The Tradition Of True Love

"This is an excerpt from the speech given in Montevideo, Uruguay on April 27, 1991 to members of CAUSA-Uruguay."

Many of the first people to cross the Atlantic Ocean to settle in these countries were deeply devoted people, seeking a land where they could freely worship God and bring the message of Christ to the natives of the New World. It was certainly God's desire that unity and friendship would blossom between the native people of the Americas and the European settlers.

The New World of America should have been a model of harmony for all people under God. However, this did not occur as God had hoped. Along with Good and devoted people many selfish people came to the New World. They abused the natives and took their wealth. Problems of slavery and racism added to this tragedy. As a result of this injustice, the foundation of this new culture could not always be blessed by God. In some cases nations were established based on resentment rather than on the model of Christian love. This unfortunate beginning developed into the tradition of selfishness and exploitation that remains even until today.

If Latin America is to show an example of harmony and peace to the world, this trend must be stopped and reversed. To this end CAUSA has made a worldwide contribution in the field of ideas, offering a clear vision of the path that the democratic systems should take based on the solid foundation of moral and ethical values. CAUSA has presented a moral perspective that is the foundation for the elimination of corruption and exploitation in democratic society.

These serious problems and others that face all mankind, such as ignorance, hunger, and disease, are products of deeper underlying spiritual causes that must be urgently addressed by responsible citizens everywhere. In this time of grave importance, we live in a moment of transition in human history. In the past, many movements in the fields of religion, culture, and politics were founded upon noble ideals in pursuit of a better world. But despite their great accomplishments, these movements and the institutions they established often departed from those which were originally intended. Religious and cultural movements, political parties and social systems often have shown division, contradiction, and disharmony within themselves, and even have fought one another.

Still in today's world, wrongful political and religious zeal and narrow-mindedness induce antagonisms and hatred. Such are clearly not the true objectives of men of faith and good conscience, and we must not bequeath and mistaken tradition to our descendants. Then what is the direction we must take? What is a correct tradition to bequeath?

In order for us to understand more about the direction that mankind should take to achieve harmony and peace, it is necessary first to understand God's ideal for the creation.

For God, who is absolute and eternal, why was creation necessary? What was it that God needed absolutely? Was it material goods, knowledge, or power? Those are available to God any time, and God can regulate them as He needs. Rather, true love is the only thing which God cannot create by Himself. That is, true love can be formed only with a reciprocator; without a counterpart even God cannot realize love. This is the very reason why God needed the world of creation.

Then what is true love? As we learned that Jesus Christ sacrificed His own life to love His enemies. True Love is the love that you give to others even if you have to sacrifice your life, without seeking any reward. Therefore only through True Love, like Jesus Christ we can obtain eternal life and eventually become the citizens of the Heavenly Kingdom.

As we observe the creation, the mineral, plant, and animal worlds, we see that they are created with relationships of subject and object pairs that can respond to each other in harmony, centering on love. Likewise, there is a harmonious love between a husband and wife for each other and for their children. Such relationships are found on each level of the creation.

Man is the center of the creation, created to be on the highest level, the closest to God. He is the partner of God's love. Thus, man is the object of God's true love, and without man, God's goal of true love cannot be accomplished. God had established His true love as the highest and absolute value, which is His ideal for the creation.

Even the absolute God Himself likes to absolutely surrender to true love. Since even God is this way, all people and all things are drawn to true love. In this perspective, we can readily see how high a value a man has, as God's own object of true love. God originated His ideal of creation with love for the sake of others. He gives and gives, without even remembering that He gave. In this, He is realizing true love. God began His creation investing without limit. All people are created so that they can harmonize, exist, and live eternally through God's principle of investing for the sake of others. Man came into being for the sake of woman; woman for man.

In God's ideal for the creation, which is giving true love, both man and woman are born to love and become husband and wife. By doing so, they become the object of God's vertical love. This is the very purpose of their existence. God, who is the origin of true love, wished to give from the father's position this absolute and unchanging true love as an inheritance to man. Since in true love perfect harmony and unity are realized. God's true love can be perfectly bequeathed to His Children, who are His partners. Not only that: the right to live together with God and right to share absolute value with God are also bestowed upon man and woman, because of the attributes of true love.

Parents want to see that their children become more successful and better than them. We also realize that husbands and wives all hope that their spouses are better persons than themselves before they get married. In this same principle God created man as His children and gave His blessing to them to become better than God Himself! This is True Love. From this perspective, human beings live with God as His children and have the same value as God Himself.

Furthermore, even among themselves human beings, centering on Gods true love, can share their inheritance, live together, and become equal. Thus, in the ideal world all human beings, centering on God's true love, will possess true individual ideals and happiness and transmit both to these to their spouses and offspring. This was the world of God's original ideal.

