Blessing and Ideal Family
by Reverend Sun Myung Moon

Chapter One
Part 3
TRUE MARRIAGE AND TRUE LOVE

Why do we term the marriage ceremony "to receive the Blessing?" According to the Principle, if Adam and Eve had not fallen and had become perfected, they would have stood in the position to receive the Blessing. In other words, they were to be the substantial objects of God. Once they were perfected, they would have been objects who totally received love from God as the subject. Through their Blessing, or marriage, God's love would have appeared in the world.

If there were no marriage, then what is called love would not have started in the human world. Who is the master of that love? We must know that the master is not man or woman, but God. When God's love is manifested in us, it becomes God's joy and pride, and we are able to feel this as God's love.

Love cannot be realized alone; it is only realized through a reciprocal relationship. Therefore, when man tries to realize love, he cannot do it by himself alone. The same can be said about woman. When Adam and Eve unite through love, they are able to receive God's love for the first time. From this viewpoint, we can understand that we human beings are born from God.

When two people who love each other give and take in a reciprocal relationship, consoling each other when they are sad, sharing joy together when they are happy, helping each other when they have difficulties and going forward together before God, this indeed is married life on the foundation of God's love.

The reason God made man and woman not in heaven but on earth was to realize God's love horizontally. When you form a subject and object relationship and unite horizontally, the love that combines the two with the subject God is a vertical relationship of love This fact is extremely important.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus came to earth as a man. Before building God's nation as the King of kings, Jesus as a bridegroom was to meet a bride on earth. Jesus came as the highest standard of all love. Jesus was to appear as a man on a horizontal base, pick a perfected woman, and unite with her centering on the one hundred percent original love of man given from God and the one hundred percent original love of woman also given from God. Then God would come down to seek His lost dignity and honor. When heaven and earth unite through this give and take of original love, then everything in heaven and earth will harmonize naturally and respond.

2. WHY WE MARRY

The ideal of creation cannot be realized centering on oneself. All my heart (shim jung) should unite with God who is the subject; when God moves, I should move, and when God is still, I should be still, too. We should become united internally and externally, centering on a heartistic point of unity. Therefore, unless we set up a base to harmonize with God, we are not able to realize the purpose of creation.

The reason I am getting married is not only for myself but is also for my spouse. What does it mean to get married for the sake of your spouse more than yourself? As everything in the universe is formed according to the principle of subject and object, for man and woman to get married is also a rule in the universe.

If man is on the right side, woman becomes the left side in order to form a horizontal relationship with the universe. If man is the subject, then woman becomes the object in order to form a vertical, upper and lower relationship with God. Therefore, marriage is not for the sake of just man or just woman. We have to get married in order to follow the heavenly law. This is why man and woman have different aspects. They are born that way in order to match with the heavenly law.

Man is born to meet woman and woman is born to meet man. And man and woman together are born to combine with a higher level of love which is God's love. Neither man nor woman can touch God's love alone. If a man or a woman alone tried to unite with God's love, it would just be a one-sided love. Neither one would be able to combine with a three- dimensional, spherical love.

Therefore, man and woman must get married in order to jump into the realm of a higher-level three-dimensional love. In the original world, the more man and woman become united, the greater the center of the activating power becomes, forming a sphere. Therefore, the more man and woman connect horizontally, the more God, who is the maternal womb of the vertical power of love, becomes connected. Then our mind and body become united.

The reason for woman to meet man is to understand man's world. For what reason do women try to take over the world of men? It is to realize the unity of love.

Why do we get married? How good would it be if you did not have to get married if you did not want to? If women did not get married, they would not be able to live fully as a woman and would even get sick. Centering on all the circulating system, a woman's body is made to meet man and to function normally through married life. Women must know that it is not normal to stay unmarried. Therefore, the ideal behavior for a woman is to go through a normal life-course.

What is the normal way? The normal way means the middle way where the average of all aspects can come together in unity. This middle the normal way where everything will be in harmony. It will not have any attachment or tilt toward one side or the other.

Where would the road of destiny of an individual, a man or a woman, lead? I am sure no one would want to go down a winding road of destiny. The original psyche of man desires to go a straight way. Both man and woman desire to choose a family life, which complies with their destiny.

Single men and women of today think that after becoming successful, they will form a good family and be good parents. Therefore, husbands, wives, men and women all desire to have a good partner. Why is this so? This is because they feel they are inadequate. Although they feel inadequate, they desire to have excellent sons and daughters. Wouldn't it be great if you could supplement your inadequacies and become better through your reciprocal partner? With these thoughts deep in mind, people desire to love someone.

I want to ask you, where is the Unification Church heading? To Moscow? Then, what is the Unification Church to do by going there? It is easy. We are to go there looking for the kingdom of heaven on earth. Then, why are we to get married? We cannot go to heaven without getting married. We must get married in order to qualify to enter heaven. What is the qualification to enter heaven? It is to resemble God. Then, how can we resemble God? We can resemble God by practicing God's words. We must make God's love my love and God's words my words.

Therefore, representing God, I would say to the world, "You mankind! You should go to heaven!" And then I would say, "In order to go to heaven, I should love mankind as God does and take the whole world with me to heaven." Then you would be a person of God, a person on heaven's side, and there would be no mistake in concluding that you are qualified to go to heaven. Then you would be well qualified to get married.

