#62 - Speaking About Sex to 300,000 People | Dr. Robert Kittel
For most people, sex education, abstinence, and purity education aren’t comfortable topics to talk about. Each country and culture have their own views and takes about these, and some might even consider this topic not only sensitive but even taboo. However, we must realize how important it is to understand cultural differences that have layers upon layers of traditions, beliefs, and varying nuances to deliver the message correctly.
Sex plays an important role in our life, so it’s important to promote sexual sanity and further educate people about sexual purity. For today’s episode, Dr. Kittel will be sharing his insights on what drives his desire to be a filial child’s True Parents, and his journey to different countries while educating them about purity education.
We will also be discussing the CC model or Condoms and Consent, the concept of safe sex, the four realms of the heart, and the virtue of filial piety. We will also be touching on the importance of the expression of love and relationship with family or parents. Listen to this episode to learn more!
Teaching young people to honor their parents is the foundation for sexual purity.
CC model: Condoms and Consent.
Four realms of heart: Parental love, Conjugal love, Siblings' love, and Filial love.
The ultimate foundation is the parental love itself, the filial love itself
The brother-sister relationship is really important because it's a relationship of love of opposite sexes but doesn't involve sexuality.
Marriage gives stability to our society.
The purpose of human sexuality is to bring a man and a woman together and bond them in the image of God.
There is a purpose of human sexuality that includes pleasure, procreation, reproduction, the existence of the species.
Love creates lineage.
Freedom has to be connected with responsibility.
You can dishonor your parents and your family by misusing sex.
Episode Transcript:
Andrew Love
Welcome back to Love, Life and Legacy, the official podcast of the universe. And we help people navigate these hyper sexualized times of ours. And in today's episode, we have a true crusader. This man, his name is Dr. Robert Kittel, has been working on the front lines of helping to promote sexual sanity. Stop giving your sex away, stop feeling isolated, stop cheapening the human experience and start experiencing everything that God has in store for you by heightening your standards and living up to those standards. Dr. Robert Kittel started in America but then he expanded his vision to Southeast Asia. As we'll get into, he's spoken in front of hundreds of thousands of people at a time about sexual purity which is quite a feat, and something I didn't even know is possible until I heard him say this stuff, so please learn from this man. He's at the age where many people consider retiring and it's like Dr. Kittel's only getting started. He's ramping up. He's fired up. So let's give it up to Dr. Robert Kittel.
Sammy Uyama
Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome welcome welcome. We're here for a really special episode with you guys. We're interviewing the one, the only, literally the only, when people say that sometimes they don't really mean it but we mean it, the only Dr. Robert Kittel, are generously sharing with us his time and to impart us his wisdom. It's a pleasure to have you with us, Dr. Kittel.
Dr. Robert Kittel
My pleasure to be here, Sammy. Thank you.
Sammy Uyama
And of course, Andrew. Yes, that guy.
Andrew Love
Yes, I'm tagging along.
Sammy Uyama
And so, Andrew, why don't you introduce why we have Dr. Kittel on?
Andrew Love
Dr. Kittel has been at a few of our events speaking, and he's very passionate about abstinence education, purity education that is a taboo topic in America these days. There's less and less emphasis on that as even being a possibility for people, the standards are so low in America, they're like: That's not even possible. They don't even try to teach abstinence, just tell them about how to use a condom, show them use a cucumber, whatever. So we've heard that lower the size of the events of these purity stadium events going on in Southeast Asia. But more than that, it's you as a person, you're a very real person as well.
Andrew Love
We also know that there's stuff going on in the ground. Events don't necessarily fix the problem, but just the fact that you can have these events is very impressive, but also, you're on the ground and you're seeing a totally different vantage point than most people about the nature of absolute sex and the impact of the eastern perspective of sexuality, the good stuff, and also their challenges. I'd love to hear about that. You just have a vantage point from being a pie on the stage and in a very big way, and look at this guy, but you're also not that guy, you're really a real person who really just cares about God, or is trying to help people in a very sincere way.
Andrew Love
So you're on the ground talking to people too. Usually, it's one or the other. You're a man of the people, or you're a man in a suit on a stage talking, but you can't be both. But I really feel you're both and you do both very, very well. I was really excited to have you. So I wanted to first paint a picture, especially all the western listeners as to what these big events look like, these purity events you've been putting on, because I'm sure you didn't start with stadiums, but how did it start? And then how did it progress into the kind of movement that it did? Because you've been an integral component, you've been on the ground since the beginning.
Dr. Robert Kittel
Underground or on the ground?
Andrew Love
Oh, you're omnipresent. You're everywhere.
Dr. Robert Kittel
Thank you, thank you, Andrew, and Sammy for having this. I respect what you're doing in High Noon, I think it's important to have this bold message that has thought and intellect behind it, and the passion and the clarity of purpose is really, really important for young people to have that. So I'm honored to be on, thank you for that. Pure love education, I had done that in the United States before coming to Asia, and basically just brought the same concept here. It does depend on the culture that you're in.
Dr. Robert Kittel
When I was working in a Muslim country, then they're actually quite open to that. But then the concept of sexual purity is strong and clear. The prohibition of fornication and adultery are very clear. So if you are a practicing Muslims, these are pretty much up in your culture and in your scenario, and the way you do it. They are still struggling with that. The real kind of paradigm shift came when we started to work in a Buddhist country in Thailand, and because we had a foundation of working with young people, we reached out into the public schools and started working with the Government Department of Education particularly.
