Chapter
1 .The Origin of True Love..
Section
1. The True Love of God................................. 263
Section
2. The Origin of True Love ............................ 271
Section
3. The Characteristics of True Love ............ 280
Section 4.
The Power of True Love ........................... 286
Chapter
2. The Realms of True Love
Section
1. Grandparents’ Love......................................
301
Section 2. Parents’
Love................................................ 304
Section
3. The Love of Husband and Wife .............. 309
Section 4.
Childrens' Love ...........................................
320
Section 5. Love among Brothers and Sisters ..........
325
Chapter
3. The Practice of True Love.
Section
1. The True Way of Life ..................................
327
Section 2. The Practice of True
Love........................... 334
Section 3. The True Parents’
Practice of True Love 351
CHAPTER 1 The Origin of True Love
Section 1. The True Love of God
1 What kind of being is God? He is the God of love. St. Paul said, “Nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 8:39) Even Jesus Christ would be nothing without God’s love. This is why we value God’s love above everything. God’s love is the original source of life, the source of happiness, and the source of peace. (24-325, 1969.09.14)
What is God's love?
2 God’s love is stronger than the sun. When the sun rises in the morning, the shoots of all plants turn toward it. Yet God’s love, and it alone, is the source of life, the source of our original mind, and the source of the ideal. (099-232, 1978.09.25)
3 The coming Lord possesses God’s original true love and His real truth. Through this truth, families emerge, and true societies, nations and the world emerge. On each of these levels— individual, family, tribe, people, nation and world—love, ideas and personality emerge. It all begins with the individual. In this way, a person who lives a true life as an individual, in whatever corner of the world he or she may be, is living for the sake of the whole world. That is how it is in the world of love. Living in the world of heart for even one hour would be our source of pride for a thousand years, and living in that world for one day would give us pride for ten thousand years. It is true love that allows us to experience the precious value of life. True love lets us feel even the energy by which our cells multiply. The world filled with God’s love is like that. It is hard to describe in words, but it is a world of enchantment where all our cells are dancing and we feel as if we are flying on the clouds on a bright spring day. (20-026, 1968.03.31)
4 How shall we describe God’s love? It is like being enraptured by a warm spring day with white clouds floating gently in the sky. The air shimmers above the ground, insects crawl around, and ants scurry about, exploring the world. Beside a flowing stream, pussy willows bloom, frogs sing songs of spring, and bees and butterflies flit about. It feels as if you are drifting off to sleep, but you aren’t sleeping. You are awake and in a happy mood, rejoicing in the beauty around you. God’s love has such a flavor that lasts forever. Our mood as we focus on becoming the ideal object partner for whom God is seeking is like our mood in that flower garden with the fluttering butterflies and buzzing bees. (37-029, 1970.12.22)
5 The place where God dwells is filled with love. It is a place where the more you give, the more you want to give, and the more you receive, the more you want to return millions of times more than you receive. This is the kingdom of heaven. Because you can give more and receive more there, you feel an explosive stimulation, as if all your cells are bursting. God’s love is like that. (039-335, 1971.01.16)
6 What defines a good person? It is the attitude that good and precious things belong to the whole, rather than to him or her alone, and it is the heart to connect the value of such things to the value of the whole. God, who created heaven and earth, is a being of utmost goodness, the root of all things, and the subject partner of love. When there is someone whom God can truly trust and love and to whom He can entrust things, He will want to hand over everything He values to that person. If this is so, the desire to give one’s most precious things to others is the principle of heavenly law and the original heart of all people. (13-247, 1964.04.12)
7 God's love encompasses parents’ love, the love between husband and wife, and children’s love. Of course, it includes siblings’ love as well, and when that expands, it also contains love for the nation and the world. So we say that God’s love is parental love, conjugal love and filial love. This is the most wonderful statement that can be made. Because the power of love can guide everything, it affects one’s destiny. If we really understood love and its power to determine what happens in our life, we would be able to change our destiny. (067-172, 1973.06.03)
8 The love God needs is absolute love. Just as God needs absolute love, unique love, unchanging love and eternal love, we also need absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal love. In this respect, we resemble God. Since God has both a masculine and feminine nature as well as plus and minus qualities, He created human beings, His substantial object partners, as men and women. Thus when people marry, they become the substantial plus and minus representing God. God seeks to bring perfect unity between His vertical love and horizontal love through marriage; this is God’s Will. (279-246, 1996.09.15)
9 When giving us love, how much would God want to give? God is not one who limits His love, saying, “Okay, okay, that’s enough.” God wants to love without limit. Even after giving everything, God will still say, “Because of who you are, I want to live deeper inside you.” That impulse is in the original nature of love. Once having entered into a relationship of love, God would be happy to live even as a servant. A father feels joy even when he sees his beloved infant son or daughter climbing onto his dining table. Love transcends the law. After giving all His love to people until now, can God say, “I have given everything to you. Why have you given nothing back?” The God of absolute love still has the attitude that He has not been able to give all the love He wants to give. God cannot assert Himself. It is a principle of creation that God wanted to give humankind complete love, and for that reason, because He still has not been able to give us that complete love, He wants to give us something more. Because God is like that, the more we think of Him, the better we feel. (36-077, 1970.11.15)
10 God says, “I am love.” This means He likes love by night and by day, while working, resting, dancing or crying. This is why He said, “I have love, in all its fullness.” The phrase, “in all its fullness,” indicates that everything is contained therein. The one who likes love most is God. Since God has such love, if we come to know and taste His love, we will not let go of God even at the cost of our life. (44-188, 1971.05.07)
11 To receive God’s vertical love, an original, unfallen couple has to stand in loving oneness, the man on the right and the woman on the left, perpendicular to God’s vertical love, ablaze in love and unity. When that happens, they engraft to God as one man and one woman. How are they engrafted? There must be a balance. What does this entail for the individual? Start with the understanding that God is the bone of love. With respect to love, God’s love is like the bone and human love is like the flesh. The bones and the flesh become one and assume a form, like the human body. God’s love is the bone love, and True Parents’ love is the flesh love. (181-206, 1988.10.03)
Eternal and absolute true love
12 "Do you have eternal love in your heart? Have you arrived at the position where you can say, "God’s love has come to me. It will never change. Though heaven and earth may change, this promise does not change”? That’s where you have to be. God’s love appears in places that do not change. God’s love is unchanging, so we can say it is eternal. Because it is unchanging love, if it comes to you, it comes on the foundation of your having also developed an unchanging heart. Therefore throughout your life, everything you eat, you should eat for that love; you should sleep for that love; everything you do should be only for that love. If you have a perfect, unchanging standard for the sake of love, God’s love will appear. If that doesn’t happen, all the promises of the universe are proven false." (83-180, 1976.02.08)
13 God is in the position of the Father for all humankind. Because He is the Father, He is the center for all His children. Even though God created humankind, since He is in the position of their Parent, He also naturally exists for their sake. Parents want to exist for the sake of their children. Day and night they worry about their children’s safety. Parents try to protect them from troubles and from harm. The way of goodness is to seek and connect to the original nature of such a parent; that is the way of love. Goodness brings the connection of love in the parent-child relationship, and enables us to realize our purpose. That is why we have to base goodness on love, and not just any love, but God’s love, which is at the center. If we do not do so, we cannot establish the center of love on earth. (057-085, 1972.05.29)
14 Until now, God has loved those people, tribes and nations that were dear to Him. He blessed the Israelites as individuals, as a people and as a nation, adding blessings again and again, with the concern that they might reject His blessing if they thought it too small. Even this was not enough. He wanted to bless them further by sending His beloved Son. When they rejected that blessing, He even gave them the life of His Son. Even after His only Son died as he did, God still wanted to give more love. This is why, on the day when this love is finally returned, all of heaven and earth will be transformed into the ideal kingdom of heaven. (38-167, 1971.01.03)
15 Where do God and human beings connect? They connect where their life, love and ideals intersect. This is nothing other than the parent-child relationship. How great would our joy be if we could be equal to God? God is the subject partner of our love, life and ideal. If this is so, do we still need to pray? God’s authority and dignity are not the issue. Without hesitation we can hold on to God. When we experience God embracing us, caressing us and loving us, it melts our very bones. (69-079, 1973.10.20)
16 What happens when you experience God’s love? Your hair will dance and so will all your cells. When you become completely intoxicated in this love, you don’t faint; you want to live forever. If someone tries to wake you, you plead not to be awakened. As the saying goes, “A saint’s delight makes him forget the passage of time.” There is indeed a way to become enraptured by this level of love, which exists far beyond human imagination. (59-317, 1972.07.30)
17 Why do all people like God and follow Him? It is because God is the One who gives everything to them, then continues giving more, continues giving everything for thousands of years, and still feels it is not enough. He says, “Now I can give you only this much, but wait a bit longer, and I will give you something that is many hundreds of times, many thousands of times better.” This is because He has so much in His heart that He is never satisfied with what He has given today. Far from it; He promises to give better things in the future. If we were with that kind of God, we would be happy even if we were poor and had no food to eat. Such a reality would be no problem, because we would be stimulated by hope. It would be like receiving a jolt. In fact, that kind of situation is all the better because it leads to new resolve. Being together like that, our tears, shed for the future, would be mutually comforting. We would not despair over the present reality but would be filled with hope for tomorrow. Encouraging each other face to face, we would express our mutual resolve. It would be an intense experience. (36-291, 1970.12.13)
18 It is not so much Adam and Eve’s bodies that God likes as their love for each other. God wants to be in the place where the two unite. The final destination of the purpose of creation that God seeks is the place where He can meet His children and love them. The final destination we wish to reach is where we can attend God as our Father and receive His love as His children. This is why human beings strive to become the children of God and God strives to make us His children. The place where these two desires coincide is none other than in the parent-child relationship. There is no place higher than this. (56-145, 1972.05.14)
19 God is not in need of knowledge, as He is the creator of knowledge. God is not in need of power, as He is almighty. God is not in need of money, as He can make diamonds and gold whenever He wants. There is only one thing that God needs: love. You may ask, “Can’t God have as much love as He likes?” But God cannot have love by Himself. No matter how impressive a Ph.D. you have, no matter how overwhelming your power as a ruler of the world, no matter how awesome your wealth as a mighty king, you cannot possess love by yourself. What God needs most is a partner with whom He can share true love. (137-053, 1985.12.18)
God, the origin of true love
20 In terms of love, God is the origin of all the related emotions. It is from here that parents’ love, husband-wife love, children’s love, brotherly love, the love of relatives and the love of a people emerge. Just as the branches, twigs and leaves spread out from a tree trunk, and as ripples flow out from waves, the shoots of love grow out; the farther they go, the more sensitive you become. If you become a person who receives God’s love, the one among your relatives whose heart is closest to God will be attracted to you. If God is with you, people are attracted to you, although they don’t know why. (050-267, 1971.11.08)
21 We should become sons and daughters who are concerned about the heart of our Father and attend Him. Otherwise we will become objects of pity. Once we know that God exists, that He seeks us and works for us, we must understand that it is not enough to attend this God as merely a mental image. God is the substantial being who wants to be with us eternally as one body, eating together, living together, sharing joy and suffering together for eternity. God is the eternally unchanging original being of love, the embodiment of eternal hope. Jesus Christ was the person who made no excuses in front of this God. Completely forgetting himself, he was able to do anything for the sake of God’s Will. We must be sons and daughters who can follow in Jesus’ footsteps. (4-082, 1958.03.09)
22 Whenever we see something big, we want to make it our own. In our heart, there is nothing we cannot own. Our heart is vast enough to want to bring God to us and attend Him, and vast enough to bring any country that follows God to us, and to bring the world to us. Therefore, attending God in our heart is not a problem; our heart is that big. We want to attend God in our heart. Since God is a loving God and the Absolute Being, we cannot put this being of absolute value anywhere else. People want to go together, be together and live together with the person they love. How do we want to live together with our beloved? We want to go deeply into one another, and become one. This is the original nature of love. (56-149, 1972.05.14)
23 A man must be able to say, “I am the subject partner of perfect love representing men.” A woman must be able to say, “I am the subject partner of perfect love representing women, so you and I absolutely need each other.” What a man absolutely needs on earth, other than God, is a woman. Also, other than God, what a woman absolutely needs is a man. Why is this so? It is so they can receive God’s love. To do this, the man and woman both must stand in the position of true perfection, where even if they could turn back they would not want to, and even if they had a chance to stop loving they would not want to. This is the meaning of attending God. The owner of love is neither man nor woman, but God. (149-100, 1986.11.17)
