Chapter 8
True Love
When you plant bean seeds, beans will grow. When you plant carnations, carnations will grow. No one can deny this principle. If you sow hatred, hatred will result. When you sow love, then the fruit of love will indeed come. The important thing is the size of that love.
Ideal Nation of God 2-21-80
You know that the most painful thing in the universe is not physical pain, but the pain resulting from the sickness of love. If there are many irregular situations in a country, it is destined to perish and a new nation will appear in its place. That is the situation we find in this country. Americans want happiness, but they must know that it begins with orderliness; only harmony with the universal tradition will heal sickness and pain and add prosperity and happiness.
Happiness must be based on love, which is nothing else but having the subject and object knowingly situated correctly in every area.
If in your teen years you start on this orderly and harmonious level, then you will continue to go up as you mature, never sinking down. If you begin a business on these principles then it will prosper and be admired by others. How happy will the family be whose husband and wife cherish this, each wanting to be the best husband or wife in the world. Such a wife would want to enter into her husband's cells and stay there for the rest of her life. The man would feel the same way.
When such a wife goes to spirit world she is no longer simply a woman, for by becoming one with her husband she has inherited the qualities of a man as well, so she can go anywhere in the spirit world. And it is the same for the man.
Our Tradition 6-15-80
What is your destination and goal? My destination is the Love Pole -- like the North or South Pole -- the summit of love. Don't look for me anywhere else because I won't be there. Don't say you looked in heaven but I wasn't there. I will be at the Pole of Love, relating in love with God and everyone in the world. When God is at the North Pole, I want to be at the South Pole of love. Once both poles are occupied, a sphere is formed through the relationship. What more can you want?
God has been working on this dispensation for 6,000 years and during this time there have been many impossible barriers blocking Him. Only the fact that He has been driven crazily and blindly toward the goal of love kept God from chopping off the heads of everyone in the dispensation!
The World of Good and Evil and My Indemnity 9-28-80
Now TL (true love) is a code word in the Unification Church. History will record that at Belvedere, October 12, 1980, at 7:05 a.m. I created the word "TL" and you can say you participated.
If a bee is sucking the nectar from a flower, you can try to pull him away; but instead of letting go, his body will tear in half; he will never stop sucking the nectar. You people are like honeybees. People outside our Church are pulling at you, but you never let go. The honey of the Unification Church is true love, and once you taste it you cannot let go. The world knows that I must have something to offer because they cannot separate you from me.
Let Us Set the Record 10-12-80
Your body wants to experience love. Your five senses want to be intoxicated with love. Once you get a taste of love, you long for it to continue for eternity without stopping. It is human nature to want to be intoxicated. That is why people drink, smoke, inject heroin and pursue all kinds of drugs. Such endeavors intoxicate people momentarily and artificially. If God were to sample such drugs, would He say, "This tastes so much better than love! Please put some on my breakfast table tomorrow." Would God become a drug addict? Would He find the taste of whiskey delightful?
What do you think God wants served for His meals? Love. He's a love addict. If you served God nothing but love for breakfast, lunch and dinner, would He eventually turn it down? No. He wants to receive that love and return it to you, making a complete circle. One circuit won't satisfy Him; He will want to continue for eternity.
The Blessing From the Viewpoint of the Dispensation of History 1-18-81
Where there is love, nothing is impossible. Certainly God who is the person without any impossibility, would want to dwell in love. When men and women are united in love and they find there is a place of greater love, they want to get there together. When you meet your fiancée and you establish a loving relationship, how would you like to move toward greater love? Do you want the fastest form of transportation, or would you like to travel slowly in a carriage? You want to get there the fastest way. What is the fastest way? The jet plane of love.
Where would you like to land? You said you want to land in the heart of God. Do you need permission to land? Planes cannot land without some control tower on the ground to guide them to the landing strip. There is a correct way to land on the landing strip of love. What kind of welcoming party will there be? Amazingly enough, when you land on the correct landing strip, there will be a welcoming party from many thousands of years of history, including Abraham and Noah. They won't seem like strangers, but will come right up to you. What power could make that happen? Again, only the power of love.
In love there is no distance of time, even if there is a difference of thousands of years. In love, time and space are completely disregarded. You think Germans and French are far apart, but when you are united as a blessed couple and come in for a landing in your love jet and see people from many thousands of years who have come to greet you, then you know the distance between German and French is nothing. Even if one of those people is 6,000 years old, there is no foreign feeling between you. You can instantly become one and understand him completely.
Love is a really strange thing. Even if you are from different nations, when you come together in a marriage relationship, you don't feel bad at all. One thing is for sure: You are marrying a person of the opposite sex and no explanation is needed! You want to touch him or her tenderly and there is no distance. The power of love can unite strangers. The power of love can shorten the distance of time.
Who Is God and Who Am I 1-25-81
Your life is the fruit of the love of your mother and father, coming vertically down to you. Thus, the energy of your life should be directed toward love, becoming a seed-bed of love.
The Two Worlds of Good and Evil 2-15-81
The love which everyone can see is not the most valuable. The love which God will slip into your back pocket when you are not looking is the best.
Prayer 3-19-81
This law of love is the most rigid one and we cannot be indifferent to it. Love is the thing we take most seriously.
Our Identity 4-1-81
Once you obtain true love, God will come without formality to you, even in His pajamas, wanting to dwell with you.
Core Love and Indemnity 10-22-813
Our ultimate goal is Canaan. While we are marching toward Canaan, our supreme duty is to follow orders, but once we enter Canaan we don't live by commands but by love. This is that time. We are arriving now, and we must live in a God-like way.
Historical Children's Day 1981 10-28-81
When a man and a woman can be pulled together, both living in harmony for the sake of others, then the entire universe will be influenced by them. Their center is a noble dream of love. That is the epitome of beauty, which other men and women would look at with admiration and longing. Heaven and earth would respond in the same way.
The focal point of the universe is harmonizing, noble love. When you move with such a heart, the whole universe is turned by you and you feel joy.
Noble Dream 12-1-81
It is important for all people to find some unchanging principle or foundation for their life -- something that is continuous for the past, present and future. What should be the goals for our struggles in life? Do you have your own concept of life and struggle, as well as a goal? What is it? You say it is true love, but that is very easy to say. Can you just say, "I want true love," and expect it to come and be with you automatically? No, that is not the way it works.
Since true love doesn't come that easily, how will you get it? There is a very simple answer: If true love doesn't come to you, you have to go and get it! Is it easy to find true love? How very, very difficult it is! Let's give a realistic analogy. Pulling out one of your eyes would be extremely painful. Is the difficult path to true love more or less painful than this? Is finding true love more difficult than chopping off one of your arms or legs? You may lose two eyes or an arm and a leg, but do you still need true love? You say yes, and that is a very serious yes.
In human history, has there been anyone who has sought true love and won the victory? You say Father, but how do you know I am not a swindler? Let's suppose there is a great scholar and winner of the Nobel Prize, someone respected throughout the world. We could ask him, "Do you have true love? Have you won it?" Would he shout, without hesitation, "Yes, I have"? Wouldn't he more likely say, "Let me think about it"? If even the greatest of scholars cannot get to true love, then who can? When you seriously pose the question of true love, you might conclude, "Well, it is difficult but there may be one or two people who have won true love in their lives. Certainly not many more than that." When you realize that you are not one of those, you can become very serious, can't you?
Think for a moment about God, the absolute being. Let's pose a question to Him: "Are You really in the position of the King of true love?" What would He reply -- "Yes," or "Well, let me think about it"? Let me ask you a question: do you think love can be initiated through only one person, or do you need someone else to consummate love? Even God needs someone else. Since God is absolute, it is logical that His someone else should also be absolute.
We realize that God wants to consummate true love; thus we must understand what true love is. When you think of true love, you can think of it as the "house" in which God wants to dwell. We might ask God, "Where would You like to live?" Would He say, "Since I am the King of Kings, I just want to live alone in a big palace and sit on a golden throne"? What about you? If I asked you the same question, you might reply, "Father, I just want to be someplace where I can sleep. I'm so sleepy!" Do you think God would say that, since He too is so tired?
Do you think God would like to have a good time and play sometimes? Maybe He would tell you, "I want to live in a place where I can play games and have fun all the time." Or maybe God would say, "I just want to dwell in my mind for eternity; all I want to do is think." Or might He say, "All I want is to work, since I am the God of creation." No? Then where would He say He would like to dwell?
God will say, "I want to live with a smile, to be happy," just as this white-haired, noble-looking gentleman here might say. What do you think makes a person with a Ph.D. happy? Will receiving his degree make him smile for the rest of his life? Maybe he will smile for a day or so, but then he will get bored.
No matter how great and wonderful and dignified God is, He desires to live His life with a smile. Thus it is important to know what element allows Him to continue smiling. Is it looking at His hands? Is it looking at His own eyes? Maybe He has a big mirror in Heaven -- do you suppose He smiles all the time to see Himself? God's body may have beautiful features, such as long lovely fingernails. Maybe He gives Himself a manicure every morning, or maybe He grooms His feet. Does God want to spend all His time in front of His mirror? No? Then what makes God smile? Since love is the only thing which enables someone to continue smiling forever, automatically we come to the conclusion that God needs a good object, such as a wife or children with whom to have the give and take of love.
Let's say a man is very handsome, manly, and also he is well educated, with a Ph.D. from Harvard. He has everything a man needs to be respectable. Does that make him smile for the rest of this life? No, he might even be very solemn, but as soon as a beautiful woman comes around, his whole demeanor will change. He will light up and start to smile.
Imagine a small, delicate-looking woman sitting somewhere very quietly and solemnly, and her husband, a big tough man with strength like a tiger comes up to her. Other men may fear him, but this small woman will smile as soon as he comes near. She will light up and her eyes will start to sparkle, almost as if electricity was flowing into her. Isn't that true? What makes a woman react like that?
You were all very sleepy a few minutes ago, but as soon as I started talking about love and men and women, everybody woke up! Love must have a pull stronger than the power of sleep. If God is looking for true love, He definitely needs a true object who can respond to Him so that He can create a circuit of give and take. Where can He find that perfect object?
I am sure you have concluded that God must find His perfect object in human beings.
Unification members today can cherish this one very important confidence: "I am the unique object to God. Without me, God will feel lonely and cannot consummate His love." This wonderful statement is the key point of my teaching today. Just think of it: you can be the unique object to God! No matter what, if even the entire planet disappeared, you would still be God's unchanging, unique object. How wonderful! Without an eternal object, there can be no foundation for the existence of true love.
Anyone can speak easily of true love, but to fulfill it in reality you must have the right foundation. We have four bridges to cross, all of which are heading for the goal of true love: the unique bridge, the unchanging bridge, the absolute bridge, and the eternal bridge. After crossing these four bridges you will meet with true love on the other side. Beyond these bridges is the only place where true love dwells. The people who are making an effort every day to go across these four bridges are the ones in whom true love can dwell, and through whom true love can be communicated.
Many people think, "Life is too short to spend it suffering. Enjoy yourself now!" This is the prevalent philosophy today. But the Unification Church goal is not focused on this world. We are looking at the eternal world and learning to live according to eternal principles while we are here on earth. We know that only with true love can we obtain a victorious life here on earth and forever after. Such accomplishments will never change or diminish. In other words, our life's goal must be to perfect ourselves and become unique, unchanging, absolute, and eternal. This is the goal of the Unification Church. Why do we want true love so much? It is because true love will fulfill God and ourselves; the consummation of everything good can come out of true love. Only true love can completely fill the universe -- not God's power, total knowledge or anything else can do that. Only true love can make everything sound and solid. Inside the realm of true love, there can be no resistance or limits. As soon as you touch true love, you become one with it.