Dr. Robert Kittel
We didn't go in there with the answers. That was not our approach. We went in there as how can we work together, then how can we partner to make it better? We have something we can offer, and the government surely surely has something that they can offer. And what we did, surprising to me was, they wanted to rewrite the Pure Love Pledge. We thought: Well, okay, let's sit down and kind of what do you want in it? What do we want, can we find common ground? and then we did that in the government because it's a Buddhist country, because they have a kingdom there, because they honor and respect their king, they wanted that as the approach for young people, that if they're going to make this Pledge of Purity, then also they wanted a pledge of honoring and respecting their king.
Dr. Robert Kittel
And we thought that's fine because the king is the parent of the country and for us, that works together. If that's what they want, then let's put that in there. And then the Buddhist concept of the right path or the right way, the right moniker, the Eightfold Path, so they wanted young people to have some wordage that could connect to their religious heritage tradition. We thought, well, that's okay, because we also talked about the right principle, the right way. We found out that they're using different words, but actually, we're aiming at the same overall concepts and so that being able to work together was a big, big plus. In fact, without it, you can't work with the government.
Dr. Robert Kittel
When we went to Palau, in the Philippines, they pretty much took it as it is, and they have a very strong Pure Love Pledge. Pretty much the way it is, and we're working with the governments of Christian nations, and so they're open to that. When we went to Palau, they were hesitant with the strongness of the direct message of sexual purity. They felt it would be too strong, I think, primarily because there's a lot of sexual promiscuity within the culture,and so they were uncomfortable with that. The government, we're working with the Office of the President in this case, and we said: What would you like? And they said: Well, we like the concept of filial piety honor compared. Do they have a tribal Messiah, or tribal culture and matriarchal culture actually, so honoring the mother is even more important.
Dr. Robert Kittel
We said, that's fine too. You can teach young people to honor their parents, and that is really the foundation for sexual purity. In the West, the model that we use, and I was even creating a curriculum for that was the CC model: Condoms and Consent. When you break that down, it's really a medical approach, or a sociological reasoning, but they are both focusing on the individual. Don't get a disease, don't get pregnant, or don't get somebody pregnant, don't get accused later on. It boils down to, you're protecting yourself either physically or emotionally in one way or the other.
Dr. Robert Kittel
That's where the safe sex comes from, that concept of safe sex. But the idea of filial piety goes actually deeper and more foundational than that. We talked about the four realms of heart, the parental love, then the conjugal love, that's the sexual side. And then before that there is the siblings' love, and even before that is the children's love, the filial love. When we look at it in that sense, we realized the foundation of sexual purity is the two previous loves. The ultimate foundation is the parental love itself, the filial love itself, and that resonated with the culture of Asia. That is an Asian thing. It's a Confucian thing. As you've mentioned earlier, in our talk before the show, Andrew, it's a tribal thing. It's part of the tribe, and it's the role of the adhesiveness that keeps the culture together. So it's okay to talk about it here.
Andrew Love
Can I pick your brain about that real quick? Because this is something that really piqued my interest when I heard you speaking at our 24 hours summit. I just want to emphasize that this is not in most people's awareness. I mean, most people that I know, maybe I'm hanging out with the wrong people, but you would equate filial piety together with absolute sex or sexual integrity, or something. Your relationship with your parents and sex are like worlds apart, especially now, honestly in the West, where it is so individualistic that you don't consult with your parents in any way, shape or form about who you're dating or whatever, just based on your feelings.
Andrew Love
So I'd be very interested to unpack that a bit because it's a really deep point and you emphasized it. It really shocked me. In the 24-hour summit, there's two things that I remember. One thing that Reverend Compton said, one thing that you said, and I was listening to people talk for 24 hours, and those are the two things that stuck out, and I wanted to really figure out what this meant, please help. I guess the Western world understands, because we're pretty weak on filial piety, as you may notice. Much better in the East than the West, but how are those two things connected: sexuality and filial piety? Please explain.
Dr. Robert Kittel
For me also, it was regulatory and trying to make that connection, and trying to find something more powerful. I could see that the persuasive power of sexual purity just for the individual, had limited impact. That was obvious. It wasn't that powerful. And so I kept searching for more deeper understanding, and the real linchpin was when Mother appointed me as the Chairman or President of the Youth and Students for Peace. And then she said: I would like you to develop original nature education. Then she said, that would be the education that Adam and Eve should have had in the Garden of Eden that would have prevented the fall, and I go: That's interesting.
Dr. Robert Kittel
Actually that's a really good direction to go into. So I started looking at that, and then I realized that the sexual side of the fall wasn't the cause of the fall, it's a result of something much deeper. The sexual side of the fall was the cause of two lineages. That's clear that there are now two lineages, there's a good and an evil. One centered on God, originally, has been unfruitful and yet now the new one centered on fate. So you have the two lineages that are caused by the sexuality being misused in the Garden of Eden, that was clear. But there had to be something deeper than that, that actually caused that. And then I started to just look, reread the Bible again, and it was a simple reread, and then suddenly, all these insights came out.