24 Where can we dig to find God’s love? God’s love does not originate where brothers and sisters love each other. God’s love does not originate with man and woman’s love at the center. God’s love originates in the love between parent and child. There has to be a vertical relationship. Such a relationship is established only through parents’ love, so the parent-child relationship is the foundation for love. In this love there is no distance. In this vertical relationship there must be a center. There is only one center. The center must be the best place. Wherever there are two centers in this world, struggle begins. (28-169, 1970.01.11)
25 If, with true love, you seek a person better than yourself, you must invest 100 percent, then 1,000 percent, and then invest again. When you think you have invested enough, at that moment, everything stops. When God created human beings, He wanted to make His object partners of love greater than Himself, so He invested every ounce of His being. He invested and wanted to invest even more, in order to make His intangible nature completely substantial. Only when you have invested everything and forgotten about your investment can you find the beginning of true love. It is that simple. This is a fundamental principle of the universe. (203-232, 1990.06.26)
Creation is the investment of true love
26 Even though God is the Absolute Being and the subject of true love in the eternal, unchanging and unique realm, He doesn’t ask others to live for Him. Working from nothing, God invested Himself to bring everything into being. His investment was for His creation. He had to invest Himself. Through this investment the universe came into being. The origin, the foundation and starting point was true love for the sake of the world. Everything began from true love. This was the original point, the beginning of the ideal. (173-255, 1988.02.21)
27 God invested Himself totally in making all things of creation. He found love only when the object partner into which He had invested was complete. In the same way, the more we invest ourselves for the sake of the public sphere, the more love will come to us. So we must be devoted children in our families. Why do we need to be dutiful toward our parents and loving toward our brothers and sisters? The more we are, the more love will come to us. Then, what do we want to own? We don’t want to own knowledge, power or glory. We want to own love. That’s the highest purpose for which human beings were created. It is the destination we seek. (109-270, 1980.11.02)
28 A mother offers her body for her child, and then forgets her investment. There is no mother who remembers how she gave and shared her flesh and blood. While she is nursing her baby, a mother does not keep a record in a notebook, writing, “Today I gave the baby this many milliliters of milk.” She invests and forgets, invests and forgets. The way a mother raises her child is the same way God created all things, by investing and forgetting, investing and forgetting; the two are exactly the same. (235-101, 1992.08.29)
29 The origin of creation reveals the logic of love for the sake of others. It is great to invest for the sake of an object partner. This is where the life philosophy of “living for the sake of others” originates. Love should take us on a voyage to the ideal. The life philosophy of living for the sake of others originated in order to keep us moving in the direction of the world of purpose. Unless one takes the path of total investment, one cannot reach the destination of true love. This is possible only when you invest yourself totally and live completely for the sake of others. (173-213, 1988.02.18)
30 True love is love for the sake of others. Giving, or living, for the sake of others means searching for the object partner, the second creation, who is the object of love. Not only God creates; we too are creating now. Just as God invested Himself completely into His creation, likewise true love invests completely. When you invest yourself completely, your creation appears for you. (167-123, 1987.07.01)
31 True love is not about being served, but serving others. When God created His object partner of love in the beginning, He invested all of His energy, all of Himself, 100 percent. In this way God set the example of true love. In other words, God set the tradition of true love by exhausting Himself completely. This true love is the center of the cosmos. (201-205, 1990.04.09)
32 The way of true love is not to have others live for one’s own sake; it is to live for the sake of others. When God created His object partner of love, He did so for the sake of His object partner, repeatedly investing all He had. This God is the original central being. The original central being with this kind of heart is the God who made all creation. True love for the sake of others is giving 100 percent, then 1,000 percent; it is giving everything, thus turning oneself into a vacuum. (201-349, 1990.04.30)
33 Love is total investment. A man looking for love needs to invest everything. He has to invest his five senses completely, his eyes, ears, nose, mouth and sense of touch. Unless he fits with the perfect shape of the model according to the original form of creation, he does not qualify to attain his love. Resembling God, he must invest everything. (173-213, 1988.02.18)
34 God began His creation based on love. He did not do so in order to suffer a loss. People often think that to give of oneself is to lose, so why did God invest everything? It is because love has the power to fill everything to overflowing and still remain undiminished. So God invested everything and used Himself up, but He received love in return. When you invest true love more and more, it does not gradually diminish. The more you invest, and the more you exchange, the more it expands. If it were a principle that true love grows smaller through investment, God would have been depleted. But instead, the more He invests true love, the bigger it gets. The world of true love grows bigger as it moves. If you want to capture love, you need to invest and forget and invest and forget. (237-126, 1992.11.13)
35 God created all things of creation with the heart to invest Himself for the sake of His object partner, His partner of love. So if you love all things of creation as God did while creating them, when He invested Himself and enjoyed everything with a heart of love, you will stand on God’s side. The more you love the things of creation, the closer to God you will be. (61-207, 1972.08.31)
36 The origin of the universal principle is God. To create the universe, God invested Himself completely in everything He made. Throughout history He has sacrificed Himself ceaselessly to save fallen human beings. The prophets, saints and sages who knew God’s Will and followed His Principle with their lives were not satisfied to merely keep the truth to themselves. They sacrificed themselves for the sake of teaching the truth to others. (234-222, 1992.08.20)
37 Why should I sacrifice myself, having to overcome difficulties, with a sense of responsibility for others? It is so that I can influence others. This is in order to stand in a position like that of God, who invested energy and created everything from nothing. When He looked at all that He had created, “God saw that it was good” (Gen. 1). Therefore, the things that came from that were also supposed to be good. But we are not really good until we stand in the same position as God and follow His principles of creation. (62-193, 1972.09.25)
Section 2. The Origin of True Love
1 Where does true love begin? It is not from you; it begins from God. God is the origin of love. He created this world because He needed His ideal partner in love. Accordingly, even the creation of heaven and earth had its origin in love. Love is possible only in a world of reciprocity. Love makes no sense outside the concept of reciprocity. Therefore, if there is a man, there must be a woman; if there is a right- hand side, there must be a left-hand side; if there is a top, there must be a bottom. There must be above and below, front and back, right and left. Through these connections a sphere is formed. Before creation, God had mind and body. In the unity of mind and body, in love and without conflict, God lived and dreamed of realizing a world of ideal love. God wants not quiet love, but explosive love that can spin 360 degrees. To make and to find a partner for that kind of love, He created heaven and earth. (213-079, 1991.01.14)
God is the origin of true love
2 Any of you who have had a mystical experience will begin to wonder about and search for the origin of the universe. When you put this question into words and seek the origin of the universe, you will come to know one thing: Human beings are the original foundation of the universe, and represent the whole world of creation. What is the original foundation of human beings? It is life. What is the original foundation of life? It is love. If there were no love, there would be no life. Then what is the original foundation of love? Here you must look higher than human beings. You must look to God. So we say God is love. We say God is love, using the noun love, but that noun, love, cannot be realized all alone. It requires a reciprocal relationship. (48-206, 1971.09.19)
3 The word love makes sense only in reference to a reciprocal relationship. Not even the almighty Heavenly Father can establish love all alone. Love can be realized only in a reciprocal relationship. God’s purpose in creating Adam and Eve was to feel joy. How can you experience happiness? It is not just by seeing, or speaking or touching, but only by loving that you come to feel happiness. God began the creation in order to actualize joy. (114-012, 1981.05.14)
4 Love does not begin with me. It comes from my object partner, and to receive it, I must open my door wide and invest myself completely for that partner. I must support my object partner. God, the Creator of the universe and the owner of true love, made the world not for Himself but for His object partner. God invested everything for His partner, everything of value that He possessed. (178-309, 1988.06.14)
5 True love originates in living for the sake of others. When God created the universe, the ideal of love was at stake. For the sake of what He had made, God has put out of His mind the thousands of years of fallen human history. Over and over and over again, He has given love in the face of betrayal and humiliation at the hands of human beings. That unconditional giving of love still remains on earth, even in this fallen human world. It is a parent’s love. What is true parental love? When loving their children, parents who think, “Oh, I must get back everything I’ve given my children, with interest!” are not true parents. True parents sacrifice day and night, giving love again and again to their children. No matter where they go, they do not forget them and want to give more to them. They live for them twenty-four hours a day, transcending time and distance. This kind of love is closest to the original love. Because He is the origin of this kind of love, God could lead human beings to the truth and lay the foundation for their salvation. (142-035, 1986.03.03)
6 Love cannot begin from a self-centered position. We can love only when we can stand in our partner’s position, honoring and protecting that position. Is there anyone who would say to his or her loved one, “Hey, you! Serve me!” When you lift up your partner and live for your partner more than for anyone else; when you feel you want to exist because of your partner, that is love. If you make yourself the center and command, “Do as I say!” that is not love. (042-259, 1971.03.21)
7 Even God cannot be happy alone, so He made all things of creation. Happiness and love begin from a reciprocal relationship. This is where the phrase “it is good” begins. Can anyone be truly happy alone? Words such as goodness, love, happiness and hope apply when we seek to realize meaning in a reciprocal relationship of a higher dimension. This is how our level of happiness is determined. (061-331, 1972.09.03)
8 Love is not centered on myself. Love does not begin with me. A love relationship can come about only through a partner. Without a partner, it can’t happen. Therefore both men and women need object partners. That is because love is not “mine.” Love is something to be shared. Love is the power that can embrace everything in the universe. That love does not start with me alone; it is sparked by having a partner. Therefore when there is no partner, I do not feel love. Even when there is a partner, love cannot function if I have a “me first” attitude. (145-215, 1986.05.11)
9 We say that parental love is good and conjugal love is good. True love is not self-centered. Love does not start from me but from my partner. Love comes from my husband or wife, from my sister or brother. Love does not start from me alone, but from relating with others. The owner of love is my object partner. (34-332, 1970.09.20)
True love invests endlessly
10 God wants to give His true love endlessly to His object partner. Parents hope that their children will surpass them, so they want to give their children more and more. Husbands and wives in love also want their partners to surpass them, so they invest themselves again and again and forget what they have given. This desire to invest and invest again in your object partner sparks the action of true love. From the position of the subject partner of true love, by continually giving and giving again for the sake of human beings, God exists eternally. (234-239, 1992.08.22)
11 God, too, invested for the sake of human beings. He exists for our sake. Hence people have tried to follow Him for tens of thousands of years. In order to maintain a position in the universe that follows the heavenly law of existing for the sake of others, you also need to exist for others. Only by living for the sake of others can you be accepted in the East and West, in the past and the present. Because God’s love is the same in the past and in the present, and in the East and the West, He can deal successfully with the East and West and the past, present and future. Because love can overcome the differences between the past, present and future, development can take place; and because love overcomes the differences between East and West, the two can be united. All this is possible only through love. (187-089, 1989.01.06)
12 No one wants a beloved partner or a dear child to be inferior to oneself. Where does this heart come from? It comes from God. He feels the same way. God wants His love partner and His children to be better than Himself. Therefore, to create children better than Himself, a love partner better than Himself, He had to invest more than Himself. Even now He has to invest one thousand times more and forget what He has given, then invest ten thousand times more and forget what He has given. Without the concept of investing, we can’t expect a better object partner to appear. So a person who gives true love with the original heart that wants to give more, even after giving his or her life and living this way for a thousand years, keeps on giving. God’s logic consists of wanting to make His object partner rise to the highest point and then still further, and so if you wish to possess God’s love you’ll have to invest more than God has invested. The basis of true love is investing even your life and not looking back. (221-305, 1991.10.26)