Which is bigger -- God or true love? True love is actually bigger than God because, even though God is almighty, He only has an up and down relationship on the vertical line. In order to consummate His love, He needs an object with whom to have horizontal give and take. Thus He requires the horizontal line in order to create the circular motion of love. By Himself, as a vertical being, He could not create that circle. That is why we say that true love is even greater than God. Once you have true love in your hands, you have absolutely everything else in the universe.
You have to be very hungry for true love. You must keep on digesting true love -- on the family, societal, national and worldwide levels, all the way up to spirit world and God's level. Still you should continue because you have such a hunger and thirst for true love. This is why the Bible teaches, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." It is very important to have that urgent hunger and thirst for the righteousness of true love. If you thirst for true love but there is nobody to give it to you, then you must make yourself the perfect object to God. Create within yourself that circuit of give and take with true love. This is what our movement is all about.
Victory and Peace 1-10-82
The Unification Church is the church of vibration, the vibration of true love. You did not come here for the sole purpose of singing "Happy Birthday" to True Parents. I don't want you to come for that. I want you to become somebody. Become a Moonie of true love vibration. From today, as a birthday gift take back with you the vibration of true love. You are starting to vibrate today for the sake of the world. Those who want to become true vibrations of love, raise your hands. Where will you give your love vibrations? Home church. Thank you.
The Vibration of True Love 1-30-82
The human body is composed of many different kinds of cells. Also the different races of man can be represented in the cells of one body. An example would be the cells in the whites of the eyes, representing white people. The dark cells on the sole of the foot might represent the black people. All are making up the one body, simply in a different location. Who could say that the cells of the whites of the eyes are superior to the cells on the bottom of the foot? All human cells are equally valuable, working for the same purpose and serving a joint will. How about husband and wife? From the universal point of view, husband and wife are like two cells which are next to each other and have close give and take -- virtually one cell.
From this universal point of view all human beings are equal. We have a common nature which belongs to that one universal nucleus consciousness. Among all the billions of human "cells" there must be a certain harmonizing factor which brings people together peacefully. This is the power of love. The power of love is like a thread between every cell making smoothness and harmony. In a way, love is like glue, binding and cementing together all the cells of humanity. This is why love is universal and love is good. The action of love is ultimate. Therefore, without love everything would fall apart. The action of love unites subject and object and mind and body.
Without love the interaction between subject and object is very clumsy. However, with the power of love we can experience total freedom of action, and freedom of movement between east and west, north and south. In a way, love is a shocking intoxication which can make everybody drunk. That is why love is good. There is a drunkenness which comes from drugs or alcohol, but this is merely an artificial and momentary intoxication.
Because of the power of love differing individuals are pulled together, particularly men and women. Men love women and women love men. Without the action of love no one can remain dulled; it is like connecting to an electric circuit. One becomes totally electrified through love. Love must go to the nucleus because when the nucleus is activated the whole self becomes excited. Love penetrates to the nucleus-center and the entire objective body is activated. True man is the center of true love; thus, when true love activates the nucleus of a man all his actions will be true. Love will "turn you on" and true love will turn you on truly.
If man is to pursue the action of true love, he must recognize the nucleus first. Love must go through the nucleus turning on every cell. Therefore, in order to fulfill and consummate love, we first have to recognize the existence of the nucleus, the center.
In terms of consciousness and existence indeed it is within the consciousness that the internal character, the nucleus, is created. This must be recognized. When we are pursuing ideals and love, we must first give recognition to the existence of the nucleus -- both the individual nucleus and the universal nucleus. Thus the consciousness comes first; will, ideal and thought come before existence.
Thought or consciousness comes before everything. The ideal thought is centered upon true love. The fulfillment of true love is the purpose of that ideal thought. The Unification Church has truly penetrated to the depths of this universal truth. That is a miracle; that is a joy!
Where does our existence come from? God's ideal is the universal subject; the center of that ideal is true love. The fulfillment of the ideal of love is the purpose of creation. Therefore, everything was designed by God under this plan for the purpose of the fulfillment of love. That is the way men and women are designed and that is why we were created.
Why are men attracted to women? That's the step to reach the ideal of love. Why are women attracted to men? It is an inevitable step in the search for the ideal of love. The people who marry and divorce freely are behaving like animals and have no way to connect with the eternal nature of the love of God. Everything God has created is based upon the eternal quality of love. Some people go after carnal knowledge or physical love, love "just for fun," using their bodies for the consumption of love. This is terrible. Such catastrophic love should be removed from mankind.
Do you want momentary love or eternal love? You want eternal love because the central nucleus of love is eternal; you can connect to that nucleus through eternal love. Therefore, only love can remain throughout eternity. Your body will not remain; it comes and it will go, but your love endures. This is why some of the greatest master pieces of literature throughout history have been portraits of love.
God and Us 2-1-82
When can real true love be found? Do you have it in the center of your minds now? Through whom will it become reality? It will come through your partner. The love comes from God, but your counterpart is required in order for God's love to rest in you. America has become so great and sophisticated that there is almost nothing it cannot do; women even expect love through another woman, and men through another man! American men think they don't need women in order to receive God's love! Men and women are meant to be complementary, with one indented and the other protruding. Can two positive elements be drawn to each other, or would they repel each other? When the central shaft of a machine turns around, everything that is attached to it will also turn. What kind of axis does a man or woman need? Some women would turn around for diamonds! Actually, true love is the best axis. We become certain that each person needs a spouse. Some men and women think they will be happier living alone. Are they really convinced of that, or do they believe that it is impossible to find a faithful spouse? If someone close to the ideal comes near them, however, they feel something unique and new. A person who doesn't want to get married must have had a bitter experience, or been close to someone else who had a bad experience with marriage.
A woman who has truly loved a man has already loved God; a man who has truly loved a woman has already loved God. Suddenly they are aware that God is around them. Even though God is omnipotent, He cannot go just anywhere and find love. He must follow the Principle of Creation and find love with that man and woman also. In order to reach woman, God has to go through man; to reach a man, He has to go through a woman. If you truly love your spouse then God will automatically come to you. Harmonizing true love will spark there between you, for it takes two to emit that spark. God's mind and body will both be overwhelmed by that spark of love. It is simple to conclude that God wants to reside in the family where a man and woman truly love each other. All men must truly resolve to change their attitude, so that they look at women with God's eyes, with God's senses. The same is true for women.
The utmost truth can be strongest and have dominion over everything. The truth has a certain limitation, however. It can know and rejoice, but it can never lead you into the highest joy. Only when your love becomes true love on the foundation of absolute truth will nothing bother you. Would you like to live where truth is, or where true love is?
If there is one axis at the center of each conscience, where will it lead? We cannot deny that conscience is leading us to one objective -- to the unity of an ideal man and woman in true love. Isn't this reasonable? Certainly this is a common point that all mankind can share.
Declaration of the Ceremony of Unity Between Spirit World and Physical World 3-28-82
People should be aware that in our life on earth we receive perpetual nourishment from the universe; without that, we could not survive.
To go to the next stage of life in the spiritual world is the same kind of transition as emerging from our mother's womb into this world. The only difference is the duration of that stage. This life on earth, during which we breathe air and eat food, lasts perhaps a hundred years. Our physical parents' protection extends 50 or 60 years. But once we are born again into the other world, we will live with our eternal Parent for millions and billions of years.
Dwelling in the eternal love of that world, we will become the very incarnations of love. There the invisible, but still very real, umbilical cord will be attached not to our belly but to our head, and we will keep growing and improving, becoming the image of God Himself. We will become the incarnations of love to become subjects of love, like our own invisible Parent.
There we will be freer than ever before, enjoying the greatest conceivable liberty. Nothing will limit or fetter us. In that world we won't have to walk with our head up and our feet down; we could reverse it and still move freely in any position. We can walk any way we wish and it will be perfectly normal. Whatever we want to do, we
Poetry dealing with themes of love is the most beautiful. The most enduring literature deals with love. The greatest science is also done out of love. When political affairs are conducted out of love, certainly that is marvelous to behold. In a tournament of love, no competitor will ever feel resentment because the winner always raises the degree of love. Any country will welcome an increase in its number of loving citizens. And the president of a country should run the government by love.
Suppose you had a handkerchief steeped with the greatest love. It may have cost just a few cents, but you would never exchange it for a million dollars, would you? If you misuse it, the handkerchief would feel sorrowful; but if your heart is filled with love, the handkerchief won't mind if you are too busy to wash or clean and press it. Whatever truly loving eyes behold will always reflect that love.
Even God wants to rest in the embrace of love. He wants to lean on the arms of love, just as everyone else. I feel I am such a small part of the entire universe, but God really wants to come and rest on me. In such a position, I want to offer everything to God because I am so awed by the opportunity to protect and comfort Him. No matter how great God is, He wants to make Himself small enough to be completely embraced in the arms of a loving person. He, too, wants to feel protected. That is the pure love of God. Knowing that, I will do anything to fulfill it. Can you imagine any greater value for human beings?
True love transcends everything. It goes beyond all visible barriers. Where true love exists, nothing else matters.
Our entire purpose is to elevate the value of true love. Something may not be wrong, and we want very much to do it, but we will hold back because if we can overcome it, our level of love will be greater. Do you understand? In front of True Parents, yes is the only proper answer.
Once you choose love, it should last forever and ever. That is the value of love. All human value rests on that.
The world is not an isolated realm; it is part of the continuous universe. You are trying to isolate it, and I am teaching you that it is a continuous one. What makes this world perpetual? What sustains its physical existence and causes it to endure? It is the consistent flow of love; the love that parents feel toward their children, and vice versa; the love of teachers for their students, investing themselves to make sure that they learn, the love a president has for his country, its cities and people; the love saints feel for mankind, present and future; the love God feels for the human race and all things. In all these, the pattern of love is consistent; love alone endures.
Suppose a husband and wife are both perfectionists and they give birth to a child with a deformity. Can they end its existence and say, "Well, we can try again"? Is that true love? No, of course not. By the same token, once a person chooses to marry another, he or she should try to make up for any shortcomings and compensate for whatever faults may show up in their spouse. That is the proper course here, and such love will endure in the spirit world, where love is more visibly dominant than it is here. Such a person is a true husband or wife. True love means that when it is easy to love, you love, and when it is difficult, you still love. This distinguishes true love from false love.
Have you seen true love? Where? Suppose a parent is carrying a bag with a very yummy and tasty treat for his child. Wherever he goes, he carries it in his pocket and won't let go of it -- even in the bath room. Now suppose the bathroom isn't one of the toilets here, but like those in the less-developed countries; just a bucket and natural smells -- nothing artificial! If he stays long enough among those natural smells, some of them will be absorbed through the bag. Later, the father gives the bag to his child and says, "This is the most delicious thing I have ever eaten; have some."
If the child is an American, he will probably refuse to taste it. He will protest. "Oh, Father, why do you think this is the best thing in the world?" But the true child will really appreciate it because he knows his father will bring him nothing but the best. There may be finer things, but in his mind there cannot be better than what his father brings him, so he will eat it. How about that!
In the Presence of God 4-11-82
When a man comes near a woman all his cells wake up and become fully activated. When man and woman touch there is an explosion. That is why our church has a rule that men and women shouldn't get too close, don't shake hands very much, and certainly don't kiss each other. Why? Because such actions can make sparks fly prematurely. Scars caused by premature love have no cure. This is why God gave mankind one strict rule in the beginning: you are absolutely free to do anything except touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This was a warning not to misuse love, to wait until the correct time for its expression.