Well? What was the reason for us to get married? In order to go to heaven. Also, for the sake of humankind. Men should know that the women standing before them are God's daughters and the daughters of all humankind. Man is qualified to become a husband if he can love a woman as a woman loved by all humankind and as God loves her as His daughter. If he cannot, then he is not qualified to become a husband. This is true for women, too. You should not think that man is my husband. Before thinking of your husband as "my man," you should think of him as God's son and as a man representing all men.

You should become a woman who can love more than the whole of humankind and even more than God. And you should get married thinking that you will transmit the footprints of love for God and for humankind through your family, by yourself becoming the right foot representing man and the left foot representing woman. Because the right leg is the husband and the left leg is the wife, you end up being one-legged if you do not get married. Furthermore, the right and the left legs are to become perfect. If either side cannot become perfect, you are disabled. Therefore, you can have a harmonious marriage only by man and woman both becoming perfect.

Therefore, what I like about my husband is what I like about humankind and about God. And loving my husband is my loving humankind and loving God.

The purpose of marriage is to unify the world of heart and to perfect the love of man and woman. Therefore, to say that you have married is to proclaim that you will prove this. If you have realized the perfection of love and the perfection of heart through married life, then we can say that you have realized the ideal of a family. If you have realized this, then at the time of death, without a doubt you will be able to go to heaven.

3. THE TRUE PERSPECTIVE OF MARRIAGE

When Adam and Eve reached perfection, they were to come before God to be married. We call this level at which marriage can be held the perfection level. When you reach the perfection level, you have a value similar to becoming physically and spiritually united before God.

Through what is the unity of both the physical and spirit bodies brought about? It is through love.

If Adam and Eve had become mature and united through love, before even appearing before God they each would have realized naturally that they were each other's ideal spouse. If Adam and Eve had realized that they were each other's ideal spouse, then they would have stood at a level of horizontal love. At the point where this horizontal love begins, Adam and Eve will start to adore each other. Therefore, man and woman become perfected when love formed through a reciprocal base is realized on a plane, which then forms a right angle as it connects with God's perpendicular love.

Two people uniting together signifies the same thing as Adam and Eve, who are the dual substantial objects of God uniting together. This is also the same as God's original Sung Sang and original Hyung Sang, i.e., the plus and the minus, coming together.

Originally, if Adam and Eve, with their mind and body completely united, had become perfectly matured vertically, and if they had formed an objective realm by becoming a bride and bridegroom who could come in joy before God, and if they had realized a family of God's love through receiving God's Blessing, this would have been the perfection realm originally meant to be realized in the Garden of Eden. If Adam and Eve had been able to appear in that perfected realm, how would that place be characterized? It would be the place where the Blessing can be given.

The most precious grace of all is God's love. The next is lo inherit God s right of creation. As God created Adam and Eve centered on love, it is the children who can inherit the right of creation. Why do you love your children? It is similar to inheriting God's work of creation the horizontal substantial realm. Therefore, you can feel the happiness which God felt when He created Adam and Eve.

Next, in order for God to enable us to have dominion over all things as He does, God gave us the right of dominion in the horizontal position. We call the world which can stand in the proper stage with this right, according to proper order, the ideal heaven. Therefore, you must know that the time of marriage is the time when you inherit God's love, power and the right of recreation in the perfection realm.

Therefore, the marriage ceremony is the expression of love and at the same time is the ceremony to inherit the right of creation and dominion.

We see marriage as being like the cushion of the universe . . . like a cushion on which you sit. What is the best silk in the universe? Is it yang dan (a kind of expensive silk fabric) ? Instead of starting your new married life with a blanket of yang dan and quilt, you should think of loving each other with a blanket of universal yang dan. You should think this way.

A woman is half of the universe. When a woman sticks to a man, 180 degrees and 180 degrees come together, and in order to form a realm equal in value to the universe they have to get married. Thinking of marriage this way, this concept from the Unification Church is so wonderful.

Then what are we to do? Do you like flowers without any fragrance? Flowers without fragrance are not interesting. Would you say, "If I were to become a flower, I would want to become a green flower"? Have you ever seen a green flower? Even when I went to a botanical garden, I could not find a green flower. A flower similar to a leaf does not bloom. By looking at just that, we can say that God exists. Leaves are all green, but have you ever seen a green flower? What is that? There is just one flower which is very close to green. It is the flower of the red pepper. But if you look closely, it is not completely green. It consists of red and other colors. Why is that? It must have that appearance in order to contribute to the harmony of heaven and earth and the law of creation. See! Our perspective of marriage is this wonderful. How wonderful is the perspective of marriage of our Unification Church!

Then does it also contain historical significance? What has God been doing until now while dreaming of this ideal family? God has been searching for this level of man and woman throughout history, but there were none. God could not find anyone who would think this way or even mention these things.

In order for your journey on the road of love to bear fruit, you must understand the situation of the participants -- God, my parents and myself. We all are born with a public purpose; therefore, in order for us to bear fruit, we must base ourselves on a public purpose. There is no other way to be restored to our original birthplace. This is the Unification perspective of marriage.