13 Because God is omniscient and omnipotent, He has His own sovereign power to invest in what He is imagining, thousands and tens of thousands of times beyond Himself. He invests and forgets how much He has invested. Love can invest itself limitlessly to produce limitless value. When you continually invest yourself, you automatically advance upward in a spiral movement. In the realm of this spiral movement, I can become an owner. Also, I can inherit the ownership of love in the heavenly world. Since love has the right of inheritance, the right to live together and the right to participate together, this sphere of activity belongs to me. Looking at this, we can see that God is the true king of knowledge. Why would He invest Himself and forget how much He has invested? It is so that He can continue to invest Himself again and again. Through the principle of self-replicating spherical movement, eternal rotation begins. From this we can establish the logic for the reality of eternal life. The act of investment repeated again and again exhibits the logic behind eternal life. (204-106, 1990.07.01)
14 True love dwells in the place where you love, forget how much you have loved, and want to love again. It dwells where you invest even your life and forget how much you have invested, and invest again. True love is giving everything of value all at once and then forgetting what you have given. Why must you forget? Because if you want to give more, you need to forget what you have given already. A mother gives her love and forgets what she has given. She doesn’t record it in a notebook and expect to get it back. A mother is happy while giving her milk and giving her life to her child. Even mothers in this fallen world are like this, so you should be even more giving. True love exists eternally among those who invest totally and then forget how much they have invested. (207-056, 1990.10.28)
15 True love stems from total investment. When you have sacrificed everything and forgotten even your life, true love continues. True love continues on a plane beyond the point of investing your life. This is because true love is the origin of life. Unless you invest more than your life, there is no way to connect to true love. True love is the origin of life, so if you sacrifice everything you can go back to that place of origin. (237-235, 1992.11.17)
16 The more love you give, the more love you have; it never ends. You will have enough to give even more. Everything else comes to an end. Money, knowledge and power all come to an end. Everything that has to do with human circumstances and recognition in the world comes to an end. Yet eternal true love never comes to an end, no matter how much you give out. Amazingly, it continues eternally. Therefore with the power of love you can move the entire universe and still have more remaining. (121-242, 1982.10.27)
17 What is the difference between false love and genuine love? Once false love begins, it diminishes and becomes weaker. Once genuine love begins, it increases. True love keeps increasing until it embraces the world. This heart that is infinitely embracing, this heart that holds everything, says, “I will embrace more. I will embrace more!” It is only true love that activates the original heart like this. Only true love does this. (141-285, 1986.03.02)
18 There is no end to love. There is no end to parents’ love. If a man and woman devoted themselves to their child, feeding and dressing him or her well, and raising him or her to be successful internally and externally, and then the child died, those parents would never feel they had done all they could for the child. Even after giving something good, it is the way of love to feel it was inadequate. After giving something good, love never boasts. It bows its head and is humble and quiet. (48-297, 1971.09.26)
The original nature of true love is giving for the sake of others
19 What kind of love is true love? The original nature of true love is not to focus on first receiving for one’s own sake, but on giving first for the sake of others and for the whole. True love is a love that gives without remembering having given, and continues to give. It is love that gives happily. A mother feels love and joy in her heart while nursing her baby. A filial son feels joy while making sacrifices for his parents out of love. (556-298, 2007.02.23)
20 True love is love that exists for the sake of others. True love wants the beloved to go higher than oneself. The nature of love is to want one’s beloved spouse and children to be greater than oneself. This is the way it is meant to be in the human world. We want our loved ones to go higher than our parents, to go as high as God. God is the same. He loves the people who are in a reciprocal relationship with Him more than He loves Himself. He invests and forgets. This is God’s original love. (300-237, 1999.03.23)
21 It is not the nature of original love to expect others to live for us. But when we seek to live for the sake of others, love multiplies. Love focusing on oneself diminishes, but love for the sake of others multiplies. It keeps growing. Love for the sake of others keeps multiplying and expanding, whereas self-serving love keeps shrinking. The original nature of love is such that when you want to live for the sake of others, your love becomes greater, but when you want people to live for you, your love gradually disappears. (129-264, 1983.11.13)
22 Real love is not giving and keeping account of how much was given. It is not self-serving. Real love exists for the sake of others. After having loved someone, can you say, “The reason I loved you was so I could be happy”? You must not go there. The person who feels inadequate after having loved, the person who feels many things even beyond inadequacy, is in accord with the principle of ideal love. But the person who says, “Now that I have loved you, you have to love me,” is not in accord with this principle. (60-084, 1972.08.06)
23 When parents love their children, they don’t say, “We bought you shoes and clothes a few days ago, and invested our sweat and blood for you, and it cost this much,” and record it in a ledger. When parents love their children, they want to treat them even better than the princes and princesses in any palace in the world. With hearts wanting to give more, they say, “I did all I could, but this is all I can give you. I’m sorry.” Parents always want to give their children something better. This is why we cherish parents’ love. Parents give and yet feel that it is not enough; they love and yet feel that they should have loved more. Even after giving, they still are not content with what they were able to give their children. Parents’ love connects to eternal love. That is where our tradition of love begins. (60-084, 1972.08.06)
24 Everyone wants true love, but love is possible only when we live for others. We need to serve and sacrifice for our partner. Everyone avoids a person who relates to others with the attitude, “You should live for me.” This selfish individualism is Satan’s strategy, purpose and tool; the result can only be hell. We must live for the whole. If we live for others and for the whole, and serve sacrificially, then everyone will return love to us. (316-241, 2000.02.13)
25 Why is parents’ love so precious? It is vertical love, but it does not remain as vertical love until the end; it seeks to dwell together with horizontal love. Parental love seeks to guide children to avoid going astray, throughout their entire lives. Vertical love is such that it always creates horizontal love. According to that principle, parental love consists of the essence of both vertical and horizontal, based on God’s love. Because parental love has both vertical and horizontal elements and responsibilities, parents want to give all their precious things to their children just the way they are. Parents want to bestow everything they have upon their children and want to see their blessings expand horizontally. This is the original nature of love. Why is original love like this? Love is possible only in a reciprocal relationship between subject and object partners, and this is the only way to create that relationship. Through give and take between subject and object partners, a sphere is formed. The vertical is the subject partner; the horizontal is the object partner. Together they make a ninety-degree angle and form a circle. (34-234, 1970.09.13)
26 God’s love is vertical love, but it is not only vertical. It also has a horizontal quality. Therefore, God can appear in front of His sons and daughters, who are on the horizontal. Those sons and daughters not only widen the base of vertical love but also expand it as horizontal love so that, centered on the vertical aspect, all things of creation can create a horizontal environment on the scale of the world and the universe. It is from the loving heart of God’s sons and daughters that their desire emerges to govern the world, to have possessions, and to pursue their aspirations. This is all because a vision of vertical and horizontal bonds of love lies in the subconscious of our original mind. We cannot deny that satisfying this essential desire satisfies all human desires. (34-235, 1970.09.13)
True love is the origin of existence
27 If their children were in a life-or- death situation, parents would readily expend all their possessions to save them. Considering this, we can see that life is more precious than material things. Then between love and life, which is more valuable? Between husband and wife, if the husband prepared a treasure for his wife with the full investment of his life, she would never tire of it; she would want to keep it for ten thousand years. But if the treasure were given without love, she wouldn't want to keep it. Thus, the value of the treasure depends on the investment of heart. If there were one couple in the universe whose love remained unchanged for ten thousand years, their love would be more precious than life. That is why people sacrifice their life for love. We don’t abandon love for life, but we abandon even life for love. (136-108, 1985.12.22)
28 In this world there are gems such as diamonds and pearls. Why do we call these precious? A diamond is so hard that nothing can corrupt it; thus it has the special nature of being unchanging. A pearl’s elegant sheen never changes for thousands or tens of thousands of years; nothing can compare to it. Why is gold so great? Its golden luster never changes, even for thousands of years. Nothing can surpass that color. Because of the unchanging qualities of these things, people treat them as treasures. But there is something we would never give up, even for these treasures. Such treasures have no life. You would never give up your beloved one’s life for treasure. (136-107, 1985.12.22)
29 The first measure of value in the kingdom of God is love. It is not life, but love. That love is unique, unchanging and eternal. Based on this standard, all value is decided. Since God holds that highest standard, it has very naturally become the decisive standard. When God says, “That person is a man of character,” or “She is a valuable person,” His assessment is based on this standard. (099-063, 1978.07.23)
30 The common denominator for all beings is life. Life comes from love. So love is more valuable than life. Who is closer to the center, someone who is willing to sacrifice his love to sustain his life, or someone who is willing to sacrifice his life for the sake of love? Who is closer to the truth? The one who sacrifices his life to attain love is closer to the center and closer to the truth. This is because the one willing to sacrifice love for his life is self-centered, whereas the one willing to sacrifice his life for love is not. (174-015, 1988.02.23)
31 Love subjugates life. Love has the power to change the direction of life from right to left. But life cannot dominate love. Then what about God, the subject partner of life and of love? Even God is vulnerable in the face of love. Even though God is the absolute standard of life itself, when He faces a love stronger than His love, He submits to that love. If there is a power that can move the power of life, it is the power of love. (48-149, 1971.09.12)
32 What is true love? In this human world, since we have never seen God, we say we don’t know. True love is stronger than a mother’s love for her child, stronger than the burning passion of first love, that explosive power that rushes in, oblivious to even a life-or-death situation. The love of parents, who will sacrifice their own lives to protect their children from death, is connected to Heaven’s love. Heaven’s love begins there. (121-126, 1982.10.24)
33 Even though the omniscient, omnipotent God is the owner of true love, He doesn’t want the root of love to begin with Him. He wants to place the root of love in people who are able to be His partners of love. That is why, even though we associate God with true love, God wants people who can love truly, into whom He can invest everything He has. When God invests, He does not begin with inferior things. He invests the best things first. To God, the best thing of all is true love, so He invests everything in the person who will love with true love. (177-269, 1988.05.20)
34 God was behind the original formation of the universe, but His central motivation was to set up the way of true love. He was not thinking only of Himself. Before God thought of Himself, He invested everything in a second self, a partner that could be the object of His love, and He respected that being. What was to be the substantial result of His love? It was not God Himself but the object partner into which He invested, who was made to bear the fruit of His love. This is an amazing concept. This is the beginning, the origin of the formation of the universe. In short, why did God create heaven and earth? This is a philosophical question. Why did God create heaven and earth? Of course, He created what was good to behold, but more than that, He created heaven and earth to attain a love that is like His love. (177-270, 1988.05.20)
35 There can be no result without a cause. My mind and body came from my parents. Through the love of my mother and father, their two lives combined. Love harmonizes everything. Through true love, my mother’s inner mind and body harmonized with my father’s inner mind and body. The life force spreads out like a fan, and the lineage connects with love at the center. The first cause that led to my existence was not the lives of my mother and father. Rather, it was that the lives of my father and mother connected in love, and I was born through that lineage. From the bone of my father and the blood of my mother, flesh and blood connected, and after ten lunar months in the womb, I was born. I had the power of the life of my parents, linked to their lineage. My origin, the fundamental beginning of “me,” is not myself. My origin is the life of my mother and the life of my father. Preceding life is love, which combines two lives into one. The origin of all beings on earth, the origin of all created beings, is love. (187-044, 1989.01.06)
36 What would have happened if there had been no concept of love when God created Adam and Eve? Adam and Eve were born to manifest the concept of God’s love, expressed from the time of creation as the relationship of convex and concave forms. This is not something that evolved; there is no evolution taking place. The concept of love leads to the existence of male and female, and this fact transcends evolution. (223-021, 1991.11.07)
37 We have three important original palaces: a palace of love, a palace of life and a palace of lineage. The purpose of these original palaces is to unite in perfect oneness. This is possible only through love; there is no other way. The place where they unite is the most secret and most holy. Why did this palace become corrupted? It is because of the Fall. Because of the Fall, the palace of love was destroyed, the palace of life was destroyed, and the palace of lineage was destroyed. In fact, that place was desecrated and became shameful. (228-052, 1992.03.03)
We all wish to live in true love
38 In the place where I consummate a love relationship, all my nerves experience a stimulation that is electrifying. Love is in the closest place to me. Love is so close to me; it is inseparable from me. It brings me the impulse and stimulus of joy. It makes me say with an ardent heart, “I want to see that; I want to go there.” (112-256, 1981.04.19)