Love fully activates every cell, and without wasting a moment the cells harmonize and seek a higher level. Once your cells are energized by love they want to take off. The power of love is much like the thrust of an Apollo rocket, lifting you off the ground and propelling you into the orbit of God's love. You are meant to find eternal harmony in love with God, but God's love doesn't just stand still. As soon as your love takes off God's love starts to come down toward you, and you meet each other in the middle. So God's love and human love are meant to come together and create a spark, making a dramatic crash. That spark does not cause eternal destruction; it results in a new, harmonized creation. The fusion of human and divine love generates something new.
Once such a love core is created, the entire universe is meant to sing along in its harmony and rhythm. Your every action is meant to harmonize with the universal core. Every hair, every cell in your body is meant to dance together with the universal core. Once you reach that plateau, you will discover the original ideal world, the absolute and true ideal world. Thus we can conclude that God created the universe, including human beings and all things, in order to consummate love.
God and My Home 4-26-82
What is the difference between true and false love? We say that self- centered love is false love and is therefore bad. Why is it bad? In order to call something "true" it most contain four characteristics. It must be unique, eternal, unchanging and absolute. You can measure self-centered love against those four criteria. Certainly it is not unique; it is not eternal; it is not unchanging; and it is not absolute.
When someone desires true love, he desires unique and eternal love. No one wants to have changeable love and everyone wants absolute love, not mediocre love. Why must love be like this in order to satisfy us? To obtain a relationship with the absolute, ultimate plus Being, you must share the same qualities. That ultimate plus Being has those four qualities. Each person is seeking to become an absolute minus to the ultimate plus in a vertical, give and take relationship.
Everything within creation seeks to be included within the central theme of true love. People ask big questions such as, "What is the purpose of life? What is a true man or woman?" However, all these big questions have one simple answer.
The universe is in constant motion and the goal of all that motion is true love.
We can answer the profound question of why God created the universe with a simple statement: God created the universe in order to fulfill His love. Love can only be fulfilled through a subject/object relationship and therefore God created this universe. Can you imagine God being happy and jolly all alone, without creating anything? As soon as God had the humblest of objects with which to relate, He could begin to be fulfilled. Each of you has the potential for constant communication of love with God.
God's position is to consummate the Heavenly four positions of God, man, woman, and children. Why did God divide mankind into two poles of male and female? He wanted to make a substantial world of depth and width so He created the world with global dimensions. What is it that brings men and women together into oneness? As men have give and take with God and women have give and take with God, they can have give and take with each other and unite in the center with God. At that central point of love, men and women become harmonized into one. There everything is a manifestation of love, you talk with love, hear with love, touch with love. Absolute, unique, unchanging, and eternal love is manifested in every aspect of your relationship.
Every part of you is longing to be touched by that absolute, eternal, unique and unchanging love.
The Ideal World of Adam 6-1-82
Love is the true ancestor of creation and the force behind each generation. During my years of searching for the truth, the first question I asked God was about the essential nature of the universe. The answer was rather simple -- the beginning point of the universe is love and the end result is the parent and child relationship. God created mankind and the universe in order to create a world of love through which He could dwell in that parent/child relationship. This is the central truth and essence of the universe.
Look at yourself from that viewpoint. You came into the world as a child, the fruit of the love of your parents, and you must fulfill yourself as a parent. That pattern of love is eternal -- throughout the past, during the present and into the future it will continue.
Why do we say that one man must love only one woman? Some people have different love partners every day and feel they are justified in doing so, but we do not agree. True love requires total devotion, total love and total giving to only one mate.
Blessed Family 6-20-82
For lovers, even something as little as a handkerchief means a great deal. Suppose a man leaving to fight in a war gives a handkerchief to his wife. If the man was killed in action, that handkerchief becomes a memento treasured by his wife for a lifetime. That handkerchief might have cost less than a dollar, but when it is transformed into a symbol of love, its value is priceless.
Who is the king of love in this world today? You know the answer. God is the King of love. The King of love wanted to express His love to His sons and daughters. In order to do that, as a gift to His children, He created all things. Think about it in this way: God is the one great King of love in this universe.
Actually everybody has a treasure, a special safe within them. I have a special safe, just like each of you. You need to dig out that value, that treasure place, and polish it, enhance it, cherish it, and live forever in love. That is the beauty of marriage. Value is something that always needs to be connected. The value of a man needs to be connected with the value of a woman. Mankind's value needs to be connected with the value of nature.
The man is like a positive electrical pole and the woman like a negative electrical pole. When they approach, sparks fly and everything is connected and fulfilled. Don't you like that kind of love? Electricity doesn't stop to evaluate things; when plus and minus come near, sparks automatically fly. All electricity needs is conductivitity, the wire. The Unification Church has always been known as a gathering place of unusual people. We don't need anything other than love. We are the love race. Explosive men and women approach each other and melt everything around them, burning up every foreign object and leaving only the pure essence. Have you ever listened to the sound doves make when they are in love? They coo all night long. Do doves adore each other because of how they look? Does the female say she likes her mate because he looks so handsome? No, not at all. Love is precious in itself We are going to become crazy for love itself!
The Day of All Things 6-21-82
With true love the things which laws require seem natural. True love inspires a sacrificial attitude in a person. It is natural to think, "I will ignore my own needs in order to make that person happy," when you are living with true love. Where love is present, even the laws are humbled. The law is incorporated within true love so law itself wants to be ruled by true love.
With true love you can go unhindered to every level of the universe because you will not be in conflict with anything good. So long as one is living under this principle he does not need any other guidelines for his life. It is very simple. Once you are living sacrificially for the sake of others before yourself, evil will automatically be chased out of your life.
In Search of Our Home 7-11-82
Why do we regard God as the most important of all beings? Because He is subject, even though He is invisible. When you practice the two kinds of love, you are doing all right -- love for the invisible Father and love for the visible Father. Visible love, which exists in the horizontal realm, is love in the dimension of time, while God's love is in the realm of eternity. We can expand horizontal love without limit. but there is only one point where that expansion can begin: at the perpendicular, 90-degree point. That is the mediation point where the love of our invisible Father and our visible parents can begin.
Once you know this, you can use the opportunity to grab that love and hide it in the most secret place in your heart. From that point, you are free to initiate universal action. Everything is free. Then you can expand the circle as much or as little as you want; you are totally free. How can you do that? Since the vertical line has no limit, it can accommodate your direction. God's true love will want to follow you. The supply of true love is only limited by the size of your love. When your love is fused with God's invisible and True Parent's visible love, the Intensity of your love will determine its scope.
When lovers come together, they hold each other tightly and they actually seem to get smaller; they almost want to crush each other. It is the same between you and God and True Parents. In the intensity of your love, you will all be compressed into a small ball, like a marble. That is good because the smaller the ball, the faster it can turn. When God comes closer and closer inside that ball, the speed intensifies, going faster and faster.
When you run fast, you breathe hard. The faster you move, the faster you breathe. God wants to experience suffocating, breathtaking love inside that tiny marble ball. How wonderful that is! All you need is one, invisible little thing called true love. With that ID card you have a free pass to go see kings and queens, or even thieves and murderers and melt their hearts. Don't you feel good just thinking about it?
From God's point of view, the most handsome man and beautiful woman are those who can draw the straightest line of love and thus be the best conveyer belt. The question is whether that line is imitation or genuine. If that line is drawn with 24-karat gold wire, the purest kind, its conductivity is 100 percent. Would you prefer a thick line that was only gold-plated on the outside, or a thin line of pure gold? You have seen men who come from rich families and look handsome, but who are really only gold-plated. Wouldn't you women prefer a poor husband of genuine gold?
Outside our church we see many beauty queens -- Hollywood stars, models and cover girls. But many Unification Church women look like ghosts! Do you want a wife with the gold on the outside or the inside? You men are looking for the genuine qualities of heart. You won't find it in those movie stars or cover girls. What changes more quickly -- the outside or the inside of a woman? What about men? Do you find men and women with unchangeable qualities in the Unification Church?
Can you find such people in the secular world? Why not? It is because they don't have True Parents.
You are your spouse's bridge to the love of God. You are the extension of God's love. The husband is the extension of my image, and the wife the extension of Mother's image. That is how you are to unite all mankind, making a complete circle of love. When two circles come together, truly a new home is born which is an educating ground for the love of Father and Mother and God. The women represent the post of Mother's love, and men represent the post of Father's love; together the represent God's love. You should be absolutely clear that you are making a heavenly home where love can come, where a true husband and wife can be born.
Your smile should be a universal one which can correspond with history. Love goes beyond time. In describing this world of true love, English is inadequate. There are no words to describe the manifestations of true love. You must feel to the bone how precious one man is, one woman is. The love organs of man and woman are the final terminals of the love of True Parents and the love of God.
It is almost like you are fishing for each other with true love as your bait. Men are hooking women and women are hooking men. Even if blood is coming out of your mouth because of the hook, you still feel good. Build this role of husband and wife from now on. Do not be excited by the sensation of physical love, but first by the spiritual contents of love. Then the physical side will follow, subject and object, and be sanctified.
New Family Given by God 9-5-82
Anything less than true love in the home is going to produce something less than the ideal, but most families do not understand the basic, true philosophy of true love. Some Americans protest to me, "Oh, you don't understand anything about America. We are a highly advanced and first-class culture. You have no right to talk about us!" However, by the rule of true love many things can be understood. Do you think true love affects the President of the United States? Is he immune to it because he is so great? Even God himself will never say, "I don't care about true love because I have omnipotence and I don't need it." The almighty God is completely vulnerable to true love. When He is approached with true love, He is helpless to resist.
What is the central force moving God's providence along? Certainly the central theme of the providence has been true love. With true love alone can God fulfill His own ideals and purpose. True love alone can harmonize everything, activate all things, unite and move everything in the universe. How wonderful that is! True love is so powerful and wonderful that once you have the hope of acquiring it for yourself nothing else really matters to you. The taste of true love gives you the power and determination to pursue it further.
The purpose of the Unification Church is to train each of you and graduate you with a "license of true love." Regardless of where your license is printed, the important thing is who signs it. The PhD. candidate can never receive his degree until the professor in charge signs for him. You want to receive the signature of God and True Parents on your true love license. Reverend Moon is like the professor in charge of the members of the Unification Church. The subject of learning is true love; I push you out into situations in society that will train you and season you as true love champions. You do not sit in classrooms but learn through activities. The purpose of all those activities is to enable me to sign your true love certificate.
As an ambitious candidate for your certificate of true love, how will you respond to my pushing you and giving you more and more burdens? Will you accept it willingly or will you complain against it?
True love can overcome anything, so nothing is more important than finding and dwelling in true love! I always sacrifice sleep for the sake of true love. Sometimes I can get up early and speak to members and at midnight I am still sitting in the same chair, haven spoken all day. However, I never get bored with such activities because every minute of the day is so exciting when true love is present.
I have the absolute conviction that anybody who lives his life in total intoxication from true love, forgetting everything else, must receive protection and support from the entire universe. That is what the Unification Church is all about.
The Harvest Season for God's Providence 9-19-82
What is true love? What is the difference between true love and any other kind? The most simple criterion of true love is that it is a giving love more than a receiving love. Parents want to give to their children, out of their heart of love. Should the children just continue to receive from their parents? Women always just want to receive love from everyone, isn't that true? Women always wait to receive more and more love, but at a certain point you start to give that love back. What time is that? It is when you become mothers. It is the mother who expresses most love in the beginning toward the children, rather than the father. The mother gives her love more intensely to her children because it the woman who has been receiving so much love throughout her life.