You must believe that marriage is not for your sake, but for your partner. It is wrong to desire to marry a handsome or beautiful person. If you have understood the basic principle that people are to live for the sake of others, you should know that you will get married for the sake of your spouse. No matter how ugly a person is, you should be determined to try to love him or her more than you love a beautiful person. This is the basic perspective of marriage. If you do not have an established concept that you can love your spouse more than anyone else and think of him or her as God and all humankind, you cannot be restored to the heavenly nation. As a man, if you cannot even love one woman, you will not be able to love God or humankind.

For whom are we to get married? We are to get married for the mutual benefit of all humankind. The husband is a man representing the whole world, and the wife is a woman representing the whole world. Then where is this to begin? It is to start from a place representing the whole world. Marriage is for God's will and is what all humankind publicly hopes for.

The free love rampant in today's world is a trap which Satan made to cause men to fall and to make them unable to come closer to God. Once you are trapped, you can only die or be dominated by Satan. Western people of today, especially in the United States, are unable to form a true family because of the prevalence of free love. The number of people who have failed in their family life is increasing, and the people who are unable to have a family are becoming dominant. I can definitely say with confidence that American society has become a hellish society where love has dried up and where distrust, anxiety and fear are dominant. You must know that you who are living in this age have the responsibility and duty to clean up this society and build one flowing with the love for which God hopes.

Marriage is not for your own sake. If you have a self-centered marriage, your whole family will be destroyed. To want to live a happy life by getting married self-centeredly is just a one-night dream. The problem is your future.

Unificationists of today should not stay still in this present situation, but should develop from now. You should bear offspring with the fortune of the nation and of the world. Marriage is what tries to find people who can create a new nation and new world. Until now, people of this world have said that they will marry for themselves; however, marriage in our Unification Church is a marriage for the sake of the nation and the world.

Why do we get married? We get married for the sake of the nation.

Why do we receive the Blessing? We received the Blessing in order to disseminate it to the whole world.

Korean law forbids marriages between people having the same last name and coming from the same ancestral background, and encourages marriages between people coming from different ancestral backgrounds. This is because Korean people are people who yearn for the unification of their country.

If you look at the old-style Korean marriage ceremony, you will notice that the bride and bridegroom bow down to each other. Do you know why they bow down to each other? It is to pledge to live for the sake of each other. If you do not live for the sake of the other, love will go away.

When a woman goes to live with her in-laws, one may think she is just going to a man because she was born as a woman; another may think she is going in order to save the country. The reason for a woman to get married is not only in order to share happiness together with a man. It is not just to meet one man or for the sake of a family or for the happiness of one woman. Great is the woman who marries for the sake of the nation, thinking she is representing all the women in Korea. Do you understand what I mean?

In the past, there was a woman named Masako who was the wife of King Young Chin. Masako came from Japan to Korea to get married. For what reason could she have come? Was it in order to love a Korean man? It was for the sake of the country. This kind of person is famous in history. This marriage was politically arranged in order to form a tie between Korea and Japan after liberation. This woman will remain in history as a sacrifice representing all Japanese women. Don't you think so? This woman's marriage is historical because the purpose of the marriage was large.

Then, who in all heaven and earth tried to get married with the biggest purpose? It was Jesus. When Jesus came as a bridegroom looking for a bride, he wanted to get married for the sake of the world. He was the only person with that purpose.

4. THE CHANGES OF ADOLESCENCE AND THE RIGHT TIME OF MARRIAGE

Girls will begin menstruating and their physical body will start to look different. Their hips grow bigger, breasts develop, lips grow red and their eyes begin to have a mysterious glow. For what and whom do you think these physical changes occur?

These physical changes occur to make a straight road go around in circles, to start a circular movement. Going straight cannot bring any harmony. When we go back and forth on a straight road, it will not bring any harmony, but only will destroy the environment. Everything must go around in order to preserve and bring harmony to the environment. Everything must go around for this reason. But we cannot go around by ourselves. We need to go around centering on our reciprocal partner (spouse).

Coming together with our partner will start a circular movement automatically. This is the principle of heaven and earth. Therefore, physical changes occur in girls to enable them to meet their partner and to go around. When two people are attracted to each other, there develops a power to make them go around. Therefore, the reason women dress up and wear make-up is not for their own sake, but for their partners.

When is a person in full bloom? It is during young adulthood. This age is the seven-year period from age of eighteen to twenty-five. This period of seven years is the time when the flower of love blossoms the most. How precious is this once-in-a-lifetime period when one is fully blooming!

You all know the peony (magnolia), don't you? The bud of this flower has a different-colored yellow flower inside. How many layers of petals does it have? The petals are all tightly wound together on the flower. Can you push them open? They are tightly coiled so that it cannot be easily opened up. Men and women are similar to this. When is your bud of love going to blossom? That time is when beauty is manifested to the greatest degree: in the midst of harmony in the universe. This is the best time for people, also. It is the masterpiece of God, and it is the period which shines as the very center and the best. Isn't it so?

During the growth period, adolescence is when one becomes most beautiful. A person in adolescence is like the bud of the most beautiful flower. The person who can love adolescents the most can receive God's grace and can be invited to God's room. Do you understand what I am talking about? Can you understand this kind of love? Then, are you able to be like that now? If you have understood and you are a man, you should start preparing what is needed.