39 Love has the power to concentrate all our senses together and unite them, focused on one point. The eyes would say, “We want to see”; the ears would say, “We want to hear”; the mouth would say, “I want to eat; I want to speak; I want to learn.” Not only this, all the cells of the body would move in that direction. Just as a lightning rod draws lightning to itself on a mountaintop, love unites the action of the nerves. Once the heart is stirred by love, all the senses are stimulated and gravitate to one place. Everything moves together. Our eyes, ears, nose and hands all move together. This is not because of us, but because of the person we love. (066-160, 1973.05.05)
40 Nature is our first mother; we receive everything to support our life and to grow from that mother. In our physical mother’s womb we live in water. On earth we live in air. Then what is the center of our life? It is love. Love is always the issue, whether it’s the love of parents, conjugal love or children’s love. Air is a prerequisite to life. Even in our mother’s womb we have to absorb air; when we move from our mother’s womb to life on earth, we have to breathe air. It is the same air; only the way we receive it is different. For us, the most important element in life is love. (132-271, 1984.06.20)
41 Why were we born? If we say simply, “It is because of love,” we’ve said all we need to say. That love is true love. True love goes beyond the love of this fallen world. The purpose of all religions is to reach the world of true love. Christianity, the religion of religions, emphasizes a love that surpasses the love of this world. Jesus Christ said, love me more than anyone else; otherwise you are not worthy to be my disciple. He said, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” (Matt. 10:37) Why did Jesus say this? To Jesus Christ, his disciples were like his children, and unless they could get past the line of the Fall, they could not have a relationship with Heaven. (219-167, 1991.08.29)
42 True love is fulfilled not only through horizontal, level relationships, but also through vertical, perpendicular relationships. A horizontal relationship of true love is gradually elevated in an upward direction until it reaches the pinnacle, which is the position of God, the King of true love. In this position everything combines, and embraces. Everything turns into love and blossoms. We can conclude that all beings in the universe want to be in harmony with love and to live in the midst of love. We are born for the sake of love, we live for the sake of love, and finally we die for the sake of love. (316-238, 2000.02.13)
43 Not only people, but all things of creation desire true love. Thus human beings, as the lords of creation, should embrace and love God’s masterpieces and take responsibility to teach them the way of love. All things are seeking such owners. In light of this standard, we should feel ashamed. Darwin’s theory regarding the survival of the fittest needs to be reinterpreted in the context of this logic of true love. Even ants and microorganisms want true love; beyond that, they want to offer themselves to the owner who loves them. Based on this principle, human beings, as the highest partners of God’s love, have the privilege of taking and even eating all other creatures. Therefore, when we eat the things of creation, we have to have a heart that represents the true love of God the Creator. (316-238, 2000.02.13)
Section 3. The Characteristics of True Love
1 In love there is no end. A love that has expired and come to an end is not love. If you asked your beloved spouse, “Dear, do you love me? How much do you love me?” and your husband or wife replied, “I love you just this much,” you would feel bad. This is because in love there should be no limit. Self-centered love cannot last even one day. Why do a husband and wife fight? It is because each of them wants to receive love from the other. A relationship between those who try to receive love from the other cannot last long. A family in which everyone tries to receive love breaks apart, but a family in which everyone tries to give love to the others will never break apart, even if someone prays that it will. The love in which each tries to give to the other is eternal (36-076, 1970.11.15)
Absolute, unique, eternal, unchanging true love
2 The Creator’s purpose for making man and woman was love. True love is eternal and unchanging. No matter how much the era and the environment change with time, true love will remain unchanged. Men and women were created to fulfill the ideal of true love, which is unique, eternal and unchanging. Human beings were not created with themselves at the center. Creation was initiated with God as the root, at the center. Therefore it can be said that all things were created because of love. (213-156, 1991.01.20)
3 Original love is not human love; it is God’s eternal, unchanging love. At the moment we encounter God’s love and attend Him as our Master, we become one with Him. When we enter the place of joy where we can interact with God, we can conquer the world. Sharing joy with God is more rapturous and intoxicating than owning all of heaven and earth. No stimulation of the five physical senses can compare with the experience of sharing happiness with God. (7-248, 1959.09.20)
4 Everyone wants true love. No one would tire of true love even if it lasted for ten thousand years. No group would launch a revolution against it. Then what is true love? It is not the momentary love between young men and women of this world. Since true love involves God, it has an eternal, unique and unchanging nature. When you look at the solar system, you can see that the planets continuously move around the sun as their center, and this does not change. The earth orbits the sun once a year. In hundreds of millions of years it has not deviated from this cycle. It is amazing to consider this big earth circling around for hundreds of millions of years in this orbit. If the orbit were even slightly different, it would cause serious obstacles to the development of life. Likewise, true love is absolute, eternal, unique and unchanging. (299-153, 1999.02.10)
5 We are born because of the love of our father and mother. There can be no result without a cause; accordingly, no life in heaven or on earth belongs to itself. God has a greater purpose, with us at the center. Love is eternal, but it cannot exist contrary to divine law. Therefore, no one is born outside the principle of love. Also, complete love does not originate from one individual alone. A mother’s love is God’s love. An elder sister and younger brother may be fighting, but when their mother and father come in, they stop. In the same way, our human world needs a mother of love. But in the love of our human world, in the love of the whole universe, there is no mother of love. Humankind lost the original Mother. What we lost was nothing other than God’s love. (20-021, 1968.03.31)
6 True love lasts forever. It is the same love in the spring, summer, autumn and winter. It is the same when you are in your teens, your adulthood and your old age, and even when you go to the eternal spirit world. True love does not change. (194-303, 1989.10.30)
7 Love has an absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal nature. It has the elements of these inner qualities. The foundation of all the inner qualities, the foundation that desires to form common relationships, across the board, cannot be anything but true love. No matter how absolute and unique God may be, He does not reject a relationship of true love. He willingly makes such a relationship. (226-063, 1992.02.01)
The rights and privileges that come only from true love
8 What is the Unification Church doing? We are attending God vertically and attending True Parents horizontally, and in the place where we resonate with them perfectly we seek to inherit true love. The attributes of true love include the right of inheritance and the right to participate together. These allow us to participate in love. Next is the right of equality, which means to stand in the same position. When you have that love, you can go everywhere together. You have the right to participate in everything together, everywhere. Thus there are three great attributes of true love. When you have a relationship of love, you have the right of equal position, the right to participate together, and the right of inheritance. You can immediately stand in the same position. (177-224, 1988.05.20)
9 When you have true love, you have the right of equal position. The positions of father and son are different, but a father always wants his dutiful and loving son to be with him, and the son also wants that. The father would not say, “Hey, boy, you are the son, so your position is different; you have to go to your place.” Even though their positions are different, the son always has the privilege of sitting in the same place as his father. One attribute of love is the equalization of authority. One’s beloved has the right to participate in that. (176-185, 1988.05.09)
10 If you are united in true love you have the right to hold an equal position and to do everything together with your beloved. You do not separate from each other anywhere, day or night. You can attend everything together. If your beloved becomes president, as the president’s spouse you can go everywhere with the president. Even if he or she goes to visit a slum, you can go there; you can participate anywhere. You also have the right of inheritance. That is a law that applies to all people. It is a formula. This is why we naturally think about these things. (290-063, 1998.02.03)
11 God’s fundamental purpose of creation is to have true people who can be the object partners of His true love. How can human beings stand in the objective position to God, who is the Absolute Being? That is not possible through human effort or external conditions. It is possible only through a relationship of true love. When subject and object partners form a perfect relationship of true love, they immediately have the right of equal position, the right to participate in everything together, and the right to inherit. (294-062, 1998.06.11)
12 The person of love is the owner of the eternal God. Among the attributes of love are the right of inheritance, the right to live together and the right to participate in everything together. Even if a woman did not graduate from primary school, if her beloved husband is the president, whatever he owns belongs to her; of course, she can live together with him day and night, and she has the right to participate in whatever he does. Since love has these three great attributes, once you stand in the position of oneness with God’s absolute and unchanging true love, you receive the authority to join God wherever He is and live with Him at any time. Then you will be able to see God even without closing your eyes. Those who have deeply felt God’s sorrowful heart will stop in their tracks and weep bitterly; such a realm of deep feeling exists. Even in the fallen world, a mother’s love is such that if her child has an accident far away, she can sense it. She wakes up calling her child’s name. There are many examples of this. (201-356, 1990.04.30)
13 Even fallen people desire the highest, best and most glorious position. All people of all races desire this position, whether educated or not. Only love can satisfy this desire. Love is eternal, so when you have God’s love, you can have eternal life. To stand in an equal position, a position with the same rights as God, you first have to possess God’s love. (145-270, 1986.05.15)
14 When we have a loving relationship with God our position is equal to His and we can share in His rights. When we are united in love with God, we have the authority to participate in His work. Love confers the authority to participate in the beloved’s activities. Love also grants the right of inheritance. When you have a loving relationship with God, not only can you stand before Him, you can have all that He owns. Originally people had the privilege of ownership over all that belongs to God. Thus it is natural that we have the desire to become the very best of beings. (145-270, 1986.05.15)
15 In the original, ideal world, a person who experienced true love would immediately inherit the right and ability to have whatever God desired for him or her. You can attain that qualification only on the earth, while in the process of bringing your body into oneness with your spirit in a true family. The family is the meeting point of God’s love and the place where you can attain this. You can feel the true love of God by loving your fellow citizens, loving the people of the world, and loving all things of creation. (298-310, 1999.01.17)
True love takes the shortest and the most direct route
16 God is the vertical True Parent, and Adam and Eve would have become the horizontal parents, had they not fallen. True love takes the shortest, most direct route. Then where can human love and God’s love meet? Where can the vertical and horizontal meet? The shortest, most direct route connecting heaven and earth is the perpendicular line. There is only one such line. Only true love can take that perpendicular path, reflecting the great law of heaven and earth. True love is the original common standard that can measure everything relating to the great law of heaven and earth, and there is only one perpendicular line through which true love flows. (204-104, 1990.07.01)
17 Where can God’s love and human love unite? True love flows through the shortest, most direct route. There is only one shortest, most direct route for love from above; that is vertical. True love takes the shortest, most direct route from the Father above to the son below. Following the perpendicular lines, there is only one point where the two can make contact. Conjugal love between man and woman, representing east and west, also travels by the shortest, most direct route. This horizontal love and God’s vertical love intersect at a right angle; they meet on the perpendicular. The love between brothers and sisters also flows along the shortest, most direct route, and meets God’s love only at a ninety-degree angle. Consider a man and woman who are able to establish the perpendicular with God’s true love at the center. Where in the universe should they meet? They have to meet on that perpendicular, which is the shortest, most direct route. (209-101, 1990.11.27)
18 God’s true love moves along the shortest, most direct route. True love flows along the fastest, closest, shortest, most direct way. If there were one place on earth where true love could settle, it would be the place at which the shortest, most direct route arrives. This place is absolute. It is eternal. Yet because of the Fall, this place was lost. Love has nowhere to settle, and its axis shifts back and forth. Unless True Parents begin the process of settlement, having actualized the philosophy of the love of heaven and earth, based on the logic of true love, this world will not find the way of the ideal with love at its center. In accordance with God’s love, horizontal love is drawn to connect with vertical love. Had there been no Fall, the horizontal love between man and woman would have flowed along the shortest, most direct route to intersect with the vertical, perpendicular line at the central point. This is the formula through which we can reunite with the love of God’s original creation. (221-344, 1991.10.27)
19 True love travels by the shortest, most direct route and therefore arrives in the shortest time. When your beloved child is overseas, you can think of your child and be with him or her in an instant, right? Love transcends distance. Since true love travels at the highest speed, with it we can travel anywhere in the universe; the entire universe becomes our sphere of activity. Since love transcends time and space, we have no sense of separation. Everything seems to be right in front of our eyes. (210-093, 1990.12.01)