Dr. Robert Kittel
I was surprised by myself to realize what is being understood. I looked at Adam and Eve, and I said, God gave the commandment, do not eat but that's the external side of the commandment. The internal part of that do not eat commandment is a relationship between God and Adam as a parent and a child. So in order for Adam to keep that commandment, he has to have an artistic relationship with God. If there's no artistic relationship between God and Adam, then the impact of the commandment, the power of the commandment, will not be very forceful. So then I thought, what did Adam fail to do? Why didn't Adam have this filial relationship with God? And then all of these lights are going off? And I'm going: How did Adam respond when God gave Adam the commandment? And that means, what did he say, what did he do?
Dr. Robert Kittel
Did he say thank you? No. Did he say, I got some questions here, could we talk about this a little bit more? No. He could even question God, look at the answer. Why not? What are you doing? And so this lack of dialogue, lack of communication between God as the parent and the child to me, diluted the impact of the commandment. It had no power because we know that give and take creates power. So if there's no give and take between God and Adam, there's no power for the commandment to take hold, no power at all.
Dr. Robert Kittel
Then I realized that Adam, what should he have done, he should have seen what God had done or sacrificed, or given already, and acknowledged that and then his heart to communicate would be open. God made Adam and Eve in the image of God, we know that from the Bible. He gave him the three great blessings. Dominion, take dominion over everything, he created a garden for them, gave them things to eat, he breathed His Spirit into them. He said, you can name all the things of creation and then he gave Eve to Adam, leave your father, your mother, think about your wife. And we can go into that, because that also unpacks that filial piety thing.
Dr. Robert Kittel
But then I realized, God is sacrificing again and again and again. But Adam isn't letting the sacrifice of the parent come into his heart. So it's really not God's lack of sacrifice. The Bible says, on the sixth day, God rested. It doesn't mean he's tired, it means he's sacrificed everything he has. He has nothing more to give, is what it really means. And so then I realized, this lack of communication, if you look at it sociologically, it's a right on, talk to the parents, what is your communication relationship with your children? If that's healthy, you can more than likely have the children grow up healthy and strong.
Dr. Robert Kittel
So the communication is part of it. The other side of it, is that if there's this love relationship between the parent and the child through this communication, then the instruction or the commandment that the parents are giving to the children will be seen as an expression of love. If that love isn't there, and the parents are giving commandments, then it's going to be oppression. You just want to control me, you want to dominate me, and that's how it will be read, not the intention of the parent, but the receptivity of that from the child. So this connection of the love and law together, bringing them together, gives the power to the commandment- do not eat, if it had been there, and then it wasn't. And then that multiplies.
Dr. Robert Kittel
The next level of love is the parent, or the brother and sister relationship. And Eve obviously had questions, which she wanted to know more but who did she turn to? Who did she ask her question to? Who was the object of her question? Not her older brother. Not God. Her father, her parents, the Archangel? That tells you that the heartistic relationship, again, between the parent and the child, between Eve and her parent: God, and between Eve and her older brother, that communication, or that she's having all kinds of communication with the archangel. All kinds of questions and getting the wrong advice, because she asked the wrong person. It's that simple.
Andrew Love
It is. And it's telling about our modern society, and how High Noon has evolved to helping people understand that. That freedom is when you start reconnecting to your parents. We have a men's group where men talk with each other, they're learning that realm of heart of connecting with brothers, and we have a women's group working on the sister level and restoring those relationships. That's actually very healing for people. I never really equated that necessarily to the origin story of humanity. But it actually paints a very clear picture, if that's where things began, then that's where things need to be restored. Those are the relationships that need to be healed. That's very insightful. And that all came from a command that you got, that was a loving command to create this new education that you could have griped about.
Andrew Love
Original education, that's so abstract. That if you stuck in your head, you could have complained, but instead he turned into revelation after revelation of your own understanding about a story that you've heard probably 100,000 times before that, but you couldn't gain access to this knowledge, because that's a really cool story. I mean, on many levels, it's so cool.
Dr. Robert Kittel
Yeah, that was the catalyst. Clearly the catalyst to try to attend to Mother in this request that she had given. The brother- sister relationship is really important because it's a relationship of love of opposite sexes, that doesn't involve sexuality. And that is the overwhelming majority of your experience, that you're going to have sex with one person, but you're going to have thousands and millions of men and women of the opposite sex. So how do you develop this heart to love someone from the opposite sex limiting and not allowing the sexuality to be part of that? That's really important. Where did that come from? That comes from the heart of the parent, and it comes from the creation of a lineage.
Dr. Robert Kittel
If the parents want their lineage to be bequeathed, then that lineage needs to be singular. Once it starts breaking and fracturing, then again, the power of the lineage will be diluted. And you can see that immediately within the first generation, if there's a couple that is marriage fractures, then it fractures all the relationships of the relatives as well. And in many cases, even the inheritance that the parents would want to give to that child is going to be uncertain. And the support group that would come, from the relatives and from that family would also be fractured.
Dr. Robert Kittel
So it's really important that this horizontal love between the different sexes be very clear. What is sexual and what is not sexual? And there's only one partner, one person that you should have a sexual relationship with. That needs to be very clear. The question is why? And the answer is simple: Because there's only one God, and you should have one lineage. So if you've got one God and one lineage, then how many husbands and wives should you have?
Dr. Robert Kittel
If you want that lineage to be strong and clear, then the lineage becomes part of the strengthening process of that purity of sexuality rather than just purity for the sake of the purity. It takes it out of the immediate realm of this immediate time, immediacy of time, and it puts it into a historical, the lineage and what will I bequeath to my children? What lineage will I give to my children? So it takes the emphasis not just on the immediacy of the issue but on the longevity, and it takes his vertical historical time within that lineage process. So lineage is an important part of this purity element as well.