Adolescence is when you feel as though you have become a prince of the whole country. Isn't it so? It is a period when you turn everything upside down centered on yourself. Adolescence is a time when you talk back. So if you push yourself, you can easily go in a different direction. This- is why juvenile delinquency has become a worldwide problem today. During adolescence, you cannot be happy unless everything you do is self-centered. You feel so proud when even a small thing gets involved centered on you.

I saw a girl around twenty years old laugh without any reason. She would laugh, "ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. . . ," even when she saw a ripe persimmon drop from a tree during autumn season after all the leaves have fallen. They can understand and feel things without knowing what it is they are feeling. Because everything happens in relationship with her, she gets to have the best feeling. Therefore, adolescence is a point of conversion when one can be in touch with everything and form a relationship.

Why is this? This is because of the original nature of creation which seeks to unite man and woman one hundred percent completely, centered on God's love. However, because of a mistake, this nature was dented, stepped on, broken, like a crack in a beautiful bowl.

Originally, man and woman have the nature to unite centered on God's love. God's love is unlimited. God's love powers all life on earth. If this love were inside all people, the world would be filled with holy people.

Even to the most beautiful girl, adolescence only comes once. During that time, she is the most beautiful flower of all, and it is the most precious time for her in her entire lifetime. So would a girl think, "I want to live alone"? Such a person is not a woman. Does such an animal exist? (Laughter.) Also, among men who look very good at the age around sixteen, would any of them say he wants to live alone? At this time they all start to look for a reciprocal partner Whom do they resemble that makes them this way? They are this way because they resemble God. If God is not like this, how can His children be like this? It is because God is like that. During adolescence, which is the most precious time in one's life, the desire to seek a partner is the same in man and woman. Is it so, or not? If you think it's not, go ahead and age and die alone.

Try saying to a beautiful woman, "Beautiful women are said to be unfortunate. A beautiful person like you should age and die alone."

Even a quiet beautiful woman would really get mad. Nothing worse can be said to a person. This beautiful woman will have value only when there is a man who appreciates her completely and connects her to heavenly love. Therefore, is a person with an unstable emotion happy or unhappy? Grandmothers, please answer. They say she is unhappy. It is true.

When is love linked? When does the power of love push us out? When man and woman reach adolescence and all their physical functions reach one hundred percent perfection, everything comes to a halt. Everything becomes saturated. Movements always go through a saturation point. They come to a halt once and then they start moving again. Everything reaches a point of saturation and stops.

The stage prior to becoming saturated is the period of adolescence. Adolescence is the period when all physical functions reach the stage of maturity. For example, it is similar to a balloon which is filled with air up to the point of bursting. It would burst if a little more air is put in. How wonderful would it be to burst after the completion of love! Similarly, when a person reaches the age of eighteen, he or she becomes stretched out to the point just before bursting. Then they are able to start rotating so beautifully for eternity.

When our spiritual and physical bodies completely unite, original love comes within us. Even in the fallen world, during the time of adolescence, man and woman can stand on a parallel line where our spiritual and physical cells harmonize. During adolescence, the cells of our spiritual and physical bodies joyfully greet everything with open doors.

The human world during God-centered adolescence would be filled with joy and happiness.

When you unmarried men and women during adolescence meet and talk, your hearts bounce, don't they? You become excited and a change starts occurring in your mind. However, if your mind does not center on God and comes to stand on the opposite side, it becomes evil. Your mind should be centered on whom? God. It is true love that can bring you up to a place where your God-centered heart and shim jung can unite. Can you understand? Because human beings should live their whole life like this, men and women are to have ideals and hopes that are centered on love.

What makes you shine at the final stage is love. Love which is not conscientious is not love. You may not understand what I am talking about now, but you will be able to understand once you get married.

I am sure that very often male students want to look at the faces of female students and female students want to look at the faces of male students without any reason. Isn't that so? That time has come. This is because you are still young. When you are fifteen or sixteen and become high school students, your thoughts turn toward your partners. Your eyes go around in circles. Don't you think so, high school students? Please be honest. How are your minds? Do you dislike being with male students or is it nice? Tell me at once!

Well! It's O.K. for female students not to answer because they are women. Men, it's not bad to have female students around, is it? Now is the age of adolescence. This is why even Hyo Jin, when he sees a female student.... I'm telling a true story. When you are frank, everything will be understood, anywhere. This is why I am being frank. If you think it's a lie, you are wrong. I am talking very frankly.

Male students think only about how female students are looking at them, and female students are the same. You think, "Oh, I should comb my hair," or "I should take care of my dress," or you look into a mirror. You do this not thinking of how it looks to you, but only of how male students are looking at you. Isn't that so, female students? Then how about male students?

This is good and natural. It is not bad that you think that way. But I am telling you to think with a more artistic heart.

When you reach adolescence, you become more ambitious, going in and out, to and from many places. By the way, from now on, an unmarried man will need a bride and a bride will need an unmarried man. Isn't that so? Those who think it's wrong should quit.

