True Mother and the Age of Heavenly Mother

Good morning, Family. Happy 55th anniversary of True Parents Day. That’s amazing. 5 + 5 is 10: a wonderful number. It’s been a long time since I spoke at this podium. People in the church may perceive my narrative as political but many of you, and, of course myself, have been trained in Divine Principle, in the appreciation and love of God through the True Parents; we all have trained as ministers and if we truly surrender before Almighty God and the Principle, everyone can be a minister.

The song that you just heard, says: “‘Not by power, not by might, but my spirit,’ says the Lord.” The Spirit of the “Lord” is basically the balance between Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father. About 15 years ago, I decided to put at the bottom of my e-mail page a quotation from True Mother that says, “Let’s change the logic of power by the logic of true love.” Since then everyone who receives a message from me reads a sentence that expresses a great thought from our True Mother. Let’s give an applause to True Mother.

I’ve been compelled to support True Mother for many, many years in anticipation of what is happening now in our worldwide movement, in which True Mother has been elevated to the position of keeping the legacy, not just the heritage of the male Messiah but the heritage of both the male and the female Messiahs that came in the historical position of the True Parents. The Second Coming of Christ is the Coming of the True Parents.

I want to show a picture. Many of you haven’t seen this photo. I am here dancing with True Mother. True Father asked me to sing for them and the audience at East Garden about three years ago. True Father then lifted True Mother’s hand and asked her to dance with me. This never happened in the history of our movement. I was in shock but very happy. We danced together in front of a packed East Garden hall. It was beautiful. I decided to put this picture there to give a little bit of background to my lecture today. This is such a vast subject, the subject of Heavenly Mother, or the mission of True Mother in relation to the liberation of Heavenly Mother. It could take many hours to discuss. In only half an hour, I just want to give a little taste of the subject.

In my research, I’m compelled to believe that the key of the success for us as individuals and our Movement in general, specifically to succeed in the big enterprise of building the Cheon Il Guk, lays in going back to the foundation of the original Philosophy or Thought of True Parents which is Chapter 1 and is also the essence of the Principle. It states about the dual characteristics of God:

Dual Characteristics of God and Creation

God is a harmonized being of Original Masculinity and Original Femininity and

Original Internal Character and Original External Form.

These dualities are basically the essence of the Cosmos because it is the essence of God. Therefore, it should be the essence of us, for our relationships within ourselves and with others. From the moment that we wake up in the morning we should be thinking about “my internal nature, my external form, my original masculinity or my original femininity,” because everything within us and around us is constantly interacting with these dualities.

Antonio dancing with True Mother Four Position Mrs. Gil Ja Sa Eu Foundation

Dual Characteristics of God

The Unification Principle teaches that God is the invisible, absolute Being with dual characteristics in harmony. As a being of dual characteristics, God created Adam and Eve as manifestations of His/Her duality. God intended to be their vertical center when they grew up and connected horizontally through love. — Jan. 24, 1986 (Cheon Seong Gyeong, p. 54)

In the Four Position Foundation, men and women have equal access to God and equally manifest the dual attributes of God: God, man and woman, and a child. Each one has equal access and equal representation.

The Purpose of Creating Adam & Eve

When Adam and Eve are perfected and become the substantial beings of love through which they can become one, God can come and reside with them, becoming the parent of perfected love to humanity. Then Adam and Eve, who are the substantial parents with visible form, can reproduce children and thus realize the ideal world. (Cheon Seong Gyeong, p. 426)

This means that Adam and Eve will become True Parents and their children — each male and female creating couples — will also become True Parents. As they multiply worldwide through the eons of time, there will be a multiplication of True Parents. We have to see ourselves as individuals who are called to become eventually True Parents, raised and educated to become True Parents. It’s through this duality — each individual with a balance of internal nature and

external form and in balance with the other, whether it is male or female — that we become the image and likeness of God or the manifestation of God’s visible form.

