President Tomihiro Tanaka’s Message for November 2025
Today, while we commemorate the many Ascended members (=blessed families who have passed away) who answered Heaven’s calling and devoted their lives on earth to Heaven in the history of the providence of salvation of Heavenly Parent, I express my gratitude that we can hold the Heavenly Japan Seonghwa Festival together with brothers and sisters nationwide.
I believe Heavenly Parent cherishes the achievements on earth of every Ascended members more than anyone else, with a heart of being proud of his children. I trust that all family members and relatives across the nation are spending this time resonating in prayer, along with cherished memories of their loved ones during their lifetime.
While today’s festival honors all the Ascended members, we are broadcasting from here at Oze Cemetery.
Here lie buried the first president of the church in Japan, Mr. and Mrs. Kuboki, along with all the successive presidents.
Before the memorial monument honoring our great predecessors, veteran warriors who fought tirelessly for the Salvation of the Homeland, holding the Divine Principle on the right and the Victory Over Communism Theory on the left, I bowed my head as one entrusted with the responsibility to face today’s trials. I offered prayers of gratitude to these predecessors who serve as spiritual shields protecting Heavenly Japan. And I received great courage to stand here today.
I express my heartfelt respect for the courageous figures of our predecessors who embodied the spirit of “Love Heaven, Love People, Love Your Country” and burn their lives to the fullest. As their junior, I am proud of them.
Today, together with all the Ascended members, we are granted this time of festival.
As we learn from the Word, the purpose of our life on earth lies in “eternal life.”
Both Rev. Sun Myung Moon, True Father, and Mrs. Hak Ja Han, True Mother, emphasize in their autobiographies the importance of the view of eternal life. They state that, especially for the younger generation, while learning knowledge and choosing a profession are important, we must first teach the value of eternal life.
For there is a world of difference between walking a life focused on eternal life and living with a fleeting, impulsive worldview that sees death as the end.
Needless to say, eternal life is a world of love.
As stated in today’s Word, “The earthly world is made of air, but the spirit world is a world of love.” It is also said, “If your spirit self is unprepared when you enter heaven, you won’t be able to breathe.” Just as we prepare our respiratory organs while in the womb to breathe the air of earthly life before birth, we must prepare the “respiratory organs for the world of love” before going to the spirit world.
It was said, “It’s like babies destroying their own home to come out of the womb.”
【The Tanaka Family Birth Experience】
My wife is here with me today. She has very strong preferences regarding childbirth… She insisted on giving birth at a midwifery clinic rather than a hospital, and both our children were born there.
That midwifery clinic utilized the Lamaze method, a childbirth program. It guides the mother’s breathing to ease the pain during childbirth and supports the baby’s passage through the birth canal.
There are stages to it: breathing techniques when contractions start, when they become frequent, once you enter the delivery room, and when the baby is visible—I think there were five stages total. Husbands start practicing them together with their wives about a month beforehand. Hii-hoo, ha-hoo…
Why do husbands practice too? Because the wife’s breathing gets irregular from the childbirth pain. So, the husband guides her breathing from beside her. For example, the midwife says, “Okay, husband, we’re entering stage four now~”. After our first child was born, the midwife praised me, saying, “You were perfect, sir.”
This story is beside the point, but during the birth of my first child, I witnessed the greatest mystery of my life. I watch birth scenes in dramas, and the moment of childbirth fills me with joy and moves me, as if I’ve touched a mysterious world. That feeling will linger with me throughout my life.
It’s the moment that tiny, newly born life lets out its first cry, and every organ in its body instantly switches to breathing air through its lungs. A life form that had lived in water for ten months and ten days suddenly begins to breathe with its lungs. That’s why if a baby doesn’t cry, you have to make him/her cry, even if you have to pat him/her. It truly felt like witnessing the mystery of the vast universe right before my eyes. This mysterious mechanism remains unexplained to this day.
Faced with the incredibly precise blueprint where the union of one sperm and one egg orchestrates the mystery of life’s birth, I couldn’t help but become conscious of the Creator’s existence.
Rev. Sun Myung Moon said that every husband should attend the birth of a child with his wife at least once. I recommend this to all young men. However, I should add that once you face childbirth together, you’ll deeply feel indebted to your wife. Seeing your wife endure the agony of childbirth to bring new life into the world, you’ll not be able to hold your head high in front of her for the rest of your life.
【Age in the love】
Now, returning to our topic, come to think of it, the ten months and ten days spent in the water could also be seen as a preparatory period for living a hundred years of age in the air.
And from the perspective of eternal life, Age in the air can be seen as a preparatory period for the Age in the love where we shed the physical body and live in the world of love in the spirit world. This connects to the earlier message about “preparing the respiratory organs for the world of love.” The idea is that if you journey to the spirit world without developing these, you will “be unable to breathe.”
【A Life of Living for the Sake of Others】
The path that guarantees happiness in eternal life, centered on this value of love, is a life of “living for the sake of others” on earth. This is the sole essential point.
The core value True Parents taught throughout their lives is the value of “living for the sake of others,” and it was that the joy arising from this guarantees true happiness.