20 Love travels at the highest speed as it flows along the shortest, most direct route. This is not secular love but divine love. What is divine love? It is true love. If we enter the realm of true love, because we are able to come and go at the highest speed through the shortest, most direct route, we will be able to act on the stage of the universe in the realm of thought. This may sound like a fantasy, but it is true. (210-226, 1990.12.23)
21 Love chooses the shortest path. If we are to form a perpendicular line with love at the center, then love has to come through the shortest and most direct route possible. When you go to visit someone you love, you don’t saunter along as if you were touring a neighboring village. You go directly, swift as an arrow. Whether night or day, whether spring, summer, autumn or winter, however long its history may be, love always takes the shortest, most direct path. Vertically, the shortest distance is along a line perpendicular to the horizontal. This is how that which is highest contacts that which is lowest. (187-051, 1989.01.06)
22 What kind of love is God’s love? Love is the heart that is never satisfied with what it has given; instead, it feels embarrassed that it cannot give more. One who feels sorry even after giving is truly the owner of love. After parents have bought new clothes for their child, they still feel sorry that they could not buy better clothes. Even after giving, they don’t feel satisfied, so they supplement that with love. (38-327, 1971.01.08)
23 The person who most readily lives for others becomes the central figure. The one who lives more for others rules, supervises and inherits all things. This is heavenly law. Within love there is the right to be always together. You can do everything together in any place, day or night. Do you need permission to go into your sons’ and daughters’ rooms? Would you need permission to go into your wife’s room? If you love God, you can participate in everything with Him, wherever He goes. (170-199, 1987.11.15)
24 True love gives and forgets what it has given. It does not remember. What is the standard of good and evil? Evil is giving for the sake of making a profit. Goodness is giving and forgetting about it. Even in a family, the person who lives more for the others is on the side of goodness. The person who lives for others eventually becomes the master of that family. If there were ten friends, the best friend among them would be the one who lived for the other nine. Then the nine people would make that one the central figure and serve that person. This is how to inherit the universe. (141-253, 1986.02.26)
25 The original nature of dominion is love. There is one element of life that can connect with the original nature of love. That is my value as an object partner before a subject partner. At that point, my value corresponds to the value of my subject partner. The value of the object, which is the result, is equal to the value of the cause. My body, in relation to my mind, always has the value of an object partner. My mind, in relation to my body, has the value of a subject partner. These two together make up the being called “I.” In this way, the universe brings about connected relationships. Immediately, the relationships between front and back, internal and external, left and right, and above and below are all connected. (145-177, 1986.05.04)
Section 4. The Power of True Love
1 The fastest action in the world is the action of love. In the world the highest speed is not that of electricity; it is love. It has the most amazing power; it can fly. If two people located at opposite ends of the earth were to fall in love with each other, their love would pull them together, closing the distance between them. Love has such power. So today in the religious world it is said, “Search for love. Stay close to the God of love. Have a deep heart. Pray.” Why? It is because when you make contact with the world of love, you can participate with God in all His activities of love. This means you accompany God in His work. (112-204, 1981.04.12)
2 Love is destined to expand in all four directions: north, south, east and west. From this point of view, with love at the center, front and back, right and left, and above and below combine in an ideal way and begin circular motion. Thus the whole universe is revolving. As the universe turns, the things at the center have to turn with it. There’s no other choice. What is at the center of this universal rotation? It is the axis, which is eternally unchanging. Money, knowledge and authority all change. In our time, when even people’s feelings change, what can be the eternally unchanging axis? There is one thing that never changes and that is the relationship between parents and children. Even in the animal world this is so. Only parents’ love for their children is eternal. (227-121, 1992.02.11)
True love's power is activated through giving and receiving
3 In order for people to exist, they must sustain a process of giving and receiving, starting with the physical body. Having established the prerequisites for reciprocation, men and women interact with each other; only then can they exist. If men were to say they don’t need women, and women were to say they don’t need men, this world would be in ruins within one hundred years. To maintain existence, that is to say, to give and receive, we each need a partner. Therefore, to this day men and women have been loving each other and forming families. Love is the power that initiates the interaction between men and women, and it is the power of the action itself. There must be giving and receiving action at the source in order for the power called love to arise. For this action to arise, we absolutely need men and women. To establish the prerequisites for reciprocation, we need men and women. (18-324, 1967.08.13)
4 All material things are composed of energy, but energy cannot come into existence by itself. Unless a reciprocal standard is set, giving and receiving does not occur and energy cannot come to exist. You generate energy through the giving and receiving action of your entire body. Energy is generated in proportion to this action. Before there can be energy, there must be giving and receiving action. Then what initiates such action? Nothing can do this by itself; an object partner is needed. This is the absolute requirement for the appearance of all beings. If there is no object partner, there is no giving and receiving action. (18-323, 1967.08.13)
5 The more you love, the more your love grows. Love does not disappear; instead it prospers. There is no way to prosper without love. Furthermore, there is no eternal life without love. So Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment.” (Matt. 22:37-38) This is the commandment we need to observe absolutely. Prosperity is possible only through building loving relationships and following the way of love. (38-328, 1971.01.08)
6 When you invest beyond your limits and even your life, the power of true love generates ten thousand times more energy. You will never fail when you invest true love. The amount of true love you invest will multiply and develop. The more you set the power of true love in motion, the greater it will grow so that you can embrace the world, the universe and even God. (221-251, 1991.10.25)
7 True love will never be exhausted. The more it is set in motion, the greater it gets. In mechanics, input always exceeds output. But in the world of love, output exceeds input. This is why love is the nucleus of everything. There is always enough true love to provide for your object partner and still have more left over. There is no shortage. Since you always have something remaining after giving true love to your object partner, the more you love, the more true love increases. (219-018, 1991.08.25)
8 In a relationship of true love, output is greater than input. Saints were persecuted and, at that time, killed, yet their constant investment in true love produced an output greater than the input, and made an imprint in history. Since God has done the same thing, the creation of the universe was possible. When true love is invested, it grows greater and greater. If there is a heart that invests, the foundation for life to exist remains forever. (213-258, 1991.01.21)
9 True love stimulates the world and supplies it with the surplus energy it needs to rotate eternally. It also sustains the consumption of energy by adding more than it consumes. This is why only true love can exist forever. For people, the most precious things are life and love. Life comes from love. Therefore, everyone who has life automatically pursues love. (109-143, 1980.11.01)
10 When we say that true love is the origin of life and is able to sustain the universe, we can compare it to air. If I continue to give over and over again for the sake of the universe from a position of low pressure, the universe will pull me to the center and raise me up. I will be at the very center and then rise to the top. What is true love? If I go to the eternal zero point by investing myself completely, over and over again, the universe will add to me. If I go to that place, God will take notice and move on my behalf. The more I invest and forget how much I have given, the more God will support me. If I keep investing with God supporting me, I will become the center. Once I become the center, as I keep investing, I will never sink down into the earth. Instead, I will rise up. Everything will get bigger, and since I keep moving at the center, everything will become rounded. This is how the universe stays in motion and assumes a spherical form. (221-106, 1991.10.23)
11 Since the object partner of love will be eternal, God continues to invest eternally until it comes into being. And when He has a partner He wants to invest infinitely into that partner, even to His very essence. Since God’s investment is infinite, all pairs that move in the world of love have an eternal quality. We can conclude that the love partner of the absolute, infinite God will live for eternity. (221-107, 1991.10.23)
12 God’s love is love for the sake of others and only for the sake of others. Because God wants to keep giving, true love also cannot help but keep giving, and since they give to each other, they revolve. God’s love is like that. Since God wants to give endlessly, and the original nature of love is also to give endlessly, they revolve. How did the universe begin? It began from the point of revolving. All existing things, by their intrinsic nature, have to revolve. Then what can go on forever? The love that gives eternally, the love at the very center, will keep revolving forever. When the power of giving and the power of receiving become one and they want to keep giving, they expand. Since there is power in this principle, expansion takes place and the universe is formed. (128-292, 1983.09.11)
13 Love functions as a lubricant and as an orbit in which things move. Without love there is no lubrication. Automobiles need oil to move. For things to move, we need to oil them. There must be lubrication. Everything needs lubrication if it is to move. Only love can be the lubricant for the highest joy. It does not disappear because it is rooted in the eternal God. The more love moves, the more it develops. (180-163, 1988.08.22)
The unlimited power of true love
14 True love remains even after it embraces the universe; it remains even after it flows through the universe, and it remains even after it blends with the universe. It is the driving force of life, of movement and of everything. Where there is love like that, life at last has value. From that love, all that is ideal emerges. Laughing “ha ha ha!” can be ideal. We can say that crying “wah wah!” can be ideal as well, if it is prompted by love. People shed tears in times of sorrow but also in times of joy. No matter where you are, even in hell, if there were one power that would allow you to know happiness, that would be the power of wanting to live for the whole. (129-315, 1983.12.01)
15 Love has the power to enhance that which is insufficient, to reinforce that which is inadequate, and to complete that which is lacking. That love is true love. The nature of love for the whole cannot differ from the nature of love for the individual. To reach the world of cause from the world of result, there should be an expenditure of surplus power. This power could be both stimulating and electrifying to human beings, who are resultant beings. (112-130, 1981.04.12)
16 When you inherit the work of creation you receive the authority of true love. The reason is that to inherit the work of creation is to inherit true love, which is the strongest power. With true love there is nothing you cannot do, nothing you cannot make. You can love even your enemy. The power of true love is not to fight, not to force, but to win over someone naturally. There is no power stronger than this. (124-095, 1983.01.30)
17 The Bible says, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt 10:39) How do we explain such paradoxical logic? It is a paradox because the world of evil and the world of goodness move in different directions. It seems contradictory, but it is a widely accepted viewpoint of those on God’s side. Unless we overcome the environment that gives rise to this paradox, and unless we make a bold leap into destiny to find the way of true love with its own logic, we cannot be liberated. The power to leap comes not from military might, economic strength, political prowess or intellectual power. It is the power of nothing but love. It is the only path to the eternal, unchanging and correct way. (121-126, 1982.10.24)
18 Love is the essential force that moves reality; it is indispensable in daily life. This has been so throughout history. Love is the origin of the force that drives our social systems and everything else. This is why students are taught patriotic love for their country. Brotherly love, parental love, conjugal love and worldwide altruistic love—all are forms of love. What does this mean? It means that without reference to love, which impacts people’s daily lives and the course of history, we cannot create the thought and tradition that connect us to history. (187-046, 1989.01.06)
19 The power of true love is great. True love can melt even the hardest substance. It is more fearful than a clenched fist. Love can conquer any place in a flash, no matter how far and wide. Nothing is strong enough to withstand the power of love. True love can melt even our enemy. We want to become the owners of the world based on love. Love is the pinnacle of hope for the human race. (193-042, 1989.08.06)
20 If you tap on the heart of true love, the physical body spontaneously resonates. If you become a perfect man or woman through true love, God spontaneously appears. This occurs only through love. True love is the power that leads to such events. So what is true love in reality? True love connects vertical and horizontal. It can weave together above and below, right and left, before and after. Because of that, love can weave together heaven, which is above, and earth, which is below. Going laterally, it can weave together the right side and the left side. I am saying that love is the power to intertwine everything: before and after, right and left, above and below. (181-087, 1988.08.28)
21 What is it that can give life the taste of honey? It is the taste of true love. It is not the love of man and woman living in this fallen world. Once you taste true love, everything is united. All eyes focus on one place. All the cells of the body are drawn together into a ball and begin to roll. True love has that power. All kinds of cells are drawn together into a ball and roll down the path of love. While rolling down that path, I forget my own existence. The concept of “me” is lost. (109-274, 1980.11.02)