A nicely-dressed woman's eyes shine even more brightly when she sees a man. In order to find a partner, it is very natural to dress up. women walk around with their hearts burning to meet a handsome or ideal man.

When would God think is the time men and women feel The most happiness? Would God say, "I feel good looking at an aged couple laugh and dance, saying they love each other"? Or would God be happier watching a young man and woman, in love through both mind and body, sing and dance together?

What is happiness to human beings? Can we say we are happy when we have a lot of money and wear many diamonds? Can we say we feel happy by dressing up gorgeously with perfume and make-up, singing and dancing? Of course, each person would differ slightly. But true happiness can only be found when you become intoxicated in love with your spouse, laughing, singing and whispering. The person who can do this is a happy person.

A person who hears whispering words from his or her lover can be said to be a happy person. Whispered words of love in your ears make you feel so happy that you feel you are in a dream. The time when happiness is the most flowering and most meaningful is during young adulthood, when the power of love is overflowing. This is the time when you can grab love with all your might and become unified through love.

Omniscient and almighty God created a time when man and woman can blossom beautifully. That time is young adulthood. To these newly matured men and women God gave the blessing of marriage as a gate to gain happiness. Everything in this world loses the value of its existence if it does not engage in an ideal reciprocal relationship. Therefore, it is a very natural development for man and woman to receive the Blessing and get married after growing and becoming mature.

You will be in trouble if you try to rush the experience of love. The feeling of being intoxicated by love and becoming happy is like a preview of what is to come when the time is right for the gate of love to open. But you should wait until the time the gate opens to enter. The gate should proudly open when you have become the master of love.

When do you think is the right age to get married? When your mind and body have the most perfected power is the precise time to get married. Your power weakens when this time passes, and then no matter how much you try to maintain your naivete, it becomes difficult to seek a partner.

5. EDUCATION AND MARRIAGE

Why do you go to school? Happiness cannot exist without love. Therefore, we can say that the purpose of going to school is to shorten the road to love.

When young women go to university to earn a degree, ultimately it is in order to meet a good husband. There is no other reason. No matter how great a man is, he would be an unhappy person if he could not form a family that is united.

The reason for studying is to meet a true man and to become a true mother. In order to become a true mother, a woman must study for the country and become a true wife who can serve her husband as a true man. If you cannot gain this stature as a person, you will not be able to serve your true husband or have a true son. A woman must become a true wife and, as the homemaker of the family, must get along well with the husband until old age. If the study is for the purpose of becoming a good wife, then wouldn't all university graduates eventually be gray haired couples? However, among university graduates are there more gray haired couples or people who get divorced? Needless to say, people who are uneducated live together happily for a longer time.

6. ADOLESCENCE AND FIRST LOVE

For example, when we reach adolescence, our mind and body start searching for love. We walk around without even listening to the words of our parents. The eyes of the mind and the eyes of the body unite into one and move around. If we have a nose of love we may come to like a smell we hated before. If we have a mouth of love, we may come to like a taste which we usually dislike. We want to listen to love stories all night long. Once you touch your object of love, you don't want to stop. Therefore, if you are invaded by the feeling of love during your adolescence, your eyes turn strange and everything seems wonderful to you.

When your mind and body unite and you fire a love gun, the bullet would be shot right into your partner's heart. Those who wish to have this kind of man's love or woman's love, please raise your hand. There is nothing love cannot digest. Love can eat and digest everything. If you have true love, no matter how ugly a man is, he will look handsome to you. Love is incredible. Therefore, whether good or bad, men and women can never forget the first love they experienced during their adolescence.

If a woman has a lover whom she loves at the cost of her life, but she has to marry a different man because of her parents' opposition, will she be happy throughout her life or not? For that woman, even if the man whom she first loved had a broken nose or irregular eyes, he would look wonderful to her, like a flower. Even if the man whom her parents chose was a person whom everyone agreed was wonderful in all aspects from external appearance to internal intelligence, the man for whom she had love in her heart a long time ago would be better, even though he was not so good externally. You can believe my words, can't you? ("Yes!") But you don't belong to this class of people, do you? (Laughter.)

First love can dominate everything. Who is the subject of love? It is God. Since the subject of love is God, God is the only one who can love. Originally, man was supposed to make God his first love. However, the fall interfered.

With whom did Eve first make love? ("With the archangel!") Eve was supposed to be loved with joy, but she had to love crying, with a frowning face. Do you think Eve said when falling, "Oh, it's good. It's very delicious to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil"? When Eve was being raped by the archangel, what did she feel in her heart? She felt the pangs of conscience as she was unwillingly being pulled by the seduction of the archangel. Eve was supposed to love with all her body cells, feeling joy as though she were a flower waiting for an early spring to come. However, she loved with all of her cells and heart dying.

Did you feel that first love was precious? I'm not sure . . . -- how did you feel? ("It's precious.") You are much cleverer than I. That's right. Those who answered seem to have experienced first love. (Laughter.) You should

be silent when you are asked this king of question. I just mentioned it to make you listen. If I heard that answer coming from the sisters sitting here, I was going to scold you, but since it was an ugly- looking man who answered, I persevered! Anyway, you have heard that first love is good.