Andrew Love
Yes, and that's honestly, in many ways, science is catching up to religion to explain why that's important because even the purity of lineage, there's the DNA aspect which is more material based and more based on stuff that you can measure. But they're also starting to figure out that the purity of the relationship that came before pregnancy and what was going on environmentally within the individuals, within the couple, and really impacts the type of offspring that they have and the type of journey that their kids have. It's really important, the type of individuals that you are prior to having kids because pure lineage can seem hard to grasp, especially for a younger person, but like epi-genetics and all that.
Andrew Love
They're all proving just what you're talking about, in a very real time way that if you would like to give the best of your past to your future, then you need to really be clear and give the best of yourself to the person that you're creating, and that formulates a human out of those two entities. It's very present tense, because sometimes, honestly, the story of the fall is a little bit hard to relate to. I always think about, do they have shoes back then? Do they wear hats? Was there any fashion back then? You get lost in the details, because it's so kind of difficult to imagine. But when you put the blueprint of that origin story together with the blueprint of people's present day experience, it's so similar and the repercussions are the same. They're identical to what happens if you do listen to that godliness from your parents, and whether you disobey that the results would be the same as the story.
Dr. Robert Kittel
Exactly. You're exactly right, Andrew. This is true. The sociological studies that I have read are unanimous, that marriage and family are good for kids. It's unquestioned. Decades of research, thousands of peer reviews, articles, there's no doubt about that. In fact, even the sociologists, the problem is you cannot take sociological data alone and convince religious people, it doesn't work. Some people maybe, but if you're deeply religious, it's not going to be the linchpin that will bring you into it.
Dr. Robert Kittel
So even I read in sociological studies, they are asking the religious people to please redo their theology of marriage and family. That's actually an important contribution that I think we can make in this area, others are working in the area as well. But the importance of lineage, that means the purpose of sexuality now takes on a very different purpose, and that needs to be very, very clear. You can go back and look at the ladder that we build of sexuality, starting with atoms, protons and electrons. You've got this plus and minus right there.
Dr. Robert Kittel
What is the purpose of that? Well, its existence, that you can't have an atom unless you have a proton and electron. So existence is based on this polarity. I shouldn't use the word clarity, but this pair system principle. Interestingly, the atom has a nucleus that has protons and neutrons in the nucleus. The neutron has the weight of the proton and no charge, so it's somehow the proton and electron, I use the word, the proton and the electron got married. And it's interesting, but the neutron is what gives stability to the atom to the institution of marriage, if we took that and just from that alone, and extrapolate that, well marriage gives stability to our society. That's true. That's really, really true.
Dr. Robert Kittel
But then you go to the next level in plants, and you get the statement on the pistol. And the purpose of that is reproduction. Okay, they have to reproduce, they have to have fruit. Go to the next level of the ladder, and you've got animals, and what is the purpose of animal sex? And people will say, of course to have offspring. And that's true and pleasure, as well. So pleasure and procreation are there. And then ask them, what is the purpose of human sexuality? And they'll say: Well, pleasure and procreation, and then you'll say: Well, no, that's abnormal sex. But human sex should add something to it, it will include that. So the pleasure and procreation of animals includes reproduction, includes existence, but then they're all there building on that.
Dr. Robert Kittel
So what is the purpose of human sexuality? What is its ultimate purpose? And the purpose is really I realized is to bring a man and a woman together, and bond them in the image of God. Bond them together. Animals don't do that. So in the animal world, you can have sex and die. The salmon spawn and die, and that's okay because there's nothing beyond that. And in the mammal world, only they have sex during estrus when when the woman is fertile. But in human sexuality, it's very interesting because we have sex after the woman's in fertile. The woman cannot have kids, but we're still having sex animals. Don't do that.
Dr. Robert Kittel
So there is a purpose of human sexuality that includes pleasure, procreation, reproduction, existence of the species, but also something more, and that's man and a woman coming together to be in the image of God. And that image of God means the lineage of God, that we are connected to the lineage of God. That lineage has to be singular to be powerful and clear. So there's one God, and there should be there for one lineage, and therefore the question of how many men or women? How many husbands and wives? Well, the answer is a very, very clear: one. Because once you share that sexuality, that sexuality creates love, as Father said, yes. And it creates lineage.
Dr. Robert Kittel
Love creates lineage. So if you misuse love, you create another lineage, and suddenly your lineage is fractured, and then it becomes less powerful within you as a motivating factor.
Sammy Uyama
Wow. That's pretty amazing. I'm curious. So this is the kind of education you've given in Asia for, I'm not sure how long, but what kind of reception is it? I imagine in a lot of these countries, sex is not such a openly discussed topic. So to talk about sex so frankly like this, what kind of response do you actually get?
Dr. Robert Kittel
I remember when I was in India, I was invited by the head of the religious order that they were there.... And I was speaking to about 300,000 people.
Sammy Uyama
That's a lot of people. For the record, of you listening in.