22 The schisandra (omija) fruit is used to cure a number of illnesses. The berry has many uses in Oriental medicine. It combines five different flavors, and makes an effective medicine. Love, which is the medicine of medicines, also has five flavors. It is bitter, salty, sweet, spicy and sour. The taste of love is like the five-flavor schisandra berry. The tastiest dishes are made with this berry. This is a medicinal food. Everyone likes food that is good for the body. (195-068, 1989.11.05)
23 In the right season a beekeeper gathers his honey with equipment designed for that purpose. Honeybees store the honey in honeycombs, but there are many holes. Bees save honey to get through the winter, but the beekeeper collects all the honey and provides sugar water for the bees to live on during the winter. So the bees live on sugar water all winter. Then when spring comes and they taste real nectar, they become intoxicated. When the flowers bloom in spring, the honeybees fly from flower to flower. If you look at the bees on the flowers sucking their nectar, their abdomens are raised up and their heads are buried deep in the flower. If you were to pull at a bee’s abdomen with a pincer, it would still keep sucking, even if its abdomen separated from its body. How delicious that nectar must be! Now, how does the taste of that nectar compare with the taste of love? Which do you think is better: the taste of honey or the taste of love? What kind of taste would God like most? If God were to smell many aromas, which would He like best? If He were to choose something to listen to, what would He like to hear, and if He were to seek something to feel, what would He like to feel? There is only one thing God likes, and that is love. Nothing other than love can focus God’s five senses and fill Him with joy. (136-116, 1985.12.22)
24 Is the color of love blue or red? What is love’s color? It has five colors. Its taste is like the schisandra berry. It has five flavors. If something has five colors, won’t that be dazzling? A rainbow has seven colors. Think of all these colors mixed together. What color would that be? When you mix all wavelengths of visible light, you get white. What color do people like most? When God created all things, do you think He first created the color He likes most, or the color He likes least? He created the one He likes best. What color is the flower that blooms in early spring? It is purple. The color purple includes red and pink and all other colors. That’s why all elegant things are purple. In the spirit world, the most beautiful color is purple. (197-049, 1990.01.07)
25 A man and a woman embracing and kissing light up like two poles with opposite charges touching and sending out sparks. If that light is white, we must add heat to create five brilliant colors. When this colorful display is mixed with the vertical love of God, it is transformed into a world of ideal, brilliant hope, like the colors of the rainbow. Since human love is on a horizontal plane, it is simple. People of original love want to combine colors, to see perfectly combined colors through the love of a man and a woman. When that occurs, vertical love will come down. Like a rainbow, God’s love will descend to this horizontal love. (134-171, 1985.04.07)
True love brings unity
26 A sense of love is not one-sided; it is all-inclusive. Even cells function in that way. We sometimes say that people are intoxicated by love and that everyone should have this experience at least once. If you are intoxicated by love, when you call out to anything in the universe, it will respond without hesitation. You can sing for a thousand years while watching water flow. The whispering sound of the flowing water is infinitely sweet. Think of it! Through love, people attain the value of owners who harmonize with the entire universe. You want to go the way of completing this purpose. Once your heart has the capacity to capture God’s love, you can sing and dance for thousands of years. At that time you will have completed everything; you will need nothing more. There is nothing on earth more precious than this. Once you capture God’s love, you have no need for gold, silver or treasure, absolutely no need. (39-211, 1971.01.10)
27 True love fills everything completely. When God’s eye perceives love, He becomes intoxicated. In a family, when the father is intoxicated by love, the mother likes it, the sons and daughters like it, and the whole family likes it. But if the father is frowning, the mother can’t help but frown, and the sons and daughters frown too. If the mother is intoxicated by true love, that true love will melt the father. It will melt the sons and daughters too. If the sons and daughters are intoxicated by true love, their mother and father will melt in turn. (106-099, 1979.12.16)
28 True love is almighty. There is nothing it cannot do. If someone imagines the ideal, the ideal object that they imagine appears. Even if a husband is not handsome, when his wife comes to love him, he appears handsome to her. Love transforms unattractiveness. We don’t know our own faces well. Even though we see them in the mirror every day, we don’t know them. When we see ourselves in a photo, we say, “Oh, so I look like this?” but when we look in the mirror, we don’t think that way. According to our mood, we sometimes look like the most repulsive person, sometimes like the most attractive. Sometimes our faces look round, sometimes long. If we look with the eyes of love, no one is better looking than we are. When your eye is very close to something, can you see it well? You need a certain distance in order to focus. If you are too close, you cannot perceive it. (106-102, 1979.12.16)
29 Love has great power. Even if someone is a farmhand working in the fields, when he forms a love relationship with the owner’s daughter, the owner has to give him all he has. Love can leap from the lowest place to the highest place. It can break down any barrier, no matter how strong. No matter how confused the world is, once you experience God’s love, you can leap beyond it. If the American president falls in love with a country girl who is naive, ignorant, unqualified and lacking in many ways, from that day forward she is invested with the right to participate with him in his position. Likewise, if you have true love, no matter how low you are, you can leap to the highest place in a flash. Today, no matter how miserable our circumstances, once we have a love relationship with God at the center and can say, “There is no doubt that You are my Father and I am your child,” we can freely go in and out of God’s master bedroom; we receive that privilege. Only love can make this possible. (142-037, 1986.03.03)
30 When you meet your beloved, you want your love to be a flower that blooms forever. You want to explode. When two lovers come together there is such an explosion. Love conquers everything with its brilliant power. There is nothing that can suppress that power. Love has that explosive quality. All beings are in awe when thinking of love, and all cells open their gates. (179-115, 1988.08.01)
31 Would you prefer to hold on to someone because of love, or because the person had earned a doctorate? Why do you prefer true love? No amount of money has the power to make your mind and body one. No amount of knowledge can make your mind and body and five senses focus on one thing. These cannot make your eyes, nose and ears focus on one thing. Power cannot do that either. But love can. That is why love brings the greatest joy. Our five spiritual and five physical senses can unite their focus through love. In love we enjoy explosive happiness by having the five spiritual and five physical senses unite in one focus. We feel tremendous stimulation in love. We ignore everything else and all our cells unite into one. The power of true love unites the spiritual and physical cells as one. Nothing else can do this. True love is the highest peak. (189-194, 1989.04.06)
32 Love is the power that unites man and woman. When two people love each other completely, they think, “I am in you, and you are in me.” It is like St. Paul; when he had his spiritual experience, he could not say whether he had been in his body or out of his body. What binds subject and object partners together? If one man and one woman just casually meet and live together, that is not love. In love the direction should be right, the physical constitutions should match, and there should be a common base. One is minus and one is plus, which makes for a perfect mutual relationship. Love is when I say I would die without you and you say you would die without me. When two people are bound together completely as one, their two personalities combine and become as one personality, and they have greater value than they do as two individuals. They then become owners who can build a world of higher dimension. (33-047, 1970.08.02)
33 Neither money nor knowledge can give rise to unity between mind and body. A Korean maxim says that a habit you adopt when you are three years old will last until you are eighty. It is very hard to change your habits and your deep-rooted fallen nature. These have a historical and global character. Only enlightened people who can crush such things underfoot, clear them away, and transcend the world, are able to overcome this problem. Man and woman are physiologically different, and the components of their original natures are different, but they can unite in love. (211-264, 1990.12.30)
34 The very cells of a mind and body are made to resonate with each other when united in true love. If there is no true love, this is not possible. When you hit one side of a tuning fork, the other side resonates automatically with the same vibration. When they resonate, the frequency is the same. Likewise, when our original mind and original body reach maturity and blend with God’s heart of true love, and the environmental conditions are right to allow that, they move automatically and harmonize perfectly. Power is put into action. (164-048, 1987.05.03)
35 When you enter the realm of resonance with true love, you have a wide view of heaven and earth. The Buddha said, “Throughout heaven and earth, I alone am the honored one.” Why did he say this? If you reach the center of the realm of resonance, the whole world is in your hands; God is inside you, and you are one with heavenly law. This is why he could say such a thing. If you enter the realm of resonance of true love, you don’t need a religious faith. You don’t need a Messiah. This is liberation. (201-361, 1990.04.30)
36 When can the mind and body unite? If the vertical and horizontal had been united, then the great law of heaven and earth would have united the mind and body forever. Only when I love do I attain my true value and find myself. For a man, it is possible to realize his full value as a man only through marriage. That means that the fullness of human potential is realized through marriage. Only by knowing love can a man become complete as a man and a woman become complete as a woman. Completion occurs with love at the center. (211-263, 1990.12.30)
37 Among the things people seek, the most precious is love. We are driven to seek precious things, precious people and precious love. God, the center of love, has no beginning and no end. To God, governing heaven and earth is not a one-day operation. He will do this for eternity. The center of all precious things is human beings. The center of precious love is God. God sacrificed the things He created to find humankind, and God sacrificed human beings to find love. Love makes two into one. God wants to give humankind that kind of love. In a place without relationships of love, everything scatters, but if you make love the center, everything is drawn together. (14-080, 1964.05.24)
38 That which can harmonize everything is love. For example, when a girl marries and goes to her husband’s home, she discovers that his grandfather and grandmother, as well as his father and mother, are all living there. In the past, in a nobleman’s house, do you know how great their influence was and how great their authority? Do you know how complicated their traditions, their moral principles, were? In that environment, a wife could not even stretch out her legs as she wished. So when a bride goes to her husband’s home, what is her husband to her, such that she willingly leaves behind her mother, father and brothers? The power of love is a moving force with the ability to harmonize. (181-025, 1988.08.28)
39 The word love cannot stand on its own. It absolutely requires a mutual relationship. Subject and object partners appear as two, but the two become one. If one becomes the top, the other becomes the bottom; if one becomes east, the other becomes west; if one becomes south, the other becomes north; if one becomes the front, the other becomes the back. Love has the active nature that brings two into natural balance in any environment, in any place. (193-135, 1989.10.13)
True love is the source of harmony and equality
40 True love can transform even sorrow and pain into joy. More than our power, knowledge or money, what we want to leave behind in the universe is true love. This is our original desire. This has absolute authority in each individual. Where does this true love come from? Needless to say, it comes from the true love of God, the foundation of the universe. It derives from Him, and God also wants to experience that love. When you ask a man and woman, who are engaged to be married, about their future spouse, the bride will say, “I expect my husband to be better than I am.” The bridegroom will also say, “I expect that my wife will be better than I am.” Parents always hope that their children will be greater than they are. This heart comes from God. These words arise out of true love. (201-345, 1990.04.30)
41 Just as flowers bloom in many different colors, even though love comes from the same root, it appears in an endless variety of forms. This is love’s response to the action of its object partner. When you relate to someone who is sad, you feel sad; when you relate to someone who is happy, you feel happy. Love matches the feelings of its object partner. A loving wife’s face shows that she can accept everything from her husband’s past, even a dark background. (233-131, 1992.08.01)
42 God breathes true love. Since this is the rhythm of the universe, the universe continues forever, based on true love. In love there is eternal life. Everything moves in one direction, with God at the center. True love is eternal, absolute and unchanging; once it begins, it lasts forever. It moves according to the shape of waves and circles. When it moves in waves, it connects horizontally; when it moves in circles, it connects vertically. When it moves up, it grows larger; when it moves down, it grows smaller. Thus, heaven’s side grows larger and earth’s side grows smaller. God’s true love is eternal. (201-191, 1990.04.01)
43 What makes someone an amicable person? If you fight with your wife every day, are you such a person? An amicable person is one who, while heading east, can turn around and head west without any problem. If someone grasps his head and pushes him down, he goes down without resisting, and as he rises up somewhere else, he does not change. The universe is round, and so is the sun. Everything is round. What is the source of all round things? They cannot become round by themselves. They become round only on the basis of a relationship with something else. The world is one existing entity, a substantial entity of relationships that integrates a realm of relationships. It continues on the foundation of this realm of circular relationships. Here, the source that can form circular relationships, the source of harmony, is the action of love. (164-078, 1987.04.26)
44 You should live enraptured with love. One who is enraptured by love is truly happy. An artist is enraptured by art. A person who loves literature writes books and is enraptured by them, or by the great masterpieces he or she reads. Such people are happy people. Your entire body should live in the rapture of God’s three-dimensional, ideal love, and you should follow only Him. (59-318, 1972.07.30)
