frightened will scream, but when you jump into the ideal world of love, your screams will be those of joy.
Anything that is evil in the secular, fallen world will be completely digested and translated into joy by this noble dream. Even suffering and death would not matter because reaching the goal will be many times more compensation. As long as God exists, He must want to be in such a noble place. What would He like to do there? Would He be teaching the alphabet? Would He play cards and solve puzzles? No, He would not want to spend His time in that way. By putting Himself in the center of love, He already has everything. He would have no job remaining, except to be intoxicated in ideal love and rejoice in it.
When God is immersed in love, would the fragrance of that love be so enticing that you would be drawn toward it? Would you feel the urge to touch it, or would you pull your hand away? Would you want to taste more and more of it? You would want to be swallowed up in it, taking it in through all your senses. If people want such ideal love, how much more would God want to impart love with a delightful fragrance to attract people? Is love just the beginning, or is it the end in itself? Love is the fulfillment in itself.