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