45 Love flows into the heart of the individual, into the center of the family, and into the center of a people. Wherever it goes it enters as the mainstream. And wherever it flows, everyone welcomes it. There is no way to block it. God created people to relate with one another through the power of love. The one who lives and breathes along with the universe, connected through ties of love, can go freely to the Palace of God. He or she can open the gates to the Palace and enter at will. There is a sanctuary there, where God is attended. He or she can go in and call out, “Heavenly Father!” Then God will answer, “Oh, my child, you are here!” (164-047, 1968.08.11)
46 The word equality is meaningless without love. Equality is based on love. There is no equality that is not based on love. Then what is happiness? Happiness is the fruit on the branch of the tree of love. Happiness is the front side of love, the back side of love, the summit of love and the feet of love. These words are all correct. Since love is one, and round, these words are all correct. Without love, can there be happiness? No matter how beautiful a woman may be, she can find harmony only when she meets a man with whom she can be equal in love. (140-143, 1986.02.09)
47 In a realm with true love at the center there is no injustice. It is like the nature of water and air. The power of love always balances things out like water and air. Water always forms a level surface. High pressure in the atmosphere always transfers to a low-pressure area to create equilibrium. Love is the same. Love balances everything. With True Parents at the center, one culture—the world of the culture of Adam—begins. Starting from the individual, it connects eternally to the spirit world. (294-329, 1998.08.09)
48 In love, men and women are equal. In love, a mother and son are equal, even if her son is the president. In love everything is equal. When a husband comes home he should say, “I’m returning to my beloved wife’s house. I’m returning to my wife’s loving arms.” A wife should say, “My love, my husband, come into my arms!” This is peace and equality. In this way a husband and wife become one. A husband wants to be held in his wife’s arms, and she wants her husband to come into her arms, so the two become one. There is no high or low between them; they are one. (129-051, 1983.10.01)
49 When you say people should be equal, what kind of equality are you talking about? When you receive original love, you have original equality. What kind of equality? It is equality based on love. The highest realm of equality is that based on love. The most important thing to people is love. Since love is also the most important thing to God, when you have equality of love, everything is magnificent. Everything can be accomplished. (130-119, 1984.01.01)
50 If you want to interact well with the universe, you have to give love. Without love you will never experience interaction with eternal value. Love is said to be meek and humble, and indeed it is, so that it can flow eternally and fully. This is the one method to create flow without resistance. Meekness, humility and sacrifice are accepted everywhere. They cause no resistance anywhere. So it is not really sacrifice. One secret method for working without resistance is to live and sacrifice for the sake of others. (122-330, 1982.12.01)
51 Love transcends even national borders. God’s love has no national borders. It transcends all races, feeling no difference in value between black, white and yellow races. God’s love is great. The flow of love is not dependent upon the environment. As it flows it assimilates the environment, which does not resist. God will be pleased only when we adopt the perspective that can make this happen. (164-093, 1987.04.26)
True love is the origin of peace and happiness
52 When you enter the realm of God’s love, it is as if you are intoxicated by the fragrances of a million spring flowers. It is like the indescribable feeling of sitting on grass and looking up at fluffy, white clouds. At that moment you feel all the cells in your body dancing. That’s why we say that God’s love is the origin of the power of all living beings and the origin of all happiness. God’s love is the condition that is absolutely necessary for happiness, peace and all that we hope for in life, and it is an absolute element of faith. (24-325, 1969.09.14)
53 Men and women have to be absolutely united through love. When they become one, what happens? It is not conflict, but loving harmony. That is where happiness dwells, peace blossoms and the eternal heavenly kingdom begins to spread. From there, the eternal world rushes in. We are called to make love blossom. Love is the foundation of happiness for all people. That is why if we open the world of true love, everything else we want is guaranteed. (234-034, 1992.08.02)
54 Our first ancestors’ union in marital love should have been simultaneously the perfection of God’s love. It should have been an occasion for celebration, in which God, Adam and Eve, and all things were intoxicated naturally in blissful joy and blessings. It should have been a happy ceremony that marked the settlement of God’s love, life and lineage in human beings. (288-127, 1997.11.26)
55 When a person who is the subject partner of love is full to the brim, everything is full. Because all things are complete when one is full of love, one can give boundlessly and authentically. Giving and receiving in this love is the realization of the ideal and the multiplication of the ideal. The world of love transcends distance. What is the speed of love? Not even light can keep up with it. Nothing travels faster than love. Also, nothing is brighter than love, and nothing surpasses the perfection of love. The fullest thing is love. Even a girl who is dozing off bursts into bloom at the appearance of the partner she really loves. Only love can make this happen. What love is this? It is true love, the love that is the source of the universe, the center of the universe and the owner of the universe. (95-039, 1977.09.11)
56 No one wants to unite if the purpose of doing so is only temporary. Everyone wants eternal oneness. What single element can bring that about? It is love. Love is the foundation for building unity. It is the foundation of happiness that is worth unending dedication. Without love there is no happiness. Without love there is no peace. Without love there is only conflict. But when love is abundant, everything is harmonized. (50-114, 1971.11.06)
57 When we speak about love, we mean the standard that God has in mind. Love is like leaven. It is the cause, motive and source that can break down the barriers between one person’s mind and another’s and bring them into unity. If we think of love as small, it is very small; and if we think of love as large, it is very large. Between the two of you, the blink of your loved one’s eye can make you feel as if heaven and earth are turned upside down. A smile from the one you love can make you feel as if all of heaven and earth are encompassed within your heart. If you think of love as sensitive, it is sensitive; if you think of it as small, it is small; if you think of it as big, it is big. If you think you can see it, you can, and if you think you can’t see it, you can’t. Love alone can melt barriers. (51-162, 1971.11.21)
58 There are so many barriers. Then what is the one central point that can break them down? In this world, money can overcome barriers. Knowledge and power can as well. But once you get past one barrier by such methods, you just encounter another one on the other side. Knowledge has a limit; money and power also have limits. Only true love can destroy barriers globally, above and below, front and back, right and left, from the past to the future, from the east to the west. The one point that can dissolve the barriers between all people is true love. Such is the power of true love. If you have true love, you can climb up on the crown of your father and mother’s heads and they won’t mind at all. If you travel while focused on love, there is no door through which you cannot pass. You can pass through every nook and cranny of the world. True love can manage and govern the world. (123-135, 1982.12.26)
59 True love naturally upholds the proper order all the time. That is how absolute it is. The son or daughter cannot intrude into the positions of the father and mother. The parents cannot intrude into the positions of the son and daughter-in-law. Such positions are absolute. Love arises when we maintain perfect order, one with another. Love is not disorderly. In true love there are always front and back relationships, above and below relationships, and right and left relationships. These are not barriers; they define order and process. (123-136, 1982.12.26)
60 If you looked at the world through the eyes of love and saw a bird in song, you would say, “Why is that bird chirping? Oh, he must be missing his beloved.” You would recite poetry, or even just spout it off spontaneously, and write works of literature. The scenes of your everyday life reappear in constant repetition. Ordinary people see water in a stream go by all the time, winding its way, following the lay of the land, meandering along. When it hits a rock, it sprays drops of water and flows on. But a person who fathoms the love behind this water’s flow will receive unending inspiration—really! He or she will write poetry and novels about it for a millennium. How pleasing are the breath of love, the caress of love, the song of love and the words of love! (112-258, 1981.04.19)
61 Through love, happiness will come into the human world. Without the standard of love, people cannot realize the ideals that they themselves desire. Everything in the universe lives because of love. All things of creation originated through God’s love. We human beings, having originated from a greater love than anything else, are the center of creation. We are to return to the spirit world having been born in love, attained maturity through love, led a life in society through love, and completed love. (137-208, 1986.01.03)
62 In this world, once we give something away it is gone. Yet with respect to love, the more we give, the more comes back to us. That is why we delight in love. We can always give love and in return be filled with love, so we can always be happy and joyful. Giving centered on money leads to collapse. No matter how much you like power, trying to accumulate it leads to misfortune. Knowledge also has its limits. But love is different. The more love is given, the more it circulates. (121-106, 1982.10.24)
63 Where does eternal life begin? It begins with God’s love. I’m talking about God’s love, not His money, power or knowledge. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) However, he left one thing out, the most important thing of all: love. He should have said, “I am the way and the truth and the life and the love.” These words should be inserted into the Bible. When I say this, some people will say, “Oh! How blasphemous!” But if you ask God about this, He will reply, “Of course!” From this we can see that God really likes love, but He likes true love best of all. This is very logical; I am not speaking out of ignorance. (149-017, 1986.11.01)
CHAPTER 2 The Realms of True Love
Section 1. Grandparents' Love
1 The Korean family system is principled. The lineage and history are like that. Three generations live together in one family: grandmother, grandfather, mother, father and I. The Fall meant that God never had a chance to love His grandchildren. Adam never had a chance to love his own children truly. In more and more American families, you cannot go to your own children’s homes freely. You cannot see your grandchildren whenever you like. You cannot go to your children’s homes without calling them first. Where on earth did this tradition come from? If you look, you’ll see how miserable they all are. Grandparents love their grandchildren more than the children’s own parents do. Yet God never had a chance to love His grandchildren. A grandfather is like a heavenly ambassador. He is the representative of God. My grandfather is God’s ambassador, my father and mother represent the king and queen of the world, and I am the future king of the heavenly nation and the world. This is what we in the Unification Church call the three great kingships. (295-272, 1998.09.08)
Grandparents' love for their grandchildren
2 If you want to make a good family, then help the parents, the children and the grandchildren unite in heart. No matter what complicated problems occur in that family, the parents’ love for their children and the grandparents’ love for the grandchildren will not change. You have to set up this absolute standard, go beyond a fragmented personal view of life and beyond the environment, and adopt a four-directional perspective. (24-137, 1969.07.20)
3 A grandfather and grandmother need to have an affectionate relationship with their grandchildren. Only this will start the vertical line of love. Also, the grandchildren must become one with their grandfather and grandmother. Since the grandfather and grandmother are in the position of God, they should be attended like God. Otherwise the axis of love will not be set in place. Horizontal love arises after this is established. Horizontal love reaches out in four directions, but vertical love moves in only one direction. What is horizontal can move east, west, north and south, throughout 360 degrees. What is vertical comes down from one point alone and cannot be divided up. (298-308, 1999.01.17)
4 There is no fundamental difference between the loving hearts of a grandfather and grandmother, those of a father and mother or those of a son and daughter. It is the same love. If the grandchildren barge into their grandfather and grandmother’s room, the grandparents are happy; and even if the father and mother barge into their room, the grandparents are happy. Because there is such a principle, grandparents love their grandchildren even more than they love their children. So as the grandchildren grow up, they prefer their grandparents raising them to their parents raising them. The logic, principle and formula lead to this. A family based on the ideal of the four-position foundation is a unified realm of rounded, balanced love. The unified world is found within the ideal family. (253-163, 1994.01.23)
5 In the presence of true love, even God can kneel down and fool around. A grandfather will happily become a horse for his grandchild to ride. Even if the child grabs his hair and tries to climb onto his back, the grandfather will say, “Get on! Get on!” Heaven and earth become earth and heaven, father and mother become mother and father, father and son become son and father; this is all fine. In this way, love flows down from above and up from below; all is in harmony. So if you have true love, you can buy everything in the heavenly nation. (210-020, 1990.11.30)
6 God is not someone to fear. He is the one closest to us. If you meet God, even if you ride on His back and pull His hair, He will enjoy it. It is as when a beloved grandson grabs his grandfather’s hair and climbs on his back; the grandfather enjoys this. God is our Parent, is He not? When you know this, He is not someone to fear. He is the one closest to me. God is closer than a parent, closer than a husband, closer than a son. When I come to know God as the one who is closest and most precious to me and who will live with me forever, then everything goes well. (201-307, 1990.04.29)
7 When a grandfather meets his grandson, it is the happiest time. Old people’s forgetfulness is designed to enable them to become friends with little children. That makes their loving heart bigger and more beautiful. Forgetting extraneous things, they raise their grandchildren with that loving heart. This is not a bad thing. It is in tune with the heavenly world and is part of God’s process of creation. Forgetfulness has a downside, but those who are forgetful have a stronger desire to see those they love. Living like this before going to the spirit world means you go to a higher place. This is God’s love. (260-119, 1994.04.28)