Husband and wife have dominion over each other out of love, not in any other way. Therefore, the most important criterion is this; more than you love your husbands, you women should love God. The same is true for men; God must come first. When you are united horizontally as husband and wife, you can go upward to the vertical level.
Only through your spouse and the love of your children can you return to your origin, God. Universal truth is based on this. The heaviest center is God; the center of God is true love. When you reach that core center of God and become united with Him, you become a part of Him. You become like Him and become an original magnet, pulling everything toward you.
Your five senses represent the most holy, sacred love. When you touch your lover with your hand, it is like God touching him or her. That is wonderful and holy. Why shouldn't we refer to each other as, "My holy spouse"? Anything Godly is holy, so our husbands and wives should be regarded as holy, too. The saintly couple is such a couple. What is a saint? The saint is the one who concentrates on returning true love to God, his origin. A saintly man and woman make a saintly couple.
When men and women are truly in love, they occupy each other. The man is completely occupied by the woman and vice versa. By the same token, we could say the same thing about God. When you have a true love relationship with God, He will be occupied by you. You will find your resting place right in the center of God.
Where can you find the love of God? You have that longing feeling for the love of your husband or wife which you cannot forget at any time; such a feeling of longing describes God's love. For this reason, you are precious and unique in this universe; you have total dignity and authority to represent God.
The Secret of Total Success 12-19-82
The clothes you are wearing are not yours; your own physical body is not even yours. Your husband or wife is not yours. There is only one way these things can become yours -- by connecting them and yourself with the love of God. When you are totally a part of the love of God and can relate the love of your husband and children with that vertical love, everything will become yours.
Unless you fulfill this process while you are living here on earth, there will be no bridge between you, the physical world and the spirit world. Everything in the Unification Church is done in the name of God. Even our marriages are done in the name of God; they are not for our own sake, but for God's sake. I want you to understand clearly that you claim all things in order to come closer to God; you want to have something to offer to God. You want to get the marriage blessing because you can possess more of the love of God that way. You want to have children so that you can consummate the love of God. Everything is connected with the love of God.
God's Day 1-1-83
The question is, who will become truly God-centered? The center is true love. The person who is God-centered is a person of true love, and the church standing on that center is a true-love church. The world standing on that center is a true-love world.
In America is there much love or little love? What is the direction of true love? Unless we have a clear idea about true love, we cannot define what a true person is. A true person is one with true heart and love. The most important point is that true love lies eternally in the center, which is God. Eternally we will be drawn towards God's love. Everything will be permeated with that love, and we will become more and more a part of it.
If your own life is focused in this direction, you will be a true person, and this will be a true church. Since we love God so much, when He commands us, we obey Him absolutely. We live according to God's direct love, so it is only natural to follow His direction. When we receive a command from true love, there is no room for argument.
Even a woman with a fierce, forbidding appearance will be melted by true love and never stray from it even one inch. Are you like that? If I didn't know these things, how could I match you for the Blessing?
Do you love your spouse now? Maybe you don't love each other now, but you should embrace your spouse and cling to each other for three years, and then see what happens. You think too much! Just be faithful. When a beautiful baby is born, the solution is automatic.
What is true love? It is God's love. How can you be a true man or woman? Quite simply, you must love the central Being, God, eternally and unchangingly. Why would that be good enough? Love is unchanging and eternal. When we are unchanging ourselves, then we will find true love. If we stay on the course, we will inevitably meet love.
You are going the true love way, aren't you? Have you determined to go this way without deviation? Someone will have to test how serious you are. Don't you want that? In school you have to take an exam to find out whether you really know that material or not. An unchangeable person has to be tested in many ways.
God Himself has been in the position to be tested. Everyone -- even Satan -- is testing whether God's love is unchangeable. If God cannot tolerate something and stops loving, then He is not unchangeable, is He? I had to contemplate why God permitted certain impossible situations, and I realized that in order for God to be truly unchangeable, He has to endure all kinds of intolerable situations.
Satan and God are completely opposite. If God is eternal then Satan is temporary; if God is unchanging, Satan is always changing; if God is unique, Satan is not. There is a clear contrast between the characteristics of God and Satan. Whom do we resemble most closely? Are you changeable? You are unchangeable in the sense that you always want to be with God instead of Satan. In everyday life people tend to separate when they don't like each other; that is a satanic characteristic, while the desire to make unity is part of the heavenly nature.
Do you believe in the Unification Church absolutely, or case by case? You believe absolutely because God is absolute. Can Satan appear in front of God and claim he is absolute just like God? Satan has to confess that he is always changing. There is no doubt that we truly want to enter God's realm and remain eternally and unchangingly with Him.
God is unchanging, eternal and absolute, but can He alone have these qualities? This is a very important point. For God alone to be that way has no meaning. He needs an object who shares these characteristics. Without such an object, eternal unity has no meaning.
Even though everyone around Him is changing, God cannot alter His own character. In this evil world people accuse and blame God, but He cannot respond to that because He is eternal and unchanging. All people are meant to make the journey to true love. Even evil people want to be eternal and unchanging. Is this a desire to be fulfilled in isolation, or does it imply the longing for a counterpart? When you are by yourself, what difference does it make if you are changing or unchanging? When we say we want to be unchanging, we automatically have God in mind. If a subject and object are unchanging together, it can have profound meaning.
What is the good about being united eternally? What can join these two into one? Great power? Vast knowledge? No. Only love. We like love because love can occupy anything; it can enter you anywhere, at any time. Isn't that what Jesus indicated when he said, "I am in you and you in me . . . I am in my Father and my Father in me"? He never clarified what he meant but we know now that this can happen through true love. No matter how cold a woman's heart may be, there is still one corner where her husband can dwell. Love can make oneness.
We may wonder why God doesn't do something during such impossible times as these. Then we see that He is waiting for someone to respond to His love in an eternal and unchanging manner. God will be very interested in such a person, if he proves worthy, then God will start working.
Do you Moonies love me? In what way? Absolutely and uniquely? I must possess true love, or else you wouldn't feel that way. To form a true couple, there must be a true man and a true woman. Then a true church and true country become the extensions of them.
I speak every Sunday morning and you regularly come to listen to me. Do we need this to establish the absolute pattern of life or just to spend time together? Recently most people went out fund raising, so there were only a handful of people here on Sunday. Reverend Kwak suggested that I let someone else give the sermon, but I refused because speaking on Sunday is my principle. Whether this day is cold and raining or lovely, whether one person comes or a thousand, whether I slept the night before or not -- it doesn't matter. What matters is that I be here for the sermon. I have to express love to you and you to me.
Love doesn't develop automatically. You married couples have to express love to each other, you have to make your husband like you, and vice versa. You can never go to heaven by yourself; if your wife goes ahead, she has to wait for you.
If you are treading this way, it doesn't matter how insignificant you may appear to be because you have passed the absolute test; you will continue to grow and grow. Like God, when you are opposed by others, you have to tolerate them with love. People will begin to feel sorry for you when you have been opposed three or four times. That is my standard in educating you; no matter what others may do to you, persevere and they will feel badly about it and stop. When each one of us becomes like that, this church will be a true church.
We want to make a true ideal country based on this foundation. Once we create a true country, in no time at all it will cover the rest of the world. Then everyone on every level will be a part of the realm of true love. This world is full of change and instability. Even though we are just a handful of people, we are most precious if we are unchanging. I want to love you because you are like jewels among all this falseness.
True Man, True Church, True Country 1-9-83
The Unification Church asserts that all people in the universe must come into unity. How can all the round minds become one? Like a string of pearls, they can be strung together with the thread of true love running through their centers. Everyone must open his deepest, hidden mind and welcome the thread of love. Once the Principle enters a person, it dwells in the center of his mind. Each pearl will be unique, but the Principle will penetrate the very center of everyone's mind.
In the Chinese character for heaven, two symbols for man are combined, one above the other. This indicates true love. Love is not just for yourself but for the whole. The center should always be able to lead; so if you are the center of true love, you should be able to lead others. Did you come to hear my sermon today in order to gain knowledge? No? Why? Perhaps to gain power -- hoping my sermon would recharge you? Actually, energy is just a by-product. How about money? Remember how we didn't have a carpet here several years ago -- only a cold concrete floor? When you feel that this is the warmest, coziest place and are perfectly satisfied to sit on the floor, I will introduce chairs! If the person sitting next to you complains about being uncomfortable on the floor, just remind him that he is in the training course for true love!
Universality 1-16-83
The transition from individual to couple is only one step in a long process. The individual must live for the sake of the family, the family for the society, the society for the nation, and the nation for the world. That principle never changes. Why do husband and wife come together? Why should we keep advancing from individual to family, and family to society, nation and world? Because God's love is needed everywhere. God's love is omnipresent and there is nothing it cannot penetrate.
The entire world and universe should be eternally filled with God's love. Each individual is a carrier of that love, sprinkling it at higher and higher levels. This is your eternal destiny. If you cannot fulfill it here on earth, then you must continue after death. At the age of 20, most secular men and women think that love between husband and wife is all that matters. Their perception of God's universal love stops right there. Love has never been sanctified or truly fulfilled on a universal scale because people held onto it for themselves. That is not God's way. That is not why God created you.
The Way God is Pursuing 1-23-83
There are three levels of a true person: foundation, growth and completion. What is the completion or perfection of a true person? A true person is defined as one who has absolute true love. But what is absolute true love? A perfected, true person loves his enemy, for instance. What kind of enemy -- one who steals your clothes? One who curses you? The worst kind of enemy is the robber of love, one who infiltrates and invalidates love, one who commits an adulterous sin against you. In other words, your enemy is one who steals your love or your lover. This is the worst form of enemy because such a person destroys you completely. A perfected true person is defined as one who can forgive even the enemy who has destroyed his love.
We are talking about true people, but there is also the true God. What is the definition of the true God? Again, the same definition applies to both people and God. God has an enemy who stole His love. Satan made himself God's worst enemy by stealing God's love. That was the worst crime against God. If someone abducts the one you truly love, he destroys you completely because he takes away your entire universe. Now we know that the perfected true person and the perfected true God are the ones who can forgive their worst enemy who stole their love. If you asked God what kind of person He would like to live with, He would reply that He wants to live with the kind of perfected person who has the capacity to forgive the very enemy of love.
With Whom Shall I Live? 2-6-83
But external things do not make people happy. The well-to-do couple may become miserably unhappy, while the couple with nothing may live like sweet honey because love is the power which brings them together, not their social condition or the size of their bank account. The intensity of unconditional love between husband and wife is more valuable than anything you can think of -- more than beauty, education or social standing. The most important thing is the purity and intensity of their love.
The Original World and the Enemy World 3-1-83
When plus and minus meet, sparks of love fly in all directions. Those sparks can be seen from a great distance. Their light is so brilliant that it attracts people and fills them with a desire to be a part of it. Wherever goodness and love exist, they attract all people and all things. Wherever the sparks go, all things will want to follow. Men and women desire a perfect union because when they achieve it, they can have everything, like God. All good things are included in that union.
Will a man send a women away if he knows that? No, he would beg and plead with her and do anything to keep her. If the only way a woman can keep her man is to cook for him, she is bound to do it. Even if it is painful to her and she makes a mess, still if it is the only way to hold her husband, she will do it! Every day you have to work on ways to hook your husband or your wife. I'm not talking about painful hooks, but even if they were, he or she wouldn't mind; they will enjoy it! Hook him or her in the eyes, the ears, the mouth and everywhere! Use a double hook. Make sure there is no chance for escape.
What kind of hook do you need? Will knowledge or power bring a husband or wife close to you? No, you need a love hook.
