This "foreword" is addressed to the Unificationist WonHwaDoist who will study this book not only for his own information, but mainly for the purpose of instructing his students in the Philosophy of WonHwaDo. You should know what this book is and what it isn't, in order that it can be most useful to you.

Firstly, the material presented here is based upon lectures given to advanced Unificationist Wonhwa Do instructors in seven day seminars. These lectures were meant to ground the advanced practitioners in the Principle of Harmony, in order that they might be able to educate and guide their non-Unificationist students in a principled manner. This has become necessary as the Wonhwa Do providence advances and more and more practitioners approach the brown and black belt levels without understanding the Principle and feeling committed to its ideals. Therefore, it has been necessary to articulate the Principle of Harmony more explicitly than before. This book contains material which is a more full development of the Grandmaster's statement in the first version of the Wonhwa Do manual in 1979. In the initial pages of that manual, it was stated that:

"Unification Thought is the central guiding idea in Wonhwa Do . . . This thought includes the essentials of various traditional and religious thoughts. It is rich with deep insight and gives a new view of world history.

"It is called Unification Thought because it contributes to the establishment of human welfare and a new human culture by the unification of various other thoughts. As we can see, traditional philosophies and value systems have lost the persuasive power with which to overcome the uncertainty and cultural crises of mankind.

"Unification Thought is directed towards solving the real problems of society. Thus, it gives new light to the world and offers a bright future to humanity."

The Principle of Harmony - which provides the basis for the Philosophy of Wonhwa Do - is based mainly upon the section on "Cosmic Law" in the Ontology chapter of the Explaining Unification Thought text. Wonhwa Do's view of the "Origin of Harmony" is based upon the "Theory of the Original Image" in the same text. The Wonhwa Do view of Man is based upon the Unification Thought Theory of Original Human Nature; the Wonhwa Do views of Ethics, Art, Education and History are all based on the Unification Thought theories of the same names. They are adapted for presentation to martial arts audiences however. There is an accompanying set of 200 slides (English only) which will allow the instructor to explain this material. However, because the culture, religion, philosophy and language of each Wonhwa Do mission nation is different, it is the responsibility of individual instructors to adapt the presentation to their unique situations.

Secondly, in committing this material to written form, it has been necessary to adapt the presentation in order to make it more appropriate for non-Unificationist audiences. Therefore, many more "internal" matters which have to do with Wonhwa Do and the restoration life-style have been deleted from the text. This was particularly necessary in the chapters on ethics and history.

At the same time, despite agnostic or even atheistic tendencies of some people and nations, the Grandmaster prefers to state the most basic points of the Principle of Harmony in a firm and clear manner. Without that, the Principle of Harmony would be deprived of its most distinctive features and rendered nearly innocuous and incapable of providing the foundation for a new and higher view of values in the martial arts. The most essential feature in this regard is the root of Wonhwa Do in the "Shimjung" of God. Despite the fact that martial arts do not generally place God at the center of their philosophy, Wonhwa Do absolutely does; there is no getting around it. It would be impossible to delete this point from this book and still call it an outline of the Principle of Harmony. The only concession that it is possible to make in this initial printed text is to use the term "Original Being" (from Unification Thought) or "Origin" (from Zen Buddhism) in place of the term "God".

Father stresses the centrality of God in all things, to all people. To scientists, he speaks about God as the origin of the absolute values, which should guide all scientific endeavour. To politicians, he speaks about God as the parent of all the world's people. Likewise, in the martial arts, Wonhwa Do aims to educate its practitioners in a God-centered view of life and values. To do less that this would be to fall short of the purpose of Wonhwa Do.

Finally, for a Unificationist who has some difficulty with the combative spirituality embodied by Wonhwa Do, we quote some internal guidance from Rev. Yo Han Lee's Faith and Life book.

" . . . to advance the providence of restoration through indemnity, we must know that indemnity means in fact to FIGHT. I am a self that has two masters. Man should only be dominated by the absolute God Himself. We have declared war when we learn that we are bound to evil and decide to separate from the un-principled anti-master . . . tear away from completely, to return, to be re-connected to our original Creator. With this purpose we have started our life of faith. We have declared a war. The battles that follow that declaration are indemnity."

We hope that this foreward will be helpful to the Unificationist Wonhwa Doist who reads this book. God bless you in your efforts to advance the Wonhwa do dispensation!