God is Both Our Father and Mother

God is the ultimate source of truth, goodness, love and life. …God is the deepest core, the ultimate source of life, love and truth. Then what kind of being is God? God is both our Father and Mother. The core is the parents. — Nov. 20, 1968 (Cheon Seong Gyeong, p. 68)

In the songs that we sang today, Dan Fefferman apologized that he didn’t know I would talk about Heavenly Mother – True Mother; otherwise he would’ve chosen songs about the women of the Old Testament. But I think that the songs are very appropriate because they reveal a history of worshiping a male God and a male Godhead that was forced on humanity because of the Fall. God was forced to become a male single parent, parenting sons and daughters, men and women, without this fatherly God possessing female attributes. Feminine attributes including motherhood belong to God’s original femininity, or Mother God. Because of the Fall, the feminine part of God disappeared from history. Heavenly Mother could not be recognized, acknowledged, understood, credited, honored, or empowered. Only upon the restoration of the original woman, upon the foundation of one woman who walked the path of restoring the feminine aspects of original womanhood could Mother God be liberated. That victory for Heavenly Mother was accomplished by Hak Ja Han, our True Mother. On that foundation Heavenly Mother could be liberated.

The inauguration of the liberation of Heavenly Mother occurred on January 13, 2013, Foundation Day. That event was forecast already 13 years earlier by True Father, when he declared that this century is “the century of women.” He announced, “Watch out because 13 years from now, on January 13, 2013, something very special is going to happen. That day January 13, 2013, on the lunar calendar will be the day of a new beginning or a new foundation for humanity.” Unfortunately True Father did not live to inaugurate Foundation Day and declare in detail its real meaning. But for me, I have been praying and thinking about this for many, many years. My prayers since I joined the Unification Church have been for clarity. Clarity or light is connected with the first page of the book of Genesis. “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’” and the light separated the darkness. Whether you are young or old you need light, clarity in your life. We have to have in our daily life light penetrating the darkness because darkness surrounds us every day from morning until night. We have to pray for clarity: clarity in our minds, clarity in our hearts, clarity of thinking, and clarity of emotions. Through this clarity, we can discern, allowing God to really see things through us and react to them through us, being the real objects of God, becoming the mouth, the brain, the body, the limbs for God in this physical reality.

For many years, I prayed for clarity on many points especially those essential in Chapter One of the Divine Principle. One of the things that for me was a puzzle was, “Why does Father take over the entire leadership, not allowing True Mother to take her rightful position as a woman leader in the movement, to lead the women and bring a balance to the movement?” The answer from God was very clear: “I have been forced to be a single male parent, parenting men and women. True

Father is following this same tradition, until the time is right.” That time according to my prayers was Foundation Day. It’s interesting that Foundation Day came when True Mother is alone. Most people don’t know what happened on Foundation Day.

On Foundation Day in the opinion of an inner circle that I belong received the same revelation that on Foundation Day, Heavenly Mother was liberated. With the liberation of Mother God, all the women of history who were hidden were also liberated, all those women who walked three steps behind men were liberated and now they are receiving honors, the unrecognized women of the Old Testament, all the women of the Unification Movement, all the women beginning with True Mother who walked the path of Eve brought the victory for Heavenly Mother. True Mother completed her journey back in 1981.

Why is True Mother today focusing so much on Tribal Messiahship? I encourage you to go onto the Internet and find the Children’s Day message of October 21, 1981. In 1981 True Mother fulfilled the 7-7-7, the 21-year course of her path towards completion, according to the Principle, and God’s expectations for her as the second Eve. True Father in October of that year gave that incredible speech about the future. In other words, what is the task to build the Kingdom of Heaven? It was focused on Tribal Messiahship, Home Church, or the attendance of God directly in our homes, our families, and our communities. This is what True Mother is focusing on right now.

It will take too long to go into the journey between 1981 until today, but what I perceive is that we’re going to go back to 1981, to the time of blessings that God had reserved for humanity at that time. This was demonstrated with the hundreds of people who attended very large Divine Principle workshops in those years. I joined in 1974. I remember between 1974 and 1980, the workshops were 300 and more every week in Barrytown, New York. Who among the audience here joined in a very large workshop? In my workshop of three days there were about 350 people. About 60% stayed for 7 days. I didn’t, but in my mind, I said, “This is it, I have to join. This is the end of this part of my life, I have to join.” They were trying to convince me to stay, telling me that Satan was working in my life forcing me to go back home, all those fears, but I knew I had to go back to my job and train somebody in my position.