Today's world, however, is far from the world God intended. Contrary to its original purpose, the world has degraded itself to become a world of hell, full of sin, struggle, and pain. In religious terms, this sick, broken human world is called the fallen world, To bring this fallen world back to its original condition and order, God wages a dispensation for salvation. Thus, I have been teaching that God's work of salvation is the work of restoration, or synonymously, the work of re-creation.

God's purpose lies in the restoration of this world as the original ideal family, and beyond that the establishment of the ideal world centering on God's true love an the thought of True Parents. When we understand the mission of the messiah as a mission of True Parents to realize God's love in this world, we are called by God to pursue and accomplish this mission. The mission of the Messiah, is thus the cosmic mission that all men of faith are now undertaking. As described in the Bible, Adam and Eve, the first son and daughter of God, were to grow in God's true love and receive the blessing of marriage and give birth to sinless children. Thus, they, like God, would become True Parents, and could enter into heaven.

In this way, the world was to be the world of heaven on earth, where God's ideal family was to expand to realize a world where only God reigns. However, Adam and Eve entered into illicit love before becoming mature: the archangel became Satan; Adam and Eve became evil ancestors and the world of death began. The world has become a world with people growing out of an evil lineage. Satan become a god of lewdness, and god hates lewdness the most. Because of lewdness, the America and Europe today face the fate that befell Sodom, Gomorrah, and Rome. The world needs to find the True Parent who can liberate it from Satan's love, life and lineage. This person is the Messiah.

By Adam and Eve failing to fulfill their responsibility, God lost true children, and mankind failed to possess True Parents. As a result of the fall, there has been lost the true being who can realize the true love of God and the ideal of True Parents. Thus, the Messiah comes with the awesome task to stand as True Parent, uproot the false root that was implanted by the human ancestors who become false parents, and realize the ideal world of creation. In a family, the relationship among brothers and sisters exists only on the premise of common parents. Thus, before this world can enter into the realm of true love and true family, the True Parents position has first to be established. To help fulfill this very purpose I have been called upon by God. For this objective I have dedicated all.

The Unification movements I am deploying worldwide, the projects I have sponsored, covering all fields ecumenical, academic, educational, media, technical, business, financial, etc. These were envisioned with this one purpose. have suffered persecution and confronted death with only one purpose in mind, so that I can live with the heart of True Parents to love races of all colors in the world more than my own parents who gave birth to me, or my own brothers and sisters.

In this same way, God calls to all human beings to go this same path of the Messiah, loving God and mankind with true, unconditional love, and giving all of oneself for the sake of God's eternal ideal of love, peace, and harmony. This path of love is then a universal path for all men and women of faith and good conscience to follow. God wishes for each of us to become a Messiah for our fellow man. Each person must love God and his fellow man with heart of a True Parent. This is the task that God calls every man and woman to fulfill. The path of true love travels the direct route.

It requires no preconditions and nothing can block it. This is the straight path on which we travel only with self-sacrifice. Unless all mankind lives the life of True Parents, world peace will not be realized. This ideal of True Parents and the ideal of world peace are directly connected. All countries, races, cultures, and religions should do more than 100% for the sake of each other, being generous and harmonizing, and by doing so achieve world peace.

In the current world situation, externally we are experiencing the termination of the Cold War, and peacemaking between East and West, North and South. Overcoming confrontations and divisions, we are heading toward the age of unification by harmony, as one word family of brothers and sisters. The last decade before the year 2000 is a precious period that God has allowed us for returning to the original world, a precious opportunity.

I have already proposes the establishment of the International Federation for World peace, and thousands of leaders in the United States, the Soviet Union, and other countries of the world are responding enthusiastically. I have also established the Inter- Religious Foundation for World Peace, which is actively supported by over 800 of the most important religious leaders in the world. Many people have devoted themselves to the search for true unity and the achievement of one world; but true world peace still evades us. Everyone wants peace but we must first know what is necessary to bring it about. the key lies not in one's spouse, sons and daughters, neighbors, nation or world...it is within one's self. It depends on whether one can become a harmonious being, where mind and body have achieved harmony and unity centering on original mind.

Man's original mind is the most precious gift from God even if somebody offers the entire universe, the original mind still has more value. When a person comes to have the heart of God and True Parents, he can begin to live fully for the sake or others and consistently lead a life where true love is the center, a life in which he can achieve true peace to enjoy happiness and unification of the world. Beginning with this true love, which is the standard of eternal, unchanging value, we should establish not only the unification of mind and body, but we should connect and unite the world presently divided into spiritual and materialistic ideology.

These are concerns of all conscientious people. The role of religion, politics, and culture in realizing ultimate word peace is therefore indispensable. Accordingly, all men and women of all fields of human endeavor should now tear down the walls of sectarianism and make themselves available with unified power and act in accordance with God's desires for the greater goal of the realization of world peace.

Now is the time to reflect upon the fact that we have not contributed enough for world peace. Now is the time to develop within each person true love, which is the origin and basic element of world peace.