Then with whom did you make this first love? Please think. If you had not fallen, with whom would you have made your first love? You should have made your first love with God. If Adam and Eve had made their first love centering on God, that first love would have been packed with love. Parent's love centering on the first love, husband and wife's love centering on the first love, children's love centering on the first love -- every root would be tightly connected with God's love. It is not love like yours that is separated by several thousand years of historical distance and that has to go through steps of individual or family restoration. It is love that can stick parents' love, husband and wife's love, and children's love all together at once.

The person who abandons this first love for God cannot go before God. The person who can say that he would abandon everything and would live and die because of his love for God can go to heaven. The first love between man and woman is also important.

Reverend Moon of the Unification Church held mass weddings gathering men and women of goodness in order to connect their God-centered first love. These men and women married, transcending nation and race, in order to realize God's love. Therefore, I heard people say that Reverend Moon became crazy. I heard these voices because of first love.

You must look at yourselves from this viewpoint. "How evil and hateful a mind and body do I have, and what a hateful being I am, betraying my own mind and body." If you find yourselves like this, you should know that it is urgent to change yourselves first before saying, "Oh, God. Please save me with love."

There are many young people these days who go around making love on the streets. I'm sure no one acts like this after joining the Unification Church, but I'm sure you were like this before joining the Church.

When a woman who loves a certain man finds another man much better than first man, changes her mind, and says "Goodbye, goodbye" to her former lover, would it feel good or bad? ("Bad.") How bad would it be? I think you would want to destroy the woman and throw the man away. That's the heart of love.

It is the same for women. Would a woman feel good or bad if her husband, whom she deeply loved, started to love another woman? Any person who says she would feel good is much better off to die. There should not be even one person who feels good. Think about it. Because of man's pride, can you watch quietly when your wife is loving another man? You would feel better seeing her stop even if she had to stab herself with a knife. A man who doesn't have the guts for this is not a man. If this happened to me, I would feel the same way.

7. MIND AND BODY MUST UNITE

We must clearly know the reason that our mind and body cannot unite. If God exists, why would God have created persons whose minds and bodies cannot unite? An individual is born on this earth without knowing what human beings are like and what man and woman are like. If the only way for a man or woman to unite is through the way of love, then why couldn't we be born with an original foundation to be united? Why couldn't God create humankind like that? This is the problem. (Why did God create humankind to absolutely require the love of God?) When we think from this point of view, we can come up with the theory that neither God nor man and woman have been able to stand in their original normal position.

For us human beings, the most important thing is love; therefore, unless man and woman each search for love in a reciprocal position, they can never find God's love. God's love can only come to a place where the mind and body of true man and true woman come together in unity without any struggles.

You must become a parent with mind and body united, being able to love your true children by connecting the true husband's love, true wife's love and true God's love. When this is realized, a perfect family can be formed. True love appears where mind and body are united. True love should dwell in the heart and mind of a husband and wife; and by becoming one, they should give birth to their sons and daughters

Furthermore, you must revere God more than your husband or wife. This is necessary for you, but it will be different when the age of your sons and daughters comes. You should love True Parents much more than you love your husband. The Principle says that after this, you can love your husband and your sons and daughters.

Do you know about the three points? Where these three points can come together is where God, Adam and Eve can come together. The place where God can unite with Adam and Eve is where Adam and Eve's mind and body unite. This is the place where their heart and shim jung unite as well.

Then, where is the place a perfected man and woman live? It is the place where man and woman can, centering on the public heavenly providence, receive the love of God, completely unite their minds and bodies, and serve God as the subject. When a man and woman come to live in this place, they stand in the position of perfected Adam and Eve. When such people form a family and make a new start, this becomes an historical beginning. This becomes the historical first step of life. Adam and Eve were to realize this first step, but because of the fall they failed to do so. Therefore, in order to restore this, you must go searching for this place today.

Man's mind and body are in a relationship of subject and object, and this produces the power of existence by continuing the action of vertical and horizontal. Woman, too, has a mind and body forming a vertical and horizontal relationship and the power of existence results from that. Both man and woman have the reciprocal relationship of vertical and horizontal which is formed through the power of love. Only love can maintain the eternal ideal relationship of the mind and body.

Suppose a person is a poor farmer cutting grass in the countryside. If there is a burning emotion of love bursting in the mind and body of the farmer, his mind's five senses and physical five senses will completely unite, making him feel joy he never experienced before.

If there is a place in yourselves where God's love dwells, when God's heart swings once like the pendulum of a clock, your heart will also swing once. Therefore, you start to go around with God. Once you start to go around, you continue to turn. The further you go, the more the centrifugal force will activate, demanding that you love your family, society, nation and world more and more deeply.

When your mind and body become united and when you reach the point where you are to open the gate of love, your mind will resonate with the universe and you will become a writer or poet. When you can write a poem or story about love, it means that you are displaying the ability to connect love beautifully and happily.

When an eye of love opens, your mind and body will want to form a multi-dimensional relationship in the universe. You naturally will feel the law of nature and will smile watching the falling leaves dance in the autumn wind. You will also feel as though you yourself were becoming a flower and you will want to feel the beauty of the spring flowers.