Here in the Unification Church, each individual is running a marathon centering on true love. You go and serve others to the end of the world and then return to start your family life. Those whom you served will welcome you and your family back. That is the legitimate start of the family which can lead right to heaven. This is a simple but important point. It is a rule or yardstick by which you should constantly measure yourself. How do you know whether you are on the right track? Get out the measuring stick and see if you comply with it. When love between a man and woman is established and fixed, you have created the habit of love. Once you are accustomed to living that way, you will be unable to live without love.
Original Root and Self 5-22-83
We understand that God created all things in order to perfect His love. When perfected human beings achieve perfected love, they can fulfill their subject/object relationship with God. Today, many theologians conceive of God as beyond the realm of human beings; they say that God, the Creator, is totally "other" -- distinct from His created beings, people. Therefore, they don't understand the need for a genuine relationship between God and mankind. But we realize how wrong they are.
When is a person perfected? When he has developed rippling muscles like those of Mr. Universe? When he has achieved vast knowledge and learning? But if such a person is alone, he is not admired or considered a happy person. If a woman beautiful enough to be Miss Universe is all alone, without any man to love, others do not envy her happiness. Only when an admirable man and an admirable woman come together in love is their perfection fulfilled.
We know this holds true for human beings, but what about God? Would He stand alone and say, "I am perfected; I need nothing more"? No. God as the true subject needs a true object. Love springs from God; God is truly the source of our love. But suppose a man says to God, "I want Your love for myself; I don't want to share it with anyone else, even this woman." On the other hand, suppose the woman tells God that she doesn't want to yield any of His love to that man or she expects God to love her first and the man second. When each finds out what the other is up to, they will certainly fight!
God might feel some sympathy towards such a man and woman, since after all they are fighting over the greatest and most desirable of all treasures, love. So God has to decide which of them will receive love first! Both the man and the woman are like ripe fruit, red with desire for God's love. The color red is the best color to express passion. Even God is red with love. Once the three start to love each other, neither the man or the woman will object to what another receives, because as they reach out to each other, God comes into their midst! Their competition for love is solved, because as they embrace with God in the middle, both have equal access to God.
When the man is mature and red with the ripeness of his love, he will plead for God to come to him. At that point he thinks about God first and the woman second. The woman as well asks for God first -- not because she doesn't like the man but because God takes precedence over any other person. God looks at such a man and woman with intense care. They are about to be drawn to one another in love, but their desire is to invite God in first, because without Him they cannot have a genuine relationship. Of course, God recognizes and endorses such an attitude. Once God approves of them, will He leave them alone, or will He zero in on them? The ideal position for both the man and the woman is that of equilibrium; when husband and wife are balanced, God comes to both at the same time, so they no longer need to compete to receive God's love first.
What power can create that perfect balance between a man and a woman, and between the couple and God? True love, of course. The man's true love, joined with the woman's true love, plus God's true love creates a triple true love! Such monumental power is capable of stimulating God's mind and body, the man's mind and body, and the woman's mind and body. When so much excitement is stirred up, it erupts! Now you understand that when God created man and woman and pronounced them "very good," He was thinking about love.
Where does love come from? From above, or from the man and woman? Certainly it comes from above. Therefore, the vertical position of love needs to be established first. In America, people write horizontally, from left to right. In the Orient, people write vertically, from top to bottom. The horizontal traditions of the West and the vertical traditions of the East must become interwoven. Horizontal love is human love, and vertical love is God's love. Therefore, you need the Blessing.
Once perfectly balanced love is established, the satanic world will crumble because it is not lawful in God's sight -- and we won't even to do anything! No world which tries to exclude God will ever survive. Therefore, you should be proud of being matched and blessed by True Parents according to God's natural law.
The Day of All Things 1983 6-11-83
We are born and then we must go through a period of growth to reach maturity along the horizontal line. The growth period is essential according to the original formula of God's creation. This is very logical. God created the growth period because the ultimate goal of creation is to form global love and bring everything into that center. God has to come down to meet human beings at the center; human beings have to grow into that center. All the environment has to be ready, ripened for that center. Therefore, the period of growth is essential.
It resembles an explosion. God comes down as men and women are growing toward that central point of love. Once vertical and horizontal meet, the clash of love is like an explosion which creates a vacuum. Everything is expelled and then the vacuum pulls everything in. Everybody is pulled together, united into one, and can live there happily forever. This is the beauty of love. Once they are united like this, no one is separated or exposed.
Once they become one, the woman's heart is in the heart of the man; the man's heart is in the heart of the woman. The hearts of the man and woman are in the heart of God. So there is no way you can retreat. You are trying to get deeper and deeper into the heart of God, closer and closer together. What happens then? If every component is trying to push inward toward the center, does it create something flat or round? It has to be round.
Day of Heavenly Victory 10-4-83
When we analyze love, we see that it can be fulfilled only when there is a relationship between two parties. There must be a subject and an object. If this is the principle by which God created the world and human beings, then all expression in creation must be the expression of His love and the desire to fulfill His love. The creation must be a symbolic manifestation of God's desire for love. To put it more simply, God created the world as His object, with Himself as subject.
All forms of creation are made in such a way as to stimulate the love of God. This is why we read in Genesis that God said, "It is good," after each day of creation. Was He saying that because He was so impressed with the value of gold and diamonds? No, it was because God was building the fulfillment of His ideal of love day by day. Each day of the creation brought Him nearer to that fulfillment. That's why He was pleased and said each day, "It is good."
Don't you think God was very happy, smiling from ear to ear, as He observed His unfolding creation? On the final day, God created man and woman and said, "Behold, it is very good." He was very happy to be able to say "very good." It was not money, knowledge or power that made God say "very good," but it was the possibility of the fulfillment of His love.
It was man and woman who were the object of God's love. That means you! Have you ever really felt that God was looking at you or touching your face and hair, saying, "It is very good"? Have you ever thought that you were God's very good object?
Multitudes of theologians have come and gone, but none has ever thought in this manner about God's purpose of creation. Many theologians have described God as a God of power and might, who created the universe in order to demonstrate His power. That is like some big muscle man showing off for others -- many people have actually thought that was the reason for God's creation.
But when God tells us that He created for the fulfillment of His love, everyone in the world is involved, because we are all the objects of His love. Everybody is involved in the love affair with God. Love makes everybody smile, regardless of the age of the person, whether it is a man or woman, a boy or a girl. Love can melt everyone. Why did God create this world? The goal and purpose was not so much for wisdom, or for power, or for dignity or anything else. He did it for love. Do you like this conclusion?
The way to own the whole universe is to become the center of love. The men and women who fulfill the love of God, having give and take with their subject of love -- God -- and enjoying the total union of love with Him, will inherit all of His creation. Whenever someone is fulfilling love, the entire universe comes under that person and will follow him. Even God feels the desire to be united with such a person.
Suppose you are completely united with God, the subject of love. Then what will you have? You will have everything. You will be fulfilled completely. Once a person achieves that relationship with God, then God's joy will be limitless. He will feel like erupting in an eternal laughter of happiness.
The desire of human beings to possess the entire universe is not a wrong one. It is given to us by God. The problem is that people simply do not understand how to achieve it in the right way. The only way to achieve that ambition is by uniting with the love of God, fulfilling one's own love. The universe is nothing but the manifestation of the love of God; thus it automatically becomes one with you, once you are one with God.
Love is something that does not need to be explained. You don't have to say, "I love you and this is why and how..." Once you fulfill your love, it can be felt automatically. It is like magnetic power, only stronger and much more powerful than any magnet. Everybody likes that love magnet -- whether they are black, white, yellow, young or old. Love sparks with every person and it is beautiful to behold.
This is the true privilege and dignity of human beings, the privilege and dignity lost at the time of the fall. Some people have sought to restore the rights and dignity of man through the use of force, for example people like Hitler or the communist dictators. They have tried to restore people at gunpoint, but that will never work. Such people are totally mistaken. There is no way the world will follow the power of brute force. The world will follow nothing other than the source of love. You must become a magnet of love and then the world will be attracted. Only in that way can one gain dominion of the world.
Every sense is stimulated in the search for love -- the heart palpitates and the whole body is ready to shoot like a guided missile to the object of love. The target for the female missiles of love is boys; the boy's target is girls. They are eager to experience the clash of a head-on collision.
The amazing thing is that, although they have a head-on collision, they are not shattered into a thousand pieces. Instead they come together in perfect unity and head upward toward heaven. They are like missiles moving horizontally that collide and then become one, moving vertically. Only the power of love can do such a thing. They become a vertical missile with two parts one composed of the woman and the other the man. This two-part missile never wants to separate, either. This is the ideal husband and wife.
Why did God make a world which requires that men and women marry? It is because He wanted to expand the horizon of love beyond the individual on the horizontal level to the couple on the vertical level. Each man represents the entire masculine world; each woman represents the entire feminine world. When they come together, they represent the universe and the total image of God.
Marriage is not just the unity of one man and one woman but of the male character and the female character. In other words, by loving your spouse, you are loving the realm of masculinity or femininity. Thus the woman seeks to understand the man and the man seeks to understand the woman. The unity between the male and female world takes place in marriage. Each couple represents the harmony of the entire universe. That kind of couple is what God has been longing to see here on earth.
It is beautiful to see a young man and woman get married and then grow old together. Eventually the wife can say, "My darling, in the process of living with you and loving you, I have earned these gray hairs." And the man can only say, "Thank you, my dear. My hair, too, has turned gray after all these years of sharing love." Each can say, "This elderly skin of mine has changed in the process of giving my energy in loving you." Such a loving elderly couple is beautiful to behold. They can look forward to an even greater fulfillment of their love in the spiritual world. They will be rejuvenated into the state of permanent youth when they are elevated into the next world.
As people live in this world and unite with each other horizontally, they practice becoming the objects to God's love. Then the day of departure from this world comes which we call death, but it is not really death. Rather, it is the point of transformation and elevation into the permanent world. That is where the love of God is complete; There you become grafted into the vertical love of God.
You will not only have give and take between husband and wife; you will also have give and take with the origin of love -- God. God will never come into you until husband and wife are completely united together. It doesn't matter what sort of external form your relationship takes but only whether you are completely melted into one. Only then do you totally represent the image of God so that His love can flow into you.
The Divine Principle teaches about the dual essentialities of God. When a man and woman representing the dual essentialities unite totally in love, they totally represent the dual image of God. How wonderful and dramatic that is! When you are totally united in love, even though you grow old, you will be elevated into the realm of the love of God and that vertical love will come into you, and you will be rejuvenated to the point of teenagers again! That is the point of vertical youth.
Your married life is a horizontal love life and you will grow older, but then you will be transformed into youths again, vertical teenagers. Without doing this, you cannot become a master of this world because there is no way you can connect with God as your true subject.
This is a beautiful truth. You are born as the princes and princesses of love. You must become kings and queens of love and create the kingdom of love. That is God's ideal and that is the true purpose for your being born. Human dignity and value is that great. We were born for the perfection of love. Do you follow?
Therefore, nothing should become an obstacle in our pursuit of this love, not even death. We were conceived in love, born in love, and we grow up in order to fulfill that love. Ultimately we are transformed into the ultimate love relationship with God. That is the purpose of life. When you get older you can think that the time for the ultimate maturity of love is near and it can be an exciting thing. Old age need not be gloomy at all but rather a time of looking forward to a new rejuvenation of life with God. How exciting that is!
There cannot be perfection of love for a single man or woman. It is only as a man and woman together, centered upon God, that you can look forward to perfection.