I was an assistant to the chemical engineer in a waterproofing chemical plant. I had to train another assistant in the laboratory in order for me to join the Church. Then I closed my apartment. I arrived at Barrytown for the seven-day workshop, and they said, “What workshop are you applying for?” and I said, “Seven days, 21 days, 40 days, 120 days, my life.” The girl said, “No, no, no, no; we decide if you’re material for 21 days after the seven days.” And I said, “No, no, no, for me it’s the reverse. You see this little suitcase and my umbrella (because it was raining.) I closed my apartment. I closed up everything. I gave up everything just as God said to me, ‘You have to give up everything, turn your back to your family, to everything you have before and follow God.’”

We did that, many of the first generation did just that. It was the way in those years for many of us. Today we long for those days when people listened to the Principle and felt almost a vibration inside. We were moved to the core by the power of God in the Principle. It was not like today, when people say, “Oh, that’s an interesting view,” or “That’s your opinion.” We live in an

era when truth is no longer truth, it’s somebody’s opinion. The truth is being covered by a cloud of information, most of it irrelevant. When the truth comes and God’s blessing is with that truth, people begin to vibrate; they shake inside. Their hearts vibrate, their mind vibrates, and they feel, WOW!!! That’s what we felt when we joined, and that’s why we made sacrifices, that’s why we did MFT. Some people went through 12 years of MFT. Can you imagine 12 years on the MFT? It was a very difficult life. How could we do it? Because God remained vibrating in our hearts, in our minds. We long for that to come back, and I firmly believe that it will come back now with True Mother because True Mother is going back to 1981, the year of her completion and reviving what was supposed to be done at that time — “The Tribal Messiah and Home Church Mission.”

God is Both Our Father and Mother

God is the ultimate source of truth, goodness, love and life. …God is the deepest core, the ultimate source of life, love and truth. Then what kind of being is God? He is both our Father and Mother. The core is the parents. — Nov. 20, 1968 (Cheon Seong Gyeong, p. 68)

Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother

Your children must be able to say, ‘My mother is Heavenly Mother, and my father is Heavenly Father.’ When they look at you, completely united as husband and wife, they have to see you as a physical substantiation of God. - The Ceremony of the Declaration of God’s Eternal Blessing, July 1, 1991, Seoul, Korea

One of the great teachers of Divine Principle said the same thing, Mrs. Gil Ja Sa Eu, one of first three blessed couples in 1960.

We must know there is not only Heavenly Father but Heavenly Mother as well.…I feel a God who is more well-balanced… It is difficult to describe how warm it feels in my heart when I call for Heavenly Mother together with Heavenly Father… Heavenly Mother who is so kind and warm.” — Mrs. Gil Ja Sa Eu, p. 170, “The Heavenly Mother That We Must Know”

Pray in the Name of Heavenly Parent

When True Mother made the following revolutionary statement, it provoked a lot of controversy particularly within the True Family itself. Some of the True Children said it was heresy.

During the Old Testament period, we called God ‘Yahweh’ and during New Testament period we called God ‘Heavenly Father,’ but True Father completed providential history. Foundation Day is the day that God’s dream will be accomplished. We need to change the name of God. We shouldn’t call out to God Heavenly Father, we should call out to Heavenly Parent.” - True Mother, FFWPU Leader’s Conference, Jan. 7, 2013, Gapyeong, Korea

It’s Heavenly Parent, not Heavenly Parents: just like a hand that has two sides. The inside is soft and feminine and the outside is hard and masculine. They are not separated; there is unity with equal value on each side. This hand represents the duality of masculinity and femininity. One cannot exist without the other. Heavenly Parent is one unit with Original Masculinity and Original Femininity; one cannot exist without the other.

Tony Scazzero has written a book, Who Is Mother God? He created a glossary of all the information available today about God in the feminine. He also created a website: www.mothergod.info. He dared to collect all the information that is related to goddesses; some may not be very relevant and even confusing, but they’re all very important to show the history of humankind searching for the God Mother, the Mother God, the Godhead in a feminine.

Another effort is called the Cosmic Gender Balance Institute, cofounded by Glenn and Louise Strait. Several recently organized events include, “Ontology and the Heavenly Parent,” Nov. 1– 3, 2013, hosted at UTS on the Nature of God in the era of post-Foundation Day, and “The Spirit of Syria,” Nov 9–10, 2013 at The Washington Times which featured Rev. Christopher Krefft.

Heaven’s Gate is Through Father or Mother

When you go to the spirit world, you will have not only a Heavenly Father but also a Heavenly Mother. Can new life be born without both a father and a mother? The dual characteristics of God are as Divine Father and Mother, who were to be united in one as Adam and Eve. Therefore we can say that through either our father or our mother there lies a gate to Heaven. — January 1, 1977. World Scripture and the Teachings of Sun Myung Moon, pp. 55–56.