Why do both man and woman enjoy love? A human being's body is formed from approximately four hundred trillion cells. All of these cells activate when a human being loves with true love. You should know that the time when a man and a woman love is the time they can activate all the cells of their bodies.

When your mind and body unite and shed tears of longing for someone, your bones will start making sounds. This is same in the case of animals. I'm sure you all know what happens during the mating season of cows. They even forget to eat. At that time, all nerves long only for mating. Similarly, when you love and long for each other with your mind and body united, there is no cell that remains still. All cells forget their original sense of direction and concentrate into one. When you meet your spouse, all the cells explode. This power of the explosion is enormous.

What are we to do by loving like this? We are to become like God. We would be able to feel happiness whenever God is happy. In other words, we try to feel the happiness together with God.

We must unite mind and body. There are two ways: one way is to unite your mind centering on your body, the other is to unite your body centering on your mind. You must choose the way to make your body become united centering on your mind. Even when your mind changes, it is better to unite centering on your mind. If you are searching for an ideal love, it is necessary to go this way. We conclude that we must make our minds and bodies unite centering on our minds.

Members of the Unification Church should always be able to unite their bodies with the standard of their minds which is to center always on public thoughts. Centering or the purpose for which your mind seeks, your body should go out without any hesitation. In any difficult situation, if I made a decision to fulfill a goal, my mind and body never changed. Even if I had to go into a miserable situation, I played a game in order to overcome that difficulty. I had no hesitation at all because I always carried the thought that I would fulfill the goal by overcoming the difficulties.

Similarly, no matter how much you have to sacrifice, you should try to make your body unite centering on the purpose of your mind, God's will, God's unified world and God's ideal of creation. If you are not determined to go the sacrificial way, you will have to pay indemnity - - by becoming sick, for example.

Therefore, your mind and body should unite centering on your mind. Then, a man and a woman whose mind and body are united should become one centering on a family.

8. THE PERFECTION OF TRUE LOVE

When human beings love with true love, their cells are one hundred percent activated. Even in this fallen world, when a man and woman love each other, they say that electricity goes through them. The electricity that occurs for them is what comes from the archangel; therefore, it is only unicellular. The electricity that occurs in the original world is the lightning of a universal-level love and its power would be several thousand times stronger than normal lightning. Moreover, the sound made by all the cells of each organism would be the same as thunder. It is the Principle view that man and woman loving in the original world would not be able to meet God unless they put all their energy toward the point where the lightning of love meets. This also is the perfection of the purpose of creation.

From whom do you think true love, which forgives and embraces every- thing, starts? True love does not start from human beings. True love starts from God, who is the subject. God created human beings with true love; therefore, God desires to receive true love from humankind. Then, by God's returning that true love once again to man, God and man both perfect true love.

What is the holiest thing in this world? The holiest thing in this world is true love. True love starts from God If God exists, there is no other way. God sincerely desires man to go the way of true love, and we must know that we cannot stand before God unless we go the way of true love. God desires to see, listen, eat and touch through love. Man desires this also. If we receive a kiss from God, we feel as though our insides are exploding with joy. This is where God's desire is. God does not feel happiness by possessing diamonds or jewels.

Any power melts before true love. Just looking at or touching it makes you happy.

True Love completes the ideal of the unification of the universe. If a painting does not include the taste of true love, you would want to throw up even if it is a so-called masterpiece. If true love disappears between a husband and wife, their relationship is over.

What is the most precious thing for woman? It is man. Then what sort of man do you need? How he looks or how healthy he is not important. What is important is whether you can find valuable love in that man. This is the same in woman. A woman with true love is a true woman. Then, what is that true love? It is appropriate to define true love as that which can love very low things even more than high things.

Why is it so? Love is an action. A person who only looks at high things cannot unite with low things. Therefore, this person cannot become true. Love can be found through reciprocal action; therefore, if love can relate with high places from a lower place, it can be eternal and can go anywhere. Then, for the first time love becomes genuine. Therefore, we can come up with the concept of eternity when we try to make the love of the lower higher than love of the higher.

In this respect, what kind of an existence is God? God is not a God who can only love those people living in heaven because He is in a high position. God tries to love even those living in the bottom of hell. God must be the one who can love everything. Why should God be able to love the lower more than the higher? Because of the principle of action, God must be the one with a concept of eternity.

What is true love? It is love which makes you feel, when you meet a person, that you want to be with that person for hundreds and thousands of years. It is the love between husband and wife that makes them want to love each other eternally. In true love, there cannot be any hell or Satan.

The body of a human being has five senses. Man is made to feel and recognize true love through these five senses. An eye looking toward true love would be covered and intoxicated by it. How beautifully an eye shines when it is intoxicated by true love!

When a mouth is intoxicated in true love, think how enraptured those smiling lips are. Think how beautiful it would be to see the harmony of five senses moving toward God intoxicated by true love. God alone cannot experience the joy coming from this beauty. It can only be experienced when there is a partner. This is the purpose of God's creating humankind.

If there are a beautiful man and woman who want to touch the eye, kiss the lips, or play the melody of the mind intoxicated by true love, what would God do? If there is an Eve of true love, God would have the desire to at once travel the world of her heart. God would be driven to see how deep and wide is the heart of this beautiful Eve.