God has been harboring His ideal of love which has not been fulfilled so far. The Unification Church is the only hope of God for the fulfillment of His ideal. We are in the process of doing that. Without going through this process, that ideal cannot be fulfilled. No matter how difficult it becomes, you must clench your teeth and go forward.
I want you to understand, therefore, that the Unification Church is the historically highest religion, and the way you are living is the highest historically career. My teaching is always directed toward achieving this goal -- that every one of you can fulfill this historically highest career and achieve God's ideal of love. Do you understand?
That is our goal and path. Sometimes you get tired and you feel weak. That is the point of your showdown and that is where many people crumble. You have to go down below that point and rebound; that is how you reach true love. From that most desperately suffering point, if you still love God and yearn for the True Parents, you will rebound. God is not at the highest places; He is at the lowest places; He is at the lowest places in the bottom of hell. Thus you must go down there, too. The deeper into suffering you descend, the greater the amount of universal love you will find and be embraced by.
The Historically Highest Career 11-1-83
Suppose we ask a saintly woman, "Is there something of more value than even yourself?" she would reply, "A saintly man." Likewise, the saintly man would consider the saintly woman as having greater value than himself. Do you think that is a silly question or a correct one? Is a women's appearance the factor that gives her more value to a man than himself? What makes the saintly man value the saintly woman so much? That woman has the love within herself which the man needs. It is the quality of her love for him that makes the saintly man value her. The reverse is true as well.
Man's ability to respond to the true love of God was killed due to the fall. People cannot even recognize God's true love, much less vibrate with it. The whole purpose of salvation is to restore that ability of human beings to vibrate with the love of God. Once the spiritual body of man can receive the vibration of God's love, his whole self will resound with it. His entire physical body will respond to God's stimuli. That would be the total satisfaction of love. Nothing could be more desired by anyone.
Man is totally satisfied by the touch of true love from his subject, God. This is everything that people have searched for -- the essence of true love. Yet no one has known before how to define true love and what was the source of it.
God created Adam and Eve in the same way as the other forms of life -- from embryos. Only after a child grows can he truly become one with the rest of the universe; until then, he is incomplete. As Adam and Eve reached puberty, life began to take on a new meaning. Just like teenagers today, they felt the newness of romantic, poetic yearnings. They began to think about exploring the entire world and searching for adventure. They began to think about love as well.
A loving woman can confidently feel that no matter how big and tall her husband may be, she is big enough to embrace him and encompass him with her love. In fact a true woman will feel that God Himself can come and be engulfed within her bosom. She will feel that large with her love.
A man and woman truly in love will feel like engulfing each other, penetrating each other totally. God feels the same desire. Just as Adam and Eve would have yearned to touch each other in the most sensitive places, so too does God want to participate in their love and touch them. Just as Adam and Eve were intoxicated with their love, so would God be. God would embrace Adam and Eve and look forward to more and greater love in the future. He would embrace them with the strongest power of true love. Nothing could ever separate them at that point.
The Purpose of Life, Coming and Going 1-8-84
The most important element is not life itself; it is love. When love is pure and strong and altruistic within a society; that society will prosper no matter what. But when people do not practice love for humanity, for country and one's fellow man, that society will eventually fall. Unfortunately, the United States is following that historical pattern. Red danger lights are blinking all over America today. This is the reality.
What is God doing about this? God must be working for restoration, trying to create a turning point to pull this nation from its current situation and move it toward His ideal. The fundamental problem is man's relationship with Satan, so unless we can solve this, there can be no permanent solution to any of the other problems of society. T he basic relationship between people and Satan resides within the illicit love relationship -- self-centered love. Such immoral love always divides people and separates them from any ideal.
The love of God is exactly the opposite; it is pure, it creates unity, and it uplifts people and allows them to go beyond selfishness. Love is the key element over which Satan and God have been battling. So far, it has appeared that God has been losing the battle. Satan has become very arrogant, saying, "Even you, God, haven't got the power to stop my love. It will take over the whole world so why don't you surrender?"
The Necessity for the Day of Victory of Love 1-15-84
Although you can say that God exists, perhaps you feel, "So He does, but what does He have to do with me? And what do I have to do with Him?" The relationship may seem distant to you. You might think about God's qualities, such as His omnipotence and His omnipresence. Those are qualities which people often think of first when they think about God. But just knowing these things does not make us feel closer to God. In fact, some people think, "I don't particularly like the fact that I have no privacy before God and that He has power over my life!"
There is one quality of God, however, which automatically draws us closer to Him and that is His true love. Don't you feel good when you think that God loves you?
Many times young people think, "My parents are the ones who always tell me what to do and what not to do." Especially in America, the relationship between parents and children is often strained. However, we have to realize how important our parents are to us, particularly their love. Even though as children we were spanked and disciplined, we feel grateful as adults for their care and concern for us. Children want to tag along with their parents, even though they may have just been spanked and are crying. They feel they cannot live without their parents.
This is a very serious question indeed. How do we distinguish between false love and true love? We can observe whether someone is motivated for himself or for the sake of something larger. False love is self- centered whereas true love is public. This is the reason God has always taught mankind to give love and live for the sake of other people.
This has been God's endeavor since His dispensation of restoration began -- to teach mankind true love. Do you understand? True love is more than just one's thoughts or one's feelings. True love is living for and even saving others. That is the only way true love can be found. In that endeavor, God Himself can be found. You will never find God in any other place; but whenever a person is working for the sake of others, God will be working there, too. God works through such a selfless individual, family or country.
With that yardstick, it's very simple to distinguish between false love and true love. If you are evaluating two people, you can judge which one thinks more about others and which one thinks more about himself. That is the criterion. God will always raise up those who are on the side of true love, bringing them higher and higher, while those who are on the side of false love will diminish below God's domain.
This is why the Unification Church is great. We follow the age-old rule of absolute dedication. This rule never changes in history; it will continue to work for the rest of time. I know that. Have you really come to appreciate this? For whom is love forever? We must be able to say, "My true love is for God and mankind and my True Parents. This is my own true love."
When we master that love, God will become our closest friend. We can climb on top of God; we can ride on His back; we can become truly one with Him. God is vertical and we are horizontal, but then we change positions, and one becomes vertical and the other becomes horizontal. So long as we maintain ninety degrees, that's all that is necessary. Then we can move around and around.
This is where happiness is; it is nowhere else. The person who has this quality of relationship with God is the happiest on earth. The king of happiness is the one who is living with the love of God. At that point, he couldn't care less about worldly knowledge, power and authority or money. The only thing that matters is the omnipotent love of God. Truly the only knowledge we need is knowledge about love.
How do we have dominion over the world? We have dominion by love. In true love a person never minds being controlled by the beloved; he only wants more and more of that sort of domination. Within your marriage relationships, do you women want your husband to love you in a relaxed, weak way? No, you want him to love you with his fullest power.
God is streaming into the very cells of your body. How can you not feel close to Him, knowing that He will be with you 24 hours a day, just as long as you work publicly? We must know that God is not a concept; He is not anything less than love itself. All He wants is to make us the perfect objects to Him as the perfect subject.
Thus each person must be proud and recognize his or her privileged position. Imperfect as you may be, God Himself wants you as His loving object. That is indeed our privilege and our authority and that is the value of every human being.
Love Forever 1-22-84
Love is everywhere, even within the mineral kingdom. When you look from the spiritual point of view, even the rocks sing, the trees talk and the flowers dance. The universe is craving for love, therefore our way of life must be nothing other than that -- singing and craving for love. The universe is like God's museum of love. Every facet of the universe teaches us how love should be expressed. Mankind completes that museum; man is the crowning piece within that museum.
The entire universe is waiting for the consummation of love. The minerals, the plants, and the animal kingdom are waiting for the consummation of love. The master who consummates the love of the universe is man. Human beings must bind together into oneness with God. That is the role of people in this universe. At the moment of the consummation of the love of human beings, God consummates His love as well.
The insects exist in pairs and they make noises of love. Those noises are made for the sake of their mate. The birds sing love songs to their mates every morning: and likewise all the animals make sounds of love. How about human beings? If there are no partners in love, there is no art, music, or dancing. You have nothing to dance about.
All things are craving a mediator to convey their love to a higher level of accomplishment. This is even true of fish. Therefore, people can relate to all the different aspects of creation, including the fish, the birds, plants, animals and minerals. This is because man is their ultimate mediator or bridge to God.
However, the channel of love for the universe has been shattered; man has never become the bridge for their love. For that reason it is very logical to say that the Creation is groaning in travail and grief -- no true love has been conveyed between them and their Creator. Look at the tiny insects; even between them, there is the communication of love. Lower animals are sacrificed and eaten by the higher animals -- for example, cows are eaten by human beings. But cows are glad of this because in that way they become part of the human body and the human body relates in love to God, which is the ultimate purpose of the universe.
Love goes beyond physical death and thus all the creatures of nature are willing to sacrifice themselves to become part of a higher love. The only reason why humans have the right to eat all the different forms of nature is that we are the higher beings who are capable of relating the love of God to the rest of the universe. For that reason, human beings should also be able to sacrifice themselves for the sake of love. Furthermore a person without love has no real right to eat the creation. Such a person is not-a true mediator. The universe knows what entitles someone to eat. It is not because someone can pay for the groceries, but only because someone is sensing the love of God.
The universe is "auditing" your love. They can see whether you are a person of love or not. They know whether someone is a thief, having consumed the universe without ever relaying God's love back to them. What is the difference between animals, for example the birds, and human beings? Birds only know how to love one another, but human beings know how to harmonize with and love all the forms of creation. Therefore, human beings are the ultimate mediators between God and creation. That is the difference. That is the special dignity and privilege of human beings.
What is the love of the True Parents? It is the love that links together all the generations of love of the entire creation. The whole creation is harmonized through the True Parents. True Parents' love here on earth is like a formula or tradition; anybody who follows that formula or tradition is bound to succeed. Not only will you succeed here on earth, but you will also succeed in spirit world, which is the eternal and most important world. This kind of love will be welcomed anywhere, anytime, because this is the love of God.
Generation Record of the True Parents' Love 4-22-84
In the utopian ideal, do you think the love within the family would always be changing? No, it would be an unchanging love. What is the purpose for God's working so hard trying to build the utopian world? What kind of treasure can God gain from that utopia? He wants unchanging, true love. True love requires the love of God and the love of the True Parents coming together to create one central love, which will continue unchanged for eternity. God is the center and the True Parents are the representatives of that love.
Thus without God there can be no true love. Furthermore, without the True Parents there can be no true love. Even though some people believe in God, if they don't know True Parents, they can't find true love. True love requires the recognition of both God and the True Parents because true love flows through them.
The realm of true love can come in a realistic way when there are three generations united -- the grandparents united with the parents and children. This is the formula for the Heavenly four position foundation. Each unit of this formula must combine -- men must combine with women as units of true love, creating the ideal couple. Do you want true love? Where can you get it? Only by going through the True Parents and God. True love has a good taste, doesn't it? That same sweetness is enjoyed by God, too. When a true man and true woman are in love, that is the very sweetness God has wanted to taste all this time.
You are heading toward the ideal of heaven or utopia, and that goal can only be reached through the path of a true family. Through the Divine Principle, you learned that God originally created mankind in two parts. How can they be combined into one? The only way that God's original ideal of unity can be achieved is through true love, once Adam and Eve are matured. With that unity, God's true love, the original plus love, could combine with man's love, the minus love. God's plus love would be coming down and man's minus love would be going up.
With the coming together of God's true plus love with man's true minus love, everything would be accomplished -- the utopia would be achieved. Do you understand clearly how true love can come to you?