Dr. Robert Kittel
India is interesting, because India invented the zero. Because the Romans, they don't have a big family. So for them, 10 or 20 is okay, and in Roman numbers, you can count up to 20 easily, but how can you count millions of people in the Roman numeral system? You can't do it. So the Indians invented zero anyway, because they have millions and millions and millions of people. So they needed to count them, and they can't do with the Roman System. So anyway, we had about 300,000 people there and I just wonder what am I going to talk about. So I just started to read the pure love pledge, the American version, line by line. The love between a man and a woman is a sacred gift from God, they applauded. And then I would explain that and then the next verse, and I took it line by line, and I realized this is common ground that if we handle it correctly, if we miss handle it, it will be working against us also.
Dr. Robert Kittel
So we've got to be careful, we got to know our audience. And I know that the family is strong in India. I know that sexuality is not normally talked about, but I have the privilege of being a non- Indian Westerner so I can speak about that. Knowing your audience is really, really important. And then you can craft your message so that it can be received, and if you don't do that, you don't know your audience and your message misquoted or misstatement might have the opposite effect of what you're trying to do. And then again, it depends, in the Philippines as a Christian culture, so we can use the Bible a lot, and we quote from other verses as well. The different religious scriptures, we can quote from all of them on this issue.
Dr. Robert Kittel
They're all very clear, actually, it's the common point of religion. Number one, they all talk about honoring your parents, your father and mother, as the Bible does. All of them talk about that. They all talk about the prohibition, warning of sexuality outside of marriage, and they do so in the strongest language, almost the life and death type terminology: Don't do it. They talk about the sacredness of marriage. Every religion has a marriage ceremony, their ceremonies are different. Yes, they are. Some of them light candles and make prayers, and some of them read scriptures and some of them have beads, and some of them have fires and walk around this and tie strings, and they do it in different ways. That's fine, but the concept of marriage is central to every religion. It's a common point that we can work together on.
Andrew Love
First of all, 300,000 people, I'm still stuck on that. That's an enormous amount of people. And so you've adapted this message for different audiences, like you said, you did your research, and you've given this to different cultural backgrounds. What do you see as working, like when you do these big stadium talks, a lot of times it can feel, simultaneously while we're having this conversation and it's great, but I imagine it's also possible to feel the impact of how much can just one talk do? Every culture has a lot of problems with sexuality. I know there's a lot of things going on in India.
Andrew Love
Every culture, in every society, in every country has issues with sexuality, so I'd love to hear from you on your on the ground boots. When you're working with these countries, what do you see as some major roadblocks? And also, I would love to hear about some of your victories about some cultures that are making some progress in this fight, to create more stable families, healthier sexuality, I'd love to hear both, some of the challenges and some of the victories, if you don't mind. Because you're very well versed, and I guess the countries that you're really focusing on.
Dr. Robert Kittel
And that's a very important question that you asked, let's call it, and it's the shortfall of most NGOs. How do you show the impact of your success? I've struggled with this, and I've come to the point where we've got to deal with it. We had a program in Thailand before the pandemic started. These were the leaders of our movement, and we had a Military General whose ADC to the king. We had a lady who is a big businesswoman in Thailand, a media magnate signing with very high level people, and it was about maybe 15 of us, a small group, and military generals and police officers. They all came and said the same thing, they said: We really like what you're doing. We really like it. But we cannot help you unless you can prove what you are doing. We need the data, we need the statistics. And that's how governments work, and they know that because they are part of the government.
Dr. Robert Kittel
We have a chief district officer who has been with us for many years and helping us, and he said, this is how they work. So then when I came back to the Philippines, let me tell a little bit more about Thailand. When we went there, I attended programs that we had done in the school system, and afterwards talked to the teachers. The teachers told me, we are watching the data. That's what they do. That's the government's job. And they say, year by year, the situation with young people is getting worse, we can see the data. How many people drop out of school? How many drug addicts? How many sexual pregnancies? How many abortions? How many suicides? And they see the data, so they know it's getting worse.
Dr. Robert Kittel
It's not a question in their mind. And it's like, they are the parent, if they're the government, and they are the parent of that country, and they want to solve the problem. No parent wants to see their child die slowly, that would be worse, and that's what they're doing. And so the government is trying, and then they are inviting other people, not only us, but many other groups as well. They told me: Your program is the best, but we need the data. We've got to document that. And so when I came back to the Philippines, I said, okay let's do that. Let's document our success. And we started an online education program. It's for adult educators. But okay, let's start there.
Dr. Robert Kittel
Based on our 12 years of this, we call it Asian Leadership Conference. Every month, we would have the VIPs, the mayors, the congressmen, political leaders, religious leaders, meeting people come in and have a 2-day/ 3-day program in Bangkok. And it was going on Dr. Young, emphasize that, and we did that really every month for 12 years while he was here. With the COVID, we have to go online. That was difficult. So we started up last year, we did two programs online, our first two programs. And then I said let's re-do our survey, and let's ask questions that can help us show the effectiveness of our program.
Dr. Robert Kittel
So because I'm in the Philippines, I'm looking at the laws that are passed and studying this from the legal perspective, and what I did is I drew up seven survey questions and they are based on the laws of the government of the Philippines. But I'm sure it can be applied to other places, the same methodology. So what I did was I looked at three pieces of legislation that are actually in the same group, Senate Bill 1224, House Bill 5829, and those two, the Senate bill dealt more with secondary school education and the House Bill dealt more with a primary school education. They were combined together and called the Republic Act 11476.