Dual Characteristics of God and Creation

God is a harmonized being of Original Masculinity and Original Femininity and Original Internal Character and Original External Form.

It’s going to take those of us who are part of the male characteristics of God to really bend over and allow the feminine side of God in Mother God to be recognized, acknowledged, made aware, credited, honored, and finally to come out and be empowered. The empowerment of our Heavenly Mother is very important in the context of the empowerment of women. Heavenly Mother wants to manifest her true love of a mother, love of a daughter, love of a sister, love of a wife, love of a grandma.

We have to recognize that True Father inaugurated the age of women in the year 2000. We have to think that in everything we do, every thought, every action, there is a male and a female component. In other words we cannot detach ourselves from this Original Masculinity, Original Femininity, Internal Character, and External Form that dwells in us, is our objective reality in the invisible and visible creation. Everything that happens within creation either in us or in us reacting with creation has a male and female component.

I was a member of the New Hope Singers for several years. I remember Brian Saunders teaching about the female notes and the masculine notes. He used to explain so beautifully, and it inspired us so much. We have to be constantly conscious of this because it is the way for us to grow in the original sense as either masculine or feminine representations of the duality of the Godhead. Most of Divine Principle is composed of material for the restoration of the world. What is original is Chapter 1. Focus on finding Mother God and Father God. Whatever you do, it doesn’t matter whether if it is in actions that in your opinion are good or bad, do it with God. If you do it with God and it’s bad, God will advise you how to get out of trouble. If it’s good, God will advise you how to make it sustainable. Ask God, Mother or Father, according to what you’re doing because sometimes what we need is the advice of our mother.

When I was growing up, which may be true for most of you, there were things I never brought to my father but brought to my mother, intimate things, things that I didn’t want to share with my father. It’s the same thing with God since Foundation Day. We are in the original world. Share things with your Heavenly Mother. If you cannot visualize Heavenly Mother, then visualize True Mother. If there are things you need to bring to Heavenly Father, then visualize True Father. This is very, very important in whatever you do. I can never say this enough because God said it enough to me: “Whatever you do, do it with Me.” Do it with God because with God, if it’s confusing then He/She will give you clarity. If it’s bad, God will give you the perspective needed. God will be patient with you. If you’re doing something that is not good for you and will not help you to grow, then God can help you and will be very patient with you. God is patient. God is not asking you to quit tonight. God is very practical and God knows that you cannot get rid of bad habits, bad practices or even addictions in just a moment. God knows that most things are part of your makeup, part of your brain in a particular time of your life. God is patient. God will guide you. Do things with God. If you’re going to give advice to somebody, if you going to get involved in trying to understand people’s problems, do it with God. What people need is God in duality. God Mother and God Father will speak to you if you are conscious of this, according to your needs or the situation. This is not something that’s just in my mind. It is based on my own experience.

The foundation of what I’m saying is not only the foundation of our True Parents or my own foundation or my ancestors, but it is your own foundation. The fact that you are here as Second Generation. The fact that you are here as First Generation. The fact that you have not given up despite all the dirt, all the things that we have endured and experienced. This means a lot to God. It means a lot to Father God and Mother God. It means a lot to True Father in the spirit world. That is the foundation for many things to be said at this pulpit. The credit for the wonderful things spoken in this pulpit doesn’t go just to the speaker. It’s not me. It’s you. It’s in your foundation, Foundation of Faith and Foundation of Substance, that you establish every day by continuing to believe in the goodness of God, the goodness of the True Parents, and the goodness of the Principle.

The last word is: never give up on God because God will never give up on you. Don’t give up on God because you have problems with the Church, because you have problems with leadership, because you have problems with the Koreans. Don’t give up on God. If you don’t give up on God, you will rediscover the presence of God in your lives. You will rediscover

a renovated True Parents, a renewed Divine Principle, a True Family and brothers and sisters with true families.

Thank you and God bless you.

Dr. Antonio L. Betancourt is the Director of the Office for Peace and Security Affairs, UPF International, based in Washington, D.C. A member of the Unification Church since 1974, he and his wife, Kyoko participated in the 2075 Blessing in 1982 and have four adult children.