The coming of the True Parents is the greatest news for the fallen world because only through True Parents can the world taste, for the first time, true love.
The Thirtieth Anniversary of the Unification Church 5-1-84
Between man and women, there would be no concept of aloneness. No matter how great a man is, he would know there is nothing without a woman. Likewise, no matter how beautiful a woman is, she would realize that she is nothing without a man.
When your television antenna is very high, you receive more signals than a lower one. What is the highest love antenna in the creation? Is it the tall trees? No, the highest and most sensitive antenna in God's creation is given to men and women. Do you agree with this? The love antennae of human beings are invisible; they reach all the way up to God through the realm of thought and feeling.
I want you to know that love is the most holy and supreme impulse. If you can lay down your life for the sake of your spouse, you are the greatest lover. Likewise, those parents who give their lives for their children have the highest love.
The Day of the Love of God 5-20-84
Many people are frightened by thunderstorms and hate them. But you should appreciate the fact that God is displaying a dramatic aspect of His love through the thunder and lightning. It is like the explosion of a man and woman coming together in love.
True Way of Life 7-1-84
It is by the power of love that the sperm and egg join together. We can observe this phenomenon to examine how God merged the spiritual essence into the material essence. When God created the universe, including mankind, it was not knowledge or power that He used to do His work. It was love itself which He used. Love transcends everything else. Love is like the power of an electrical generating station. We can ask another very important question and that is: Why does man exist? Some materialists try to say that there is no specific or understandable reason for man's existence, that we just came into being. However, we know that nothing comes into being by accident. There was a plan in the beginning that later came to be translated into the actual being. The concept of love was there before any object of love came into being. That object of love for God was a couple, a man and woman.
Man is a privileged being to be able to engage in lovemaking over and over again, for his whole life and on into spirit world. All of nature, trees, the minerals, etc. exist as the textbook for the inspiration of human beings. When men and women, as the representatives of the whole universe, engage in love, the rest of the universe can rejoice with them. What makes a happy person? All of mankind feels a yearning for happiness, but unless we know what it is, how can we attain it? Happiness is the state in which you can give to an unlimited degree and you can receive to an unlimited degree. When you can give and receive unlimited love, then you are a happy person. In other words, the happy person represents the original universe. Do you understand? We can describe happy people in another way. They are those who have the original marriage relationship, those who have original, perfect parents, and those who have original children. In other words, those who have the original four position foundation are the happy people. This is because they represent the universe. That is a wonderful happiness!
In order for someone to become perfect, he cannot exist just for his own sake. In order to grow, a person must learn to love others more than himself, even sacrificing himself for their sake. The logic of love is that once a person denies himself he becomes greater. When you deny yourself, then something else greater fills in that space. This can be understood also by observing the way a low pressure area is filled up by a higher pressure area. This is symbolic of what happens when we sacrifice ourselves and get filled up by a greater amount of love. By this process, each individual unites with a bigger and bigger plus. Everyone, including the True Children, lives according to this law. It is the law of the universe, something that no one can breach without suffering the consequences. You will become smaller and smaller if you break that law. Thus one's spouse is a very important person in the fulfillment of this law.
Original Way of God's Will 7-8-84
The restoration of love is the central task of the Unification Church because that is where mankind went wrong.
Parents' Day 4-7-85
What is the one thing that the Supreme Being would like to own? What one thing is the finest, the best, the ultimate thing for God? God longs to have true love. When you talk about true love, it always denotes two parties. No one can dwell in love all by himself; you cannot just speak the world "love" over and over again and experience it. Likewise, for God to engender love, He must have an object.
What kind of love has God been yearning for? Mt. McKinley is the highest mountain in the United States. Has God been yearning for that tall mountain as the object of His love? Do you think God has been thinking about a beautiful bird as an object because it can sing and fly so well? No, He has been yearning for true men and true women. What is the definition of a true man? Is he special because he has an eye on top of his nose? Does a true man have two extra shoulders so that he can have four arms instead of two? That would certainly be a powerful man, wouldn't it? No, rather than all these things, we know that a true man is the man whom God loves and in order to be loved by God, he must resemble God. He must be that ideal object for God.
Whether you are a man or a woman, you must resemble God Himself. When we speak of humanity, we speak of both men and women. What do you think -- is God more like a man or more like a woman? God bears a resemblance to both men and women. So there are two objects of God: men and women. Are the two objects the same or different? Do they have the same or different features?
Are these two different beings, men and women, always trying to pull away from each other, or do they always try to come together from their opposite positions? What do you think? Are they supposed to come together or go away from each other? When are they supposed to be perfectly united -- when they are just crawling babies? When they are little children playing on the playground? No, it is only when their minds and bodies are perfectly united that they are supposed to come together as men and women.
Thus when men and women reach a certain age, they start to experience feelings of love. They want to know and understand love and they want to be together. Why do men and women want to be united? The reason is very important and simple. As an individual, a man or a woman cannot be a total object to God. Men represent one half of God and women represent the other half. So in order to reflect the total image of God, men and women have to come together.
Just as we have two eyes that can focus properly only together, when men and women come together in unity, their focus will also converge properly. Men and women are supposed to come together in that kind of unity, which we call love unity. Then God can come in; the dwelling of God is with them. When men and women come together in such a manner, God will embrace them and say, "Indeed, you are my image, my perfect image. I take delight and joy in you."
Then to whom does love belong? Love belongs to God, to man and woman. Love is the uniting factor of all three. When men and women are horizontally united in love they can be vertically united with God. That is the fair way. Otherwise, if God just came down to men, the women would complain; or if He just came down to the women, the men would complain. God doesn't want to be unfair, so it is only when men and women are rejoicing together in love that God can come down and dwell with them.
Love is eternal and permanent; it must have a storehouse. Men and women are meant to be that storehouse; love is meant to be held by them. So love does not really exist within just a man or just a woman, but rather between them; both must possess it together. That is the whole purpose of the differences between men and women, according to the original ideal.
I knew why I was in prison. It was the most important barrier which God wanted me to penetrate. Throughout history, many martyrs and saints died for the sake of their religion, for the sake of God's love. True love is greater than life itself. Therefore, for the sake of the tradition of true love, you have to go forward and make sacrifices, even if you might lose your life. The absolute standard is this: if you have to die for the sake of true love, you must choose that route. That is my uncompromising principle. Do you understand?
One thing is certain: in the entire history of humanity, no one has persevered more or suffered more for the sake of true love than I have. I have truly lived an uncompromising way of life for this purpose. I am ready even now to give up my life. Ultimately the world is destined to come under the domain of true love. True love and the power of the universe have protected me throughout my life and that is the reason I have come this far. Now I am ready to guide the world to join in true love.
You must be proud that you are participating in the Unification movement, which is going after only the absolute standard. There is no halfway standard, but everything is absolute -- absolute words, absolute love, absolute actions. This is the way you are committed to go, so you must be very proud of this.
We are on a treasure hunt looking through a labyrinth for the passage to true love. This is the romantic life of the Unification Church. More than anything else, the most important undertaking is going through the labyrinth and finding true love. Each step is precious, so vital. Even if it took one thousand years to take one more step, still you cannot avoid this path. You must go and find the way to true love. I am the forerunner along this way and you are following. Do you think you can go your own way or the way that you like in order to find the treasure?
Do you think it is necessary to make a great amount of noise or put on a great show for other people? What do you think? No, you don't need any cheerleaders around you. This is a path which you have to go all by yourself. It is an internal path which is very lonely at times. But knowing that you are moving toward the greatest treasure, you can have the greatest satisfaction going this way.
Western members sometimes speak too much, while Eastern members many times are too silent. But Unificationists must become the balanced point. We know the East and we know the West, so we must balance between them. Know the advantages of both worlds and strive for the best of both of them.
In the world today, particularly in America, love has become a "fun" thing, and people go hopping around from one bed to another. One night, one person, another night, another person. Many young people think that this is the way they can fulfill their happiness. What do you think? Is that God's definition of a human being? Such a person doesn't really deserve to be a part of humanity.
The world has gone far away from God's basic principle of love; people have let themselves fall below the animalistic realm of love. But the Unification Church has reestablished the moral principle of human love. If this were merely a theory, still we would have to accept it because of its logic; however, knowing that it is truth, how glad we are to accept it and live by it.
The love of God is absolute. In order to engender such love, God needs an absolute man and an absolute woman. He needs to bring them together in love into absolute unity. This is the total principle of original love. This is the nucleus of unity. To obtain this nucleus we need these three components -- God, man and woman. How absolute they are in unity.
What are the most important and precious words we can think of? A scholar might say, "The most important words are my scholarly works, my dissertation on economic theory." Many people believe that economics are most basic and therefore most important to everyone. Let's say that you wanted to become a university student, but you wanted to pursue a special major. If there were something like the Department of True Love Studies, wouldn't you apply? Is there any university with a department of true love?
However, you Moonies are enrolled in a university with a Department of True Love. You experience many ups and downs and some people get tired and flunk out, but those who succeed in the True Love Department are called the Moonies. You are attending True Love University, right? True Love University and the True Love Department offer probably the most difficult courses you can ever imagine, but then they are the most worthwhile. Even if you lost an arm and a leg, you would still want to pursue these studies, wouldn't you? Even if you were nothing more than a stump of a person, you would still want to graduate from the True Love Department. Today you are listening to the college president who has come to preach to you on the true love theory. Do you like it or not?
We are talking about an absolute standard in which there is no room for compromise or discussion. The true love principle is uncompromising. The opinions of different scholars and experts simply do not have any bearing on the absolute true love principle. Those who want to receive their diploma from True Love University, raise your hands, please.
I have always been seeking for one thing: true love. The way of true love must be established for the individual, the family, society, nation and world. True love is meant to be practiced within the framework of the family. Through the family, all other important levels of love can be achieved, such as the love of one's neighbor, altruism for one's country and the world, as well as saintly love. We have talked about all kinds of love, but family true love is connected to every one of them.
This tree I am drawing here represents true love. It has many branches, some of which go all across the world. But all those branches are connected to the same tree and have the same roots; therefore their quality is the same. The energy flowing from the roots goes to every leaf and every branch in the tree and vice versa; they have give and take that way. True love has many, many flowers, many branches, many leaves. All people were supposed to be born into this true love family tree but were not. That is the great tragedy of all tragedies.
Springing from the true love root, a branch goes toward the west, where it becomes white people; when it goes to the east, it becomes yellow people; to the south, it becomes black people; to the north, it becomes Eskimos. The human family is supposed to be connected to the same, universal root. All people were supposed to be attached to the one most important institution which God created; the family. That is the essential building block.
The elements of true love -- love between husband and wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters -- were supposed to be exactly the same, regardless of where those families were located, or whether they were white families, black families, yellow or Eskimo families. True love is the common denominator that brings all people together into that family unity. True love is the common denominator for east, west, north and south.
Therefore the true measure of your happiness is whether you are close to the central standard of true love. Happiness or unhappiness cannot be determined by how much money you have, but only by the purity with which you exercise true love. If a third party is trying to invade a marriage, those spouses cannot be happy people. When the purity between a husband and wife is preserved, love is preserved and that is the happy couple. This is how happiness can be measured. This standard applies equally, whether you are black, yellow or white.
"Absolute" in love means only one. Therefore, a couple cannot be involved with other people. In the Unification Church, the marriage principle is absolute. Once you are blessed, that goes on for eternity. Your couple shall be preserved as a true family coming out of this root. I know it is not easy in many cases, but no matter how difficult it may be, would you like to pursue my teaching and way of life? Or would you like to be a butterfly, flitting from one love to another? You are following this way because that is how you can be connected to God and possess God's absolute love. Once we possess the love of God, we possess everything in the universe. With true love, we can even control God. How much happiness that can bring!