Dr. Robert Kittel
So I read these pieces of legislation, because these were the pieces of lawmakers, they're now a law in the Philippines, and they were focused on developing what they called GMRC (Good Manners and Right Conduct) that's for the primary school children and Values Education for the secondary school children, and they mandated a K to 12, one hour daily program in the Philippine public and private schools. It was signed into law by President Duterte in June of last year, six months ago. So I said okay, this is our target. This is what our program should do. If we can help the government fulfill what their laws are, then we can work together with the government.
Dr. Robert Kittel
After reading those, I did seven questions, and I put it in a liquid scale of five, five degrees: very poor, poor, fair, good and excellent. And the seven areas that I measured was one: building a patriotic spirit in youth, because that's part of the legislation. The words in the language, I just took from the legal documents and put them in question form. Number two, developing inherent human dignity. Number three, accelerating social progress. Number four, uplifting moral, spiritual and social well- being as a student. Number five, promoting universal values. Number six, advocating the role of parents in moral development of children. Number seven, demonstrating the importance of marriage and family.
Dr. Robert Kittel
So then we had these seven survey questions based on this liquid scale, and we had 316 registered guests in our first two online webinars from 70 nations, there were 149 graduates, and of those there were 125 who took the survey. So we've got a good sampling to start with. We were astounded at the impact of our survey, the education program. Seventy three percent said the program was excellent, giving it the highest mark. Twenty four percent said it was good, 3% that it was fair, no one said it was poor or very poor. So if we recategorize that 73% and 24%, that means 97% of the people that did this education program when asked how this would be measured against the survey questions that we developed from the law of the government of the Philippines, that 97% said, it's above average. That's amazing.
Dr. Robert Kittel
And actually, more importantly, no one criticized it. If you want to take a public education program into the schools, and you got people that are criticizing you, you are sunk before you get started. So we are now working with educators here in the Philippines, we just had a program on Sunday with our UPS education wing, or of the UPS side called the International Association of Academics for Peace. They said what we need to do if we want to have this program really successful, they called it a Department of Character Integrity for the government of the Philippines. And they said we should bring in the police, we should bring in religious leaders, we should bring in parents, we should bring in educators, even media people and have this department so that it's not left to one sector or one individual, but it becomes a focal point on how we can implement and develop, because they said we don't want to just change children, you can't do that. You've got to change the culture.
Dr. Robert Kittel
You can't change the children, leave the parents, or change the parents and children and leave the culture, you've got to change the culture. So this is the goal that we're working on now in the next seven years, is how can we bring this department of character integrity to fruition, which would be a model, again for other governments to look at. And interestingly, it's taking what Mother has done with UPS and developed it into six different associations. What she said is: Okay, if we want to develop this heavenly unified world culture or having a unified Korea, there are many players. You have to have a multifactorial approach, you can't just do it in one area. You've got to be the big picture, and everybody has to be a player. All the stakeholders have to be at the table, have a voice, work together, take ownership and that's what we're looking for now in the Philippines.
Andrew Love
You're playing the game. Yes, you want data? He's going to bring you data. He's going to bring you reams of data. That's awesome. Yes, there's so much to it. There's so many layers of bureaucracy, and I guess everybody just has a boss, and they have to prove that you're trustworthy and all that. So it's a great approach. High Noon has a lot to learn about that, right Sammy? We're not so good with the data. We're getting better too, but..
Sammy Uyama
Yeah.
Dr. Robert Kittel
For the government, data is their Bible.
Andrew Love
Yes. Well, I guess, in democratic countries. In oppressive countries, they don't like data so much. So yes, that's really impressive because you're working on many different fronts. You're on the awareness front, you're in the educational front, and I think that was a great challenge that the government gave to you. Those agencies, those wings of the government to become more data driven and to prove your result, because that brings out the best of us too. A lot of us can go by feelings alone. It was a great event. Why? Because it felt good, everybody was happy. Did anything change? I don't know. But it felt really good. They challenge you to quantify it, and that's good for everybody.
Andrew Love
And because I'm positive that you are doing great work, it's just you haven't been able to show that in a piece of paper, which I definitely will. It'll have a cascade effect over time because if you can do this in one country, in the Philippines, you could go to Thailand, you can go all all over Southeast Asia. So that's really inspiring. And so in terms of progress, I'd love to hear what are some progress that you feel that the culture is making? Also, what do you think some stumbling blocks are? Because honestly, when you hear about a country like the Philippines or Thailand, they're very confusing because on the one hand, my experience with these colleges are they're extremely family oriented. They're very humble people, very religious, but then there's also these hubs of human trafficking, and there's still a lot of sexual promiscuity. What are the progress that you're making and some of the roadblocks that you're experiencing as well?
Dr. Robert Kittel
Thailand, several years ago we had a program, I think it was a women's Federation at a program, with the Department of Women Leaders, and they brought in one expert in terms of criminology, and they told us that: You're taking on a huge, huge force because there are three areas that work together generally: drugs, sex, and violence. Those three are there beyond the law, beyond the government regulation, the government is trying to deal with that, and even the government is hamstrung because these networks are international. They are going beyond the borders of even their own country and yet, their legal ramification is limited to their distinct border. They can't go outside of their border and arrest people for these things. So they said, it's something that we've all got to realize it's at the core of the problem.
