3. Building a Culture of Peace that Unites the Peoples of the Earth as One

World Scripture

O mankind! We created you from a single pair of a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes, that you might know each other [not that you might despise each other].
Qur’an 49.13

Let there be a small country with a few inhabitants. Though there be labor-saving contrivances, the people would not use them. Let the people mind death and not migrate far. Though there be boats and carriages, there would be no occasion to ride in them. Though there be armor and weapons, there would be no occasion to display them.

Let people revert to the practice of knotting ropes [instead of writing], and be contented with their food, pleased with their clothing, satisfied with their houses, and happy with their customs. Though there be a neighboring country in sight, and the people hear each other’s cocks crowing and dogs barking, they would grow old and die without having anything to do with each other.²³
Tao Te Ching 80 (Taoism)

When the eighty-four thousand kings of the eighty-four thousand cities of India are contented with their own territories and with their own kingly state and their own hoards of treasure, they will not attack one another or raise mutual strife. They will gain their thrones by the due accumulation of the merit of their former deeds; they will be satisfied with their own royal state, and will not destroy one another nor show their mettle by laying waste whole provinces. When all the eighty-four thousand kings of the eighty-four thousand capital cities of India think of their mutual welfare and feel mutual affection and joy…contented in their own domains… India will be prosperous, well-fed, pleasant, and populous.
Golden Light Sutra (Buddhism)

In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my heritage.”
Isaiah 19.23-25

For the development of a peaceful, friendly human family of nations with a rich variety of faith and political and economic systems, each of us has the responsibility to strive towards such harmony. There is no alternative.
Tenzin Gyatso, The Fourteenth Dalai Lama (Buddhism)

Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed;
That ignorance of each other’s ways and lives has been a common cause, throughout the history of mankind, of that suspicion and mistrust between the peoples of the world through which their differences have all too often broken into war…
That a peace based exclusively upon the political and economic arrangements of governments would not be a peace which could secure the unanimous, lasting and sincere support of the peoples of the world, and that the peace must therefore be founded, if it is not to fail, upon the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind.
Preamble to the Constitution of UNESCO

Peace is not something that you and I or a few great souls can create at once, by command. Even a million Christs or Krishnas could not do it. Try as he would, Lord Krishna could not prevent the great war between the Pandavas and Kauravas which is described in the Mahabharata. All humanity has to become Christ-like to bring peace on earth. When each one of us shapes his life according to the wisdom and example of a Christ, a Krishna, a Buddha, we can have peace here; not before…
So long as God’s children differentiate, “We are Indians and you are Americans; we are Germans, you are English,” so long will they be bound by delusion and the world divided. Much war and suffering and destruction will be prevented if we cease to emphasize differences and learn to love all without distinction or prejudice. Be more proud that you are made in the image of God than that you are of a certain nationality; for “American” and “Indian” and all the other nationalities are just outer coats, which in time will be discarded. But you are a child of God throughout eternity. Isn’t it better to teach that ideal to your children? It is the only way to peace: Establish the true ideals of peace in the schools, and live peace in your own life.
Paramahansa Yogananda (Hinduism)

World peace is inconceivable unless the world’s leaders come to recognize the interdependence in itself demands the abandonment of the politics of blocs, the sacrifice of all forms of economic, military or political imperialism, and the transformation of mutual distrust into collaboration. This is precisely the act proper to solidarity among individuals and nations.
Pope John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (Christianity)

Teachings of Sun Myung Moon

In the 21st century, people will not be able to exercise dominion on the earth, or even exist there, while disregarding the ultimate principle of the Creator. The future of humanity will require closer relationships among people. In the future people will have no choice but to live very closely together, transcending their region, nationality and race. In other words, the vision of global family will become a reality. People will not only have to understand others who have different religions, cultures, traditions and lifestyles; they will have to accept them and interrelate with them. No individual or group will be able to selfishly maintain its own sanctuary.
(219:9, August 24, 1991)