God would want to travel in the world of Adam and Eve's heart, which has more beauty than the heaven and earth God created. Definitely, God would want to travel in the world of the heart of a person of true love more than He would want to travel the universe, and God would not want to depart from the world of Adam and Eve's heart of true love.

After God created humankind, if God became intoxicated in man and woman's true love, what would have happened to this world? God would have been living in man and woman, and the world which God and they created together definitely would have been a world filled with happiness and beauty.

If true love is perfected, the sensitive God would not regret being submerged in that true love. No matter what happened, God, if He was in true love, would always be happy. In the world of true love, humankind would live happily ever after for the rest of their lives without regret. There would be no history of war, complaints or unhappiness.

If true love were perfected in the history of humankind, then all the problems of politics, economy and culture, including struggles and fights, would be solved. All the difficult problems in the world now can be fundamentally solved only through the perfection of true love.

We must search for true Love. Where are we to go to find true love? True love has no day or night; it is eternal and unchanging. It cannot be true love if it is only for myself. True Love cannot be my individual possession. True love is for all people and for the whole universe. True love is what connects family, society, nation, world and the universe.

The phrase "love each other" in Christianity does not mean that each is to receive love. Love is for the sake of others; therefore, it means for each to "serve for the sake of others." What kind of a world would it be if all the people served and sacrificed for the sake of others and the whole instead of one's self? It would be a world of peace. If the whole world came to love each other with true love, even at the price of death, there would be a burning fire of rebirth. If all people loved each other, the flower of happiness and peace would blossom and fill the world with a beautiful fragrance. The world where true love is realized is indeed where the ideal of humankind is realized. However, when each asks to be loved first, struggles, fights, jealousy and doubts result. Truth does not exist far away from us. It exists within us.

9. THE PRIVILEGE OF TRUE LOVE

If you join a relationship of love with God, you would have the privilege of dominion and independence, and then the right of inheritance.

Only those who possess God's love can have the privilege to inherit the power of all heaven and earth which God created.

How can I stand in a reciprocal position before the absolute God? By making effort? Or by power? Nothing of the sort would make it possible. However, if you create a relationship of love you can go to an equal position immediately.

If you want to stand in an equal position or the same position as God, you must possess the love of God.

You must know that if the Unification Church combines the power of love with God's true love, then the right of ownership has already been determined It is same as the husband's right of ownership becoming the wife's right of ownership when they have a relationship of true love. A husband and wife united with love share the ownership of all their property. Similarly, a person linked with God by true love inherits God's right of ownership.

The problem is, how can an omniscient and omnipotent God unite with human beings who are a limited existence? If an invisible being and a visible being cannot unite, the unification of the universe is not possible no matter how much we long for it.

What kind of person can unite with God? Only a true person can unite with God. The true person who can unite with God is a person with true love.

I am sure there is no one who is against the conclusion that "only a true person with true love can unite with God." I'm sure no one, no matter what historical background, color of skin, tradition, customs, language or culture, would be against this suggestion.

Centering on God's love, if a person makes a love relationship with God, he or she can stand in the same position as God. Why is it that Nancy, the wife of President Reagan, can have the same political rights as the president before the American people? This is because, centering on love, she is in a relationship of husband and wife with President Reagan. If one is united centering on love, he or she comes to have the right to stand in the same position as their beloved. Love contains this right.

Along with this right, love contains the right of inheritance. If you start to have a love relationship with God, you not only come to stand in the same position as God, but also come to inherit everything that God owns. Humanity originally is privileged to have everything that God has; therefore, it is obvious why human beings have the desire to become the supreme existence.

Even fallen man has the desire to stand in the highest, most honorable position. Whether academic, non-academic, black or white, the desire to have the highest position is the same. The problem is that only love can satisfy this desire of humankind.

When you take hold of the core of love, you are able to control God. Even if the wife of a handsome husband is ugly, she can control her husband if they have a relationship of love. Love has this power.

An innocent country girl, living so miserably as not even to have shoes, would be able to jump all at once to become the wife of a president if she makes a love relationship with a person having the possibility to become president. No matter how excellent the United States president, who can scold the whole world, and how ordinary his wife, through the relationship of love she has the right to participate with him wherever he goes. Love has this power.

The reason we feel sad is because God is feeling sad. This problem has been ignored until now. Since man and woman lost their original and absolute value as an object to the absolute God, we cannot stand before the universe with dignity.

Then how can I stand in the reciprocal position before this God who is in a high position? By making effort? Through power? Nothing can make it possible. Only love, only the rope of a love relationship, can raise you up to be in an equal position reciprocal to God.

Don't you think the world is like this, also? Even if you do not have any value, personality or intellect -- even if you are close to zero in all aspects, if you make a love relationship with a great man, you can immediately have value as his object.

In other words, if there is a great "John," his wife automatically would become "Mrs. John." Other women would not be able to compete against the woman with this great husband. Don't you agree? Now, consider that we may be linked with God by love. The love between us and God would be stronger than the love between father and child in this world. Therefore, centered on this love, there is no reason why we could not be raised to a position equal to God immediately.

Love is unchanging and eternal, and therefore absolute. Thus we see the present as a time when we, who had forgotten our great original value should restore the origin of our lives.