Forgetfulness is natural in the elderly
8 You should not ignore your mother and father when they become forgetful. You should not scorn your forgetful mother and father, who are to go to the heavenly world without remembering all the extraneous details of their life on earth. Their original heart right now is to build a bridge and construct a road for their descendants to follow. Parents represent God. Our first ancestor is God. We have to attend four generations of ancestors on earth: our great-great-grandparents, great- grandparents, grandparents and parents. If you attend these ancestors more than you do your own spouse and children, your family will prosper for tens of thousands of years. (200-135, 1990.02.24)
9 People are born through love and become the substance of love; they have to begin in love and end in love. They meet the one they love and have children, love those children, become a child again themselves and then go to the spirit world. Forgetfulness is not a bad thing. We should not view it as a bad thing. When parents become old, it is a good time for the children to give back, without reserve, based on their obligation to their parents for having raised them. (144-240, 1986.04.25)
10 A grandfather and grandmother wish to love their grandchildren more than they do their own children. When they raised their own children, they were too busy and had no spare time to love them, but this is not the case when they become a grandfather and grandmother. They are preparing to go to the spirit world. They become forgetful in order to become friends with children. They themselves return to being pure and childlike. They become pure and childlike, forgetting father and mother and brothers and sisters. (263-062, 1994.10.09)
11 When you grow old, you have to become friends with babies. Your grandchildren become your friends. You have to return to the kingdom of heaven as a pure person with no desires. Children naturally grow, but grandmothers and grandfathers are slowly closing down, day by day. They came from zero and return to zero. That means returning to the origin. Since we begin life without character, pride or desire, we have to return to that place in order to connect to Heaven. In the same way that parents raise children, the family and the country have to take care of the grandparents and help them return to the heavenly world. (278-253, 1996.05.26)
12 Why do the elderly become forgetful? It is because they have to move from the visible world to the invisible world. To prepare to cross that barrier, they become forgetful. They become simple. As a baby is born to meet a flat plane at high noon, the elderly become like newborn babies to meet the three-dimensional God. That means they move from the flat world to the three-dimensional world. When they die, they are reborn with concrete hope. Man and woman unite and advance toward the three-dimensional world. Then they walk into the spirit world. Representing the dual characteristics, they march toward the high noon of love centered on God, the multi-dimensional subject partner with dual characteristics. From there they embark on a new time of youth. (123-216, 1983.01.02)
13 When love is your center, the gap between the spirit world and physical world breaks down and you are liberated from the fear of death. Death is not a fearful thing. You know where you are going. This is why most of the elderly people who are forgetful become more and more interested in the spirit world. They know in advance, “Yes, I will have to go sometime soon. It’s time to prepare.” This means they forget everything on earth, arrange everything neatly and cleanly and then go. Please do not look down on those who are forgetful. Neglecting the present gives people time to correct everything in their past and clean up the sins of their ancestors. (196-270, 1990.01.02)
14 When you become sixty and then seventy, your spiritual awareness develops. This is so you can prepare to go to the spirit world. This is why you don’t remember practical things and become forgetful. Throughout our life, what we most enjoy, remember and store in our consciousness is loving and eating. Therefore elderly grandfathers and grandmothers are fond of looking for things to eat, and when they miss people, they cry. This is human instinct. Life is sustained by eating. The paramount value of life and love is revealed by the fact that the elderly miss those they love and miss eating certain foods. This is inevitable. It is instinctive desire, perfectly in accord with the principle of creation. (258-032, 1994.03.16)
Section 2. Parents' Love
1 Children are the substantial manifestation of their parents’ love and investment. They are an extension of their parents’ life and the embodiment of their parents’ ideals. Those who have given birth to children and loved them know this. They say to their beloved children, “You are the embodiment of my love, the extension of my life and the realization of my ideals. You are a second me.” Because children are born on the basis of the parents’ love, life and ideals, the more the parents see their children, the more they find them lovable, the more vibrant their lives become and the more they discover in their children their ideal object partners. (69-079, 1973.10.20)
Unchanging parental love
2 The love of a father and mother is vertical. It is the model of love and the basis for tradition. It is vertical love, and that which is vertical is unchanging. Because conjugal love involves the connection of vertical love to the horizontal plane, divorce is possible, but severing the parent-child relationship is impossible. This is heavenly law, and it is so because it is vertical love. That which is horizontal has four directions and can move throughout 360 degrees, but that which is vertical occupies only one point. It cannot be moved. (168-281, 1987.09.27)
3 The most precious love of all is parental love. This is because true love travels by the most direct route. Parental love is the vertical expression of true love. Vertical love occupies only one point and cannot be divided. If you change that position, you are turning heaven and earth upside down. No matter how capable you are, no matter how skillful you are, if you shift the position of vertical love, you make heaven and earth grow dark; you turn it into hell. Since love travels along the shortest route, it intersects the horizontal plane at a perpendicular angle. You cannot damage this love; you can’t put it aside. It is only one. It is absolute. Because the parent-child relationship is vertical and perpendicular, no power can sever it. (212-019, 1991.01.01)
4 "Parents are unique, unchanging and eternal. Who your parents are cannot change. Because of this, parental love is unaffected by social or political revolutions. No matter how many of those come and go, parental love is not affected; it lasts forever. Parents, as subject partners of love, need their object partners absolutely. They need them uniquely, "unchangingly and eternally."” (74-019, 1974.11.10)
5 A mother and father do not keep accounts of their sacrifices for their children, how much they worked at night to feed them and send them to school. They don’t calculate their investment or expect a return, saying, “I have spent this amount on you; in ten years it will be worth this much, including interest.” Instead they invest everything without keeping track of it and forget what they have invested. The principle of creation tells us that only in sacrifice can you find true love. This is why parents are good. Parental love is the best thing. People without parents are called orphans. Being an orphan is very sad. An orphan has no roots and so cannot set his or her direction in place. (242-050, 1992.12.27)
6 When parents raise their children, specifically, while a mother feeds her baby, she does not say, “Later, when you understand things, you’d better remember that I am the one who raised you.” A parent like that would not be normal. If you want to be that way, I suggest you raise a cow and ask it to help you with your work. No parent would request of his or her child, “I have loved you this much, so you have to repay me more than that amount.” You sacrifice for a person you love. You give and give and still feel it is not enough; you want to give and give and keep on giving more. This way of love continuously brings us to feel ultimate value and provides constant hope for the future. (60-128, 1972.08.13)
7 Even in this fallen world, a mother who loves her children invests in them and then repeatedly forgets how much she has given; she serves and sacrifices for their sake, hoping they will do well. Even though her child fails to attain success, until her dying moment she wants to continue to invest. This is the love of a mother. That is how it is even in this fallen world. When children come to know their mother was like this, they will go to her grave and tearfully ask her to forgive their unfilial behavior. Even though it is too late, they will repent, resolving to turn around 180 degrees and fulfill their duty to her. This filial piety is not a way of clever strategies or methods. This is the way of love, of truly sacrificing and offering one’s flesh and blood. (216-342, 1991.04.25)
8 Parents’ love toward their children does not appear just on the basis of routine, everyday interactions. It is a love that springs from the very marrow of the parents’ bones. The parents have a heart of love that, beyond their own will, they can never forget or cut off. Therefore parents love their children as long as they live. When parents feel that their lives are connected with their children, a loving heart toward their children naturally springs up. Parents don’t make a conscious choice in saying, “I am going to love that child because he is my son,” as if they could do otherwise. They share heart and connection. The life force that connects them guarantees they cannot help loving their children. (32-015, 1970.06.14)
9 What is true love? This is love for the sake of others. It gives and gives for a thousand years and wants to forget how much it has given. It does not remember. In the world of love, output is greater than input. Parents will say to their son when he leaves the house, “Son, watch for cars when you cross the road today,” even if he is seventy. Even at ninety years of age, parents will never tire of this; they will continue to say it every day, even to eternity. This is love. Knowing that parental love is like this even in our fallen world, do you think you would get tired of loving when you are in the original world of God’s love? This is the first step in establishing our life’s realm as God’s true object partner. When we come to know that God’s love is eternal and unchanging, from our experience with human love we can deduce the logic of eternal life. We conclude that by centering on true love, we live for eternity. (143-280, 1986.03.20)
10 In loving their children, parents do not announce, “Parents should be like this,” and love their children according to certain theories. Parents do not assert themselves but deny themselves. That is, they love their children without regard for position. In other words, parents do not love their children based upon their authority as parents, and always and only from this imposing position. Instead they take a higher stance by loving their children without a bit of concern for their status of authority. This is the heart with which parents love their children. (059-298, 1972.07.30)
11 In the parent-child relationship, a baby pushes his way to his mother’s breast to nurse. Would this be possible without love? No, it would not. A mother feels a mother’s love toward her baby. When she holds her baby, rather than identifying her happiness with herself, she feels as if heaven and earth have entered a state of peace, and in that holistic atmosphere, goodness is growing. No matter how hard the baby pushes its way to its mother’s breast, an embracing heart wells up within her. She forgives the baby’s pushing and says, “Go ahead, little one!” This is because parents love their children immeasurably. (49-053, 1971.10.03)
Parental love is the paradigm of true love
12 There is no limit to the love parents feel for their children. In one sense a baby is like an enemy to the mother. The infant is an enemy who takes a siphon and sucks out its mother’s flesh and blood. However, through her baby a woman gains new hope as a mother and finds new stimulus in her husband. In that place there is an unspoken understanding. That place is not a result of regulations. It is connected to absolute love. So, by the power of true love, parents have the strongest standard of love, love that is absolute, not for them, but for God and for the whole. So you pledge to God that you will serve for the sake of the whole. If you are not standing on that standard, your speaking and listening and looking and promising count for nothing; all those things can change at any time. (49-053, 1971.10.03)
13 Parents cannot discard their own children. They are the community of love. It is because the children are the fruit of love. Everything bears fruit. Everything seeks fruit. There is nothing that can deny fruit. No tree will deny its own fruit. Fruit sustains eternity. The parents’ fruit draws all the elements of love from a father and mother. It mobilizes everything. That is why when they look at it they say it’s good. Within me there is an eternal me, there is a history of me, and there is a developing me. Love in the present and future is connected in me. There is no principle allowing attacks on the love between parents and children. It cannot be struck. The universe naturally protects it. The law of the universe does not permit an attack on the place where loving parents embrace their loving children; rather, it gives natural protection. (130-152, 1984.01.08)
14 To satisfy a baby’s hunger, its mother’s breasts swell with milk. When the milk accumulates, the breasts begin to hurt and the mother’s entire body feels pressure. The feeling of a mother as she embraces and breastfeeds her child is beyond expression. When the swollen breasts empty, the mother feels relieved and happy. Only mothers can understand this feeling. Moreover, as a mother watches her baby nurse at her breast and caresses it, love springs up in her heart. At that time, joy and sadness intertwine in a mother’s heart in a way that only a mother can comprehend. (187-100, 1989.01.06)
15 Original love is the love that enables parents to sacrifice their life for their children. Their love goes beyond their own life. The origin of the universe was not for the sake of life. It was created for the sake of love, and therefore love comes first. Thus it is life that appears from love, not love that appears from life. Thus, genuine love can sacrifice life and go beyond life. This is the love of Heaven, a love that can connect with the universe. In the universe, parents who sacrifice their life for their children are unmatched true parents. (132-153, 1984.05.31)
16 We can observe that parents who have raised many children have hearts that are wide, deep and large. People who have raised many children cannot strike even their enemies. It is because they stand on a mysterious, broad foundation and live according to that broad and expansive law. (51-318, 1971.12.05)
17 When a baby is born, it follows the electric current of love and automatically seeks out its mother’s nipple. Whether its mother is ugly or beautiful by worldly standards doesn’t matter. This is truly an image of supreme harmony and holiness. People are born in love and grow up by receiving love. Each of us is the fruit of our parents’ love. We are the visible, real fruit of our mother and father’s love. Because I am the fruit of my parents’ love, they cannot help but love me. Through this fruit, infinite love will bear fruit yet again. This is the path whereby we can connect to individual love, family love, tribal love, national love, global love, universal love and even to the fundamental love of God. (298-305, 1999.