Today, on every level, boundaries cause division and conflict. If we can eliminate all the boundaries in this world, a world of peace would inevitably come about. We must recognize who owns those boundaries. Clearly, it is not God. It was the devil, Satan, who first created boundaries. Wherever a boundary exists, there is always the devil and his cohorts.
This is a result of the Human Fall, when the first human ancestors switched their lineage, and good and evil began to diverge from each other. When we look at the division between the East and the West, we see that different cultural spheres have led to antagonism at their boundaries and that the devil is encamped there. It was Satan, not God, who created boundaries, by digging all sorts of traps and enmeshing people in racial discrimination and evil cultures, histories, and traditions.
God’s desire is for a world of goodness and unity—a world of oneness in which all humanity lives as one great family. Boundaries have no place in such a world. In a world without boundaries, there can be no enemies. The concept of “enemy” entails the existence of boundaries.
When we love our enemies and make oneness with them, the boundaries between us will collapse. That is why God’s strategy and tactic has always been “Love your enemy.” There can be no greater strategy for peace than this. Throughout history, this incredible fact has escaped humanity’s understanding, and it has yet to be grasped even in modern times.
(October 3, 2003)

The spirit world does not acknowledge national borders; it transcends them. We were given the responsibility to lead this dispensation on earth; hence, we all have to go beyond national boundaries… We bring Asian people to live in the West and Western people to the Orient. By virtue of this work, Oriental spirits are able to live in the West and Western spirits can move to the East. Muslim spirits can visit the Christian world and Christian spirits can visit the Islamic world. Before [this work was done] they were separated from one another, but now they can come and go anywhere they want.
Movements to make external unity have come into being, like the European Union that permits Europeans to travel freely throughout Europe. No power can succeed in blocking this trend. The world can have a future only when people are free to move about and live anywhere on earth. Yet still America restricts immigration and the communists prevent their people from leaving. That is not our way in the Unification Church. We don’t say only Whites can join or that Blacks are not welcome. I come from Asia, but I don’t say that anyone who is not an Asian should leave. We are colorblind and recognize no borders.
(101:331-32, November 12, 1978)

Once true love is perfected in the human world, what possible political, economic, cultural, or environmental problems could persist? In the world of true love, every problem can be solved. It is a world of freedom, peace and happiness, replete with joy. It is the world of God’s ideal. It is a world where joy and happiness are magnified infinitely and eternally, and where everyone has the right to equal position, equal participation, and equal inheritance.

(294:65, June 11, 1998) In the future there will be no fighting. Up to now we have had useless fights centering on the self. People fought to rob each other. In the unified world under God’s sovereignty where people live for the sake of others, there will be no need for wars.

Brothers do not need to rob each other; rather a needy person will have to run away as others try to give him more than he can use…

Laws will all disappear. When all people govern themselves by love, they will observe the law automatically. If all people practice love for the sake of others, there will be no crime. Higher and lower become one, and front and back, left and right, all become one.
(224:173, November 24, 1991)

When minorities can receive equal benefit from the system, and when advanced nations supply the less advanced nations with technology in the spirit of helping them become economically independent, instead of exploiting them and their resources, then humankind will eliminate war and starvation. Then the conditions will be right for God’s love to blossom and open the hearts of all humankind to establish the world of peace.
We should go beyond racism and even overcome the whole world with this thought. In the future, the five races should become one. Because God’s love is one, and because God beholds beauty in oneness, God’s interest and affection cannot differ among the lands He created. Interracial marriage is a symbol of God’s love and will. Even the secular world recognizes that love does not respect national borders. How much more is it true in God’s dominion? God’s love is fundamentally different from the tragic bonds of love formed in a world historically dominated by power and authority. God’s love does not just seek individual security and self-interest. It is the way of dedication for the benefit of God, the world and all humankind.
(Blessing and Ideal Family 6.4.3)

For the sake of peace and human welfare, I propose that we build a passage for transit across the Bering Strait, where Satan has historically divided East and West, and North and South, and where the North American and Russian land masses are separated. This passage, which I call the “World Peace King Bridge and Tunnel,” will link an International Highway System that will allow people to travel on land from Africa’s Cape of Good Hope to Santiago, Chile, and from London to New York, across the Bering Strait, connecting the world as a single community.
God is warning that He will no longer tolerate separation and division. Carrying out this project will bind the world together as one village. It will tear down the manmade walls of race, culture, religion and country, and establish the world of peace that has been God’s cherished desire.
The United States and Russia can become as one. The European Union, China, India, Japan, Brazil and all nations, and also the world’s religions, can combine their energies to succeed in this project. The success of this project will be decisive in establishing the kingdom of the peaceful, ideal world, where people will no longer make war with each other.²⁴
(September 12, 2005)