Dr. Robert Kittel
I have identified as selfish individualism, has no limits. That's what they're dealing with, it's manifesting in different ways and sex and drugs and crimes: I don't care about other people, I just want to sell drugs, I want to traffic women, I want to kill or whatever it is just to protect. It's that selfish individualism that is really at the core of these issues that we're dealing with. It's a long term project, and it's a big one. The one thing we're working with also within now, the Korean movement is trying to bring unification of our homeland of Korea, and they're looking for models, or where we can have programs. And I think one of the issues is, again, even America and China, issues of this, the morality of, I would say to be honest, in some of the communist countries, the morality is clearer and stronger than in democratic countries. And I think it's because of the restrictions that are there, so to just give unlimited freedom to do anything, anytime, I don't see that as healthy.
Dr. Robert Kittel
I think freedom has to be connected with responsibility. If you're disconnected, and you just have freedom, then that freedom easily becomes selfish individualism as destructive to the individual, and to relationships that are trying to be formed and families that are trying to be formed from that. So maybe we need an interview down the roadways, and I'll give you the success in seven years. But that's what we're looking for, the goals that Mother's asking of, we have 7.234 billion people, and a very high percentage of those engaged. My feeling is if, for example, this model in the Philippines, if it goes and we are working with the government, then we can technically claim this nation of a hundred million, in one sense for God's society in this pivotal war on moral integrity that is being bought.
Dr. Robert Kittel
If the government comes out like that, it will not be easy. I don't think seven years, seven years is a short timeline for what we want to accomplish. I think it's doable. But we've got to have the vision and the framework of how to move forward, and the foundation to do that. So we have that here in the Philippines. We have a very strong, heavenly tribal Messiah-ship model here in the Philippines. We've got good context. We're having our rally at hope on the sixth of February. For the Philippines, it's a national level model. We've got very high level support from the government. We've got a grassroots foundation, and the foreign guy levels. We've got the head of the National Barangay Association of the Philippines, 42,000 barangays that want to support us, that's a big thing. So you need this breath and the width of your impact to have this social change and cultural change that we're looking for.
Andrew Love
Yes, absolutely. I just want to commend you because you've been so steadfast for so long working at this, you have said meetings every month for the past 12 years, just in one sense, but also to hear all the different people that are engaged and involved. At some point, there's going to be critical mass where there's a shift that takes place.
Dr. Robert Kittel
The model of my steadfastness on another. Honestly speaking, without that model, I can go home. In an hour I can buy a ticket and be on a plane and go home, honestly speaking. And when you read Mother's autobiography, I think it's page 79 on the English version, the title of hers is Mother of Peace. And she says herself: That's the title other people have given me. And then it goes on and says, how would I call myself? What nickname would I give myself? Mother of Sacrifice. She said this word sacrifice is what defines my life. Other people have called me Mother of Peace, they look at the accomplishment that she's done with her husband, that she's done on her own, that we've done together as a worldwide movement, and that is definitely attributed, earned the fair title.
Dr. Robert Kittel
But Mother herself, says her nickname is sacrifice. And that's when you talk about the word you used: steadfast. And that's the thing with these 12 years, every month, Dr. Young didn't ask us to have a perfect education program out of the gate. He didn't ask that. He said, I just want you to never give up. And if you have the program regularly, and you never give up, it will improve. Perfection will be your enemy, it has to be perfect. Well, let's wait one more week, let's take one more week. You can always do that. But no, after the program, you get together, what can be better? And then the next program has to be better, I find myself when I give the program, I'm giving the same lectures over and over and over and over and over again. I just can't help, but the night before, I will get up in the middle of the night and spend a good portion, if not all of the night, reviewing and re-editing my slides.
Dr. Robert Kittel
One word here, something can make it better. It's not because I want to make it better, I just want to invest myself because if I don't invest, then when I get on stage, I don't have power. My power isn't there and I know that. So it's out of this experience of teaching many times that if I just take a lecture from my computer that I've given before and hop up on stage after breakfast, it won't touch the heart of the audience. I've felt that. The worst thing, the worst experience in the world is having a lecture that falls flat. I'm avoiding pain at that point.
Sammy Uyama
I have one question if we can use that as the final one. What drives your desire to be a filial child's True Parents?
Dr. Robert Kittel
Good question. It is my love for my physical parents, their love for me and support for me. When I was growing up in high school and college, I was swimming, that was my sport that I had chosen. They went out of their way to support me. They took me to swimming workouts every morning, like five o'clock in the morning and they drove me there. They would go to the swim meets with me. So is the sacrifice, the sacrifice of my parents for me that has set in my heart, and that's the standard that I use when I meet this movement, when I look at True Parents, and I see their level of sacrifice. And I'm going: This is right. This is the first step in that vertical tradition, we call it living for the sake of others. Great. And my question is, that's vague, who is the other? Living for the sake of the other, who is the other? That's too vague.
Dr. Robert Kittel
So I want to push the envelope, who is the first other? Where's the model that is going to be set for the other, because that's really important. And your first other that you live for are your parents, because you see and recognize their sacrifice for you. And when you see that, then you want to respond with sacrifice. There is this immediate, urgent, wanting to give more than what you have received. That's what my father said, the only give and take based on love is always increasing because whatever you receive, you want to pay back more. That person who receives that, they want to pay back more than what you paid. It's this competition to live for the sake of others based on love, a substantial concept of love.