As stated in the Family Pledge we recite every day, we are to be filial sons and daughters in our family, patriots in our nation, saints in the world, and divine sons and daughters in Heaven and Earth. The essence of being a filial son and daughter, a patriot, a saint, or a divine son and daughter is all the same: a life of living for the sake of others. Only the scope of the object differs.
In our earthly life, we must grasp that eternal joy lies precisely in living for the sake of others. This is the core that leads to eternal life.
【This is the Spirit World】
True Parents’ words state it thus:
“Most people agree that we will enter the spirit world upon our death. What does that mean? The spirit world is not just the dwelling place of the departed. It is connected to true love. The starting point of God’s creation is true love. Therefore, once we secure true love in the physical world, it will be secured in the spirit world as well. Because it is connected to true love, the spirit world is not the world of death. This alone tells us how powerful true love is. “(January 23, 1998, Seoul, Korea, Olympic Park Weightlifting Stadium, Welcoming ceremony for the victory of the Blessing of 40 million Couples and Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Word Hoondok Rally)
This is the Word spoken in 1998.
“Seonghwa” is our church’s core brand value.
The spirit world definitely exists. The world after death definitely exists. Moreover, it is also said that our sphere of life here on earth is the spirit world. This means that those who live in true love are already connected to eternal life.
Love cannot exist alone. The joy of love is attained only through a counterpart. If we can resonate with the joy of love while eternally binding ourselves in a relationship of true love with the Ascended members, then this place is already the spirit world.
Living together even after passing away is our Seonghwa brand.
Even if divided between the spirit world and the earthly world, what matters more than which realm one is in is whether one is within true love.
It is no exaggeration to say that we, born into this world, are already within eternal life.
However, the greatest mission achievable only on earth is the completion of the spirit self. In other words, it is the completion of love. Expressed differently, it is the completion of the Four Great Realms of Heart: children’s love, sibling love, conjugal love, and parents’ love. We must take responsibility for these ourselves.
People are born into parents’ love and grow up supported by many prayers. As they mature, they shift from a position of being loved and experiencing happiness to realizing that true, eternal happiness comes only through loving others. In our daily lives, we experience that happiness resides in the smiles of our loved ones.
【Building Relationships with the Ascended members】
Considering this, while efforts in relationships with people on earth are important, I believe it is equally vital to live a life building the Four Great Realms of Heart, even in our relationship with the Ascended members. Hearing the testimonies of the second generation during the recent CheonShim Won special night vigil prayer reinforces this conviction.
Observing how they restore their relationships with their fathers and mothers who have already passed away through Cheon Shim Won prayers, and their heartfelt connection to Heavenly Parent, according to the degree of recovered heartfelt bond with True Mother, further deepens this feeling.
To deepen our relationship with the Ascended members, earthly people need to make an effort.
In particular, I believe it is important to visit places of memories where Ascended members built during their lifetime.
No matter how much time passes, the feelings and sentiments experienced in those places remain eternal.
Standing once again in those places of memory and conversing with them may also bring new insights into you.
After True Father’s Holy Ascension, True Mother immediately traveled across the United States from the West Coast to the East Coast, visiting places she had been with True Father. She also went to Europe, visiting many mountains while continuing to talk with True Father.
She spoke of how True Father’s thoughts became her thoughts, and her thoughts became True Father’s thoughts. I believe it is important for us, even amidst the busyness of the Will, to find such time.
【Do Not Treat Them as the Past】
The crucial point is that we must not treat the Ascended members as figures of the past. Even after their Holy Ascension, they remain comrades advancing Heavenly providence together with us, and eternal partners in love.
Would it not be disrespectful to our comrades working together for the Heaven and Earth Unification Operation to lock them away in albums, making them objects to reminisce about on anniversaries?
The Ascended are surely watching over us on earth, connected with us in the realm of love. If they have any desires they left in the earthly world, they will be hoping for their realization and assist you.
【Beyond every trial, there is always a blessing God prepared】
Currently, the Family Federation is facing a great trial. Unexpectedly, in Korea, True Mother has been placed in detention center, and today is the 14th day. I think you must be feeling like screaming, “Why has such a situation happened?”
When we look back through human history, the more a religion has faced great persecution and trials, the more it has developed and powerfully guided history.
True Father taught that when we face trials, it is also the moment when the door of a new age is open—and those who open it must have strong faith and look ahead to the future.
When I met with Pastor Paula White, Senior Advisor to the White House Faith Office in the United States, she said these words to me:
“You are standing in the midst of trials, but God has placed you there because He knows you can overcome them. He has raised you up so that you can overcome the national persecution the church is facing. Beyond every trial, there is a blessing that God has prepared. Believe this and move forward. No one has ever become a great leader without passing through trials.”
Pastor Paula White has genuine faith, and I humbly accepted her words of encouragement.
Brothers and sisters, let us face these trials without fear. Heaven has prepared blessings for us, filled with hope for the future. Together with all our brothers and sisters across Japan and the Ascended —let us make a new beginning toward there.
I offer this message as the officiator, praying that today’s festival may become a day of comfort for the Ascended in heaven and taking a new step forward with a heart of gratitude together and hoping absolute good spirits will powerfully assist us.
Thank you very much.
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