Reverend Moon is a smart man; if there were some easy or convenient way, I would have found it and gone that route a long time ago, but there is no such thing. Therefore, I have been investing my entire life to live and propagate this way of love. In that case, do you think Mother is a happy woman? What about me, am I happy? Why are we happy people? It is because we are united centered upon God's love, which is absolute.
The Way of the Children 11-12-85
The motion of love joins together with the vertical line coming down and a gigantic circular movement is begun. In other words, the love of God along the vertical line is always circling. At the same time, men and women are also making circular motion in their love. This is another element of universal principle -- there is no straight line or movement in God's creation; it is always a circling movement. Everything comes to a certain point and then returns, then comes back, and so forth.
When you are living with this 100 percent commitment of true love, you don't have to worry or have ulcers. You can always have serenity and peace of mind, knowing that as you stay in the center, everything always comes back to you. You are the winner. This is the ideal realm of the heart of man-shim-jung -- Heartle. When there is 100 percent commitment, there is 100 percent freedom. The tiny little child can climb all over his grandfather; he has that kind of total freedom. The big, muscular husband can lay his head on his wife's lap. That is what we call the romantic, dramatic life of men and women, where you enjoy true freedom within true love.
The Day of All Things 6-7-86
A couple may find the going very difficult and wonder if they can continue; but the next day they find they can rise and go on. Of course they can do it! They were the only ones who worried that they couldn't.
Everything must move around; without movement, no unity can take place. What is up goes down and what is down rises; the front goes to the back and the back becomes the front; left and right will constantly change position. As long as you stand still, you can never make progress. You must have motion.
What makes motion? Only love. Love moves people. What does God actually need: man and woman, or love? Which does he long for most? God created man and woman -- not just one being but two -- as His objects of true love. Within Himself, God contains both plus and minus natures. Once man and woman achieve unity, they revolve and become like God Himself; they become the perfect image of God. Once they completely unite as a couple, the next stage is to achieve vertical oneness with God. When this happens, where will God dwell: above them, between them, or in their center? He will be right at their center.
The Glory of the Victor 8-31-86
The unity between men and women is very difficult to achieve; it is a virtually impossible task, but that is the ideal.
A universal design and will caused men and women to be made the way we are; we didn't decide how we should be built. That universal will made us this way for the purpose of harmony.
Even a man's skin is designed to be masculine, which means a rough texture and lots of hair, even a beard on the face. But women are meant to have soft skin, tender like the snow. Thus two extremes are brought together.
The amazing truth is that all the features you women possess are not for your own satisfaction or liking, but for the enjoyment of somebody else, namely a man. The same is true for men. In other words, women are created for men's liking and men are created for women's liking. That is why we say you are not born for yourself or exist for yourself.
The ideal means unity and harmony between extremes, from one end to the other. Once you achieve unity, you do not stand still but begin a circling motion. The question is, what sort of circling motion will you make? Do you want to just circle around in a small area or will you circle around a greater thing and a bigger purpose?
Does love exist for the purpose of giving, or just for receiving? The essence of loving is giving. What about here in America? When you women get married, do you say, "I am marrying because I want to give love"? Or do they feel, "I want to receive love"? What do you think? That was a very pragmatic American answer -- "both". However, which one should come first?
What happens when you only want to receive love? If the woman says, "You love me," and the man says, "No, I want to receive it. You give love to me," there can be no give and take, no intercourse. Therefore you both stand idle, with no unity. If you cannot unite, you cannot move upward. The ideal requires that you make a circular motion; the horizontal and vertical lines must come together and create the global, circular motion.
What is the worst sin of you women? It is that you always want to receive love. That is the sin of sins because it is so destructive of humanity and the rest of the universe. But when you are determined to give and serve others, then you not only unite but you also make a circling motion. You create the rhythm of up and down. Therefore, what is most wrong in our world today is that people just want to receive love.
Someone might say, "Nobody ever taught me that before. I certainly didn't learn that in college. Reverend Moon, you have created something brand new." This may be new to you, but it is universal law. No one can deny even one iota of this.
You women, please be honest to me and I promise to forgive you: have you been thinking of ways to receive more and more love, or have you thought about how to give more love? This is the revolution which I have proclaimed -- the revolution toward selfless love. That is what the Unification Church revolution is all about.
Men naturally pursue women, but for what purpose -- to receive love or to give love? That is the most important question. It is a serious problem that American people have not understood how universal law works. You men should never think, "I'm so glad I'm getting married because now my life will be easier. I will have someone to cook breakfast for me and wash my laundry, someone to serve me." But all of a sudden, that is not what happens and you start to complain, "Hey, what's happening here?" Your first concept was wrong; you are not supposed to get married in order to make your life easier. You should think that your life will get tougher, but you should be willing to do it in order to give love.
Love is always developing. Once you begin your love relationship, it must always expand. Your horizons must become larger and greater, expanding to the society, nation and world. Why are men and women so essential to each other? It is because you can develop your love to the world level through that most basic unit, the "building block" for love -- that relationship between a man and a woman.
Road Toward the Ideal 9-7-86
Dominion over the creation cannot come through vertical love alone. Vertical love must be translated into horizontal love, like the spreading of a wing which encompasses all of creation under itself.
Ideal Home Church 12-21-86
What is powerful enough to liberate man and God from the agony of this strange, distorted state? We have come to see that only God's love and God's life can do something about this. Because of the love that we have with Satan, even though we are alive, we are actually dead. Even though we have life, we are lifeless. Only God's love and life can help us.
Man has to go through a transition to allow God's life to flow into him. For God's life to be transmitted to that person, he has to move from the old, satanic place into the new or original place where the flow of love and flow of life can be experienced with God.
Liberation of the Spirit World and Physical World and the Unification of the World 2-22-87
Even though some woman may be respected by everyone, unless she can be proud of her husband, then she cannot be such a happy woman. Upon what basis can a woman be really proud of her husband? Where does she get the power to be proud? An elderly man can't say, "Well, since I am the grandfather, that's enough reason for me to be proud." He cannot take pride in himself all alone; other people have to be able to join in his pride. When the grandfather and grandmother are proud of their love, then we say that is valid. It is only love that two people can be proud of.
Suppose God said you could choose between several things. You could have great wealth to enjoy for the rest of your life; or you could have all the influence and power you could desire; or you could partake of the greatest store of knowledge so that millions of audiences would want to listen to you. You could have any of these, or you could enjoy the true love of a dear spouse, although you would have to live very poorly. If you could choose between these four options, which would you take? Why would you take the last one? You have to have a valid reason.
This is an important question. Why would you choose number four? It is because you know you can connect to God when you have that love. You will never be able to connect with God through money, power, or knowledge. Once we connect with love, we can connect to God and all the rest of mankind. We can connect to the past, present and future. With this love, we can connect to everything good. Love is almighty. Mansei to love!
Our Pride 3-22-87
The greatest of all statements made by Jesus Christ was, "Love your enemy." The power of that statement can conquer the world.
We Shall Live In the Original Homeland 7-1-87
We all have a physical father and mother, don't we? What is the difference between the physical father and the True Father? All things want lo turn away from a father of the fallen lineage, but everything in the universe welcomes and loves the True Father. In the Unification Church, you consider Reverend Moon your True Father. What is the actual difference between worldly fathers and the True Father? One has true love and the other does not, so it is a big difference. The true child, true family, true society, true nation, true world, and a true lineage which are eternally unchanging are connected by love all the way up to God Himself.
The Blessed Family is Very Precious 4-5-87
Do you understand clearly the concept of true love? True love is defined as love that is both vertical and horizontal and whose expression is welcome everywhere. True love is not merely the horizontal love of the contemporary age; it also means love towards our ancestors and descendants. Only with such a vertical and horizontal love can we create a sphere, which is our home sweet home, the perfect love which fulfills all directions. In other words, true love is the base upon which we can both give and receive vertical and horizontal love.
Centering upon an individual, true love can expand to the worldwide level. True love is the one love which is applicable in every situation and brings happiness to all. True love is not just for men or women, not just horizontal or vertical, not just for Orientals or Westerners. It is the one love which can apply to everyone, whether they are from the west or east, man or woman, young or old. True love binds the realms of east and west and makes them whole.
What is too low to be raised by true love? What is too high is lowered a bit by true love, to suit the occasion. What is indented is filled a bit by true love, to suit the occasion. What protrudes is absorbed a bit by true love. Such things true love does automatically.
I talk about love almost every chance I get. Is it because I have nothing else to talk about? Actually I wear myself out speaking about true love to you. I speak and speak and get excited about it -- even if no one responds!
The atmosphere of the spirit world is that of love, and those unable to love will suffocate and go to hell. In the spirit world, God is at the very center, and everyone tries very hard to get as close as possible to Him.
The Way to Grow 8-30-87
There are three major purposes of true love: When you possess true love, you are automatically entitled to receive the inheritance; True love gives you the right of participation. You are not an observer or bystander but an agent which initiates action; Thirdly, true love brings you to the same level of heart with God.
The power of love can do these three most desirable things.
If Adam and Eve had attained true love and were lying together in bed, would God observe two happy faces or sad, desperate faces? Every part of Adam and Eve would be filled with the joy of love. Therefore, every expression represents joy and happiness. Have you women thought, "I am the happiest woman in the world because I am lying next to my husband in the fulfillment of true love." Do you men feel the same way when you lie beside your wife? If husband and wife are so fulfilled and joyful in love, do you think God will want to be somewhere else, or right there with you?
You must understand what hell is. Hell is the place where vertical true love and horizontal true love cannot be found anywhere. There is no trace of it. There is no order or discipline, and everyone bumps and clashes against each other. Cruelty and violence rule. Do you understand this? You don't want to go to that place, do you? The most hellish place on earth is where no trace of vertical and horizontal true love can be found.
In the end, people who misuse their love curse themselves. Women say, "Why was I ever born? I despise the fact that I am a woman." The same is true of men. People in hell hate their bodily parts by which they engaged in illicit love. They condemn their own bodies throughout eternity. Our sexual organs were meant to be used for the consummation of true love, so when they are misused in illicit love, they become the object of hate and detestation. Once the sexual areas of a person's body are misused, including a woman's bosom and hips, they become objects of eternal condemnation in the spirit world.
When I was in prison in Korea, I observed men who were awaiting execution. Every day they grieved and repented, hanging their heads, saying, "If I had taken that one step differently and gone the other direction, I would not be in this position. One misstep brought me to this end." They could not get away because the deed was done. This is a good analogy with the misuse of true love. Once true love is mis- used, a person will face eternal condemnation and he will live with eternal grief.
Wake Up, America 6-12-88
When all the world turns white the impression of the greatness of nature is so acute. Snow is like the unity of heaven and earth, the marriage of plus and minus. When you see marriage you are moved to tears of happiness, of sadness and love. Those of you who are married know what I mean.
What does the Unification Church mean? It is the unification between true man and true woman. What is true man and true woman? They are persons who resemble God, man who resembles God and woman who resembles God who become sons and daughters of God.
There's some sweat on my face. When it runs down my nose I sometimes want to drink it. Sweat has a nice taste. It's nice and salty. When you have true love you can love your sweat and even the unpleasant smells of your own body. Those who run away from their own smells, raise your hand. (No response). You must appreciate the aroma of your own body. (Audience in hysterics). If you are centered on the vertical love of God, will you curse God for having created all these bodily functions or would you rather praise God?
Our Church and Korea as Seen from the Providence of God 2-12-89