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