Dr. Robert Kittel
So that's why the Bible says, honor your father and mother. It doesn't say love them. Honor them, do something. It's not just an emotional word. It's an action word. Honor them, what are you going to do to honor them? And then also, what can you avoid doing that would dishonor them? That then it becomes really clear. In sexuality? Well, sexuality isn't so clear when you're young, but you can dishonor your parents, your family by misusing sex, and that becomes immediately obvious. So this, honor your father and mother, that's the first other in the ladder. And then it goes higher, while you honor your family, but above the families are the community, and above the communities, the nation and above the nation is the world, and above the world is God.
Dr. Robert Kittel
So it's that the first step is really important. That's the model and the paradigm that you will learn, that's where you will incorporate those values, it becomes experiential, no longer just intellectual, you experience it. That's why the family's importance, and particularly the parent-child relationship is critically important for learning of this ileal heart and where I learned there, and then you apply it. In society, when you go out into society in a very natural way, natural order. Good question. Nobody asked me that before. Thank you.
Sammy Uyama
Yes, because you're so driven to serve your parents. You dedicate your life to it, you said as a side comment, but how easy it would be for you to just pack it up and fly back to America. You've got your children back home still, your grandchild's now, and it's not like there's nothing for you in America or other parts of the world but you're in the Philippines right now, and you spent the past decades bouncing around from country to country. You just go wherever you're called.
Dr. Robert Kittel
Can I go back to that again? But what you're raising is a really important issue and this mother's autobiographies, her nickname for herself: sacrifice. When we were sent out as missionaries in 1975, many of them went back, and I'm looking at them and most of them, not all, but I think most went back because of financial security, to be honest. Social welfare is there, you have to get a job, if you don't have a job, you don't pay if you don't get it back. So I realized my being out here is like financial suicide. I decided that's sacrifice, and I think that sacrifice God will not turn away. When I joined this movement, I was in my fourth year of college at the University of Utah, I left school to join this movement and I never graduated from college.
Dr. Robert Kittel
I think God found a way to pay back that when Bridgeport was opened, and I was able to go to UPS to get my undergraduate and my masters, and then Bridgeport open, and then suddenly that opened up. So I feel God, He doesn't want to be in debt, He looks for ways to repay. So our hesitation to sacrifice is foolish. If we know God's heart, and God is as a parent, and any parent that sees their children's sacrifice, wants to pay back, wants to give back. That's the breadth of love, and so it goes back to that anyway.
Sammy Uyama
Yes, thank you for sharing that last part.
Andrew Love
That security honestly, is many people's catacomb. In my experience, the more you crave security, the less you're able to be free to do anything that you were born to do. Because you're tethered to this security, and so that becomes your excuse for everything. You're a free man, no security equals freedom. Freebasing, you just jump and you're going for it.
Dr. Robert Kittel
Two things I said, if I'm going to make this sacrifice and I want two things, either good health or short life because I don't have insurance.
Andrew Love
You have the best insurance because you have two wonderful daughters. One of them is in the big tech industry, in which she'll be rich so she'll take care of you, don't worry.
Dr. Robert Kittel
To set some aside for me already.
Andrew Love
Yes and that's really inspiring too, because I think it was you, Sammy that as we were talking yesterday maybe, you were talking about retirement or something like that. To not even be thinking about retirement or craving it, or it's not even in your world. You're gaining momentum as the days go by. You're going to take over Southeast Asia, I can see it already. You're flying high, you're all over the place. And that's truly inspirational because honestly again, when people are winding down in their 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s, my grandma's now 100, it's how you occupy your mind and your time, your energy, your spirit defines your living legacy.
Andrew Love
While you're still alive, you get to enjoy your legacy. That's the legacy of all the work that you've put in before, that you're not just resting on your laurels but you're using that to stack and to build this really exciting life where you get to see the fruits within your own lifetime. It's inevitable. And we're part of that, High Noon is a part of that where the reason High Noon can exist is because you've already built so much of a foundation with the purity, pure love movement and all that.
Andrew Love
You're a huge player in this game, and we appreciate all your hard work. We're going to collaborate with you a lot throughout our days. It's really a pleasure to interview you too because you're a live wire. You're really alive. When somebody's spiritually alive, you get energy from them and you can't help it. Even on this stupid zoom, impersonal computer stuff, it doesn't matter. The Spirit can transcend that, and so thank you for giving us you. Your presence alone will help many people, and I'm sure this podcast will be very helpful for many, many people.
Dr. Robert Kittel
Thank you for reaching out, and for what you're doing. Let's work together, let's make it happen.
Sammy Uyama
Yes, I'll do it. That's it
Andrew Love
Thanks guys.
Andrew Love
Before you go, I wanted you to consider checking out High Noon Connect. So if you go to our website, highnoon.org, you'll notice first of all, we have a brand new website which is beautiful, and also you'll notice that there's the opportunity to join High Noon Connect. The essence of what High Noon is morphing into is a community. We are better together, and sexual integrity involves other people. If you're struggling with pornography, you need the help of brothers and sisters of people in a community dedicated to helping lift you up. And even if you're not, if you're in a relationship and you just want more intimacy, more love, more joy or if you're single, and you just want to be a person that can live according to their values in the area of sexuality, and you want to be around a group of people who are fighting in the same way then please go to highnoon.org and sign up for High Noon Connect. There's a free version and a paid version. We want to make this as accessible as possible. We're a nonprofit so we're not trying to make a buck here, we're just trying to create a community off of Facebook that gives a focused conversation, focused energy, focused attention on building sexual integrity as a cultural intention. So go to highnoon.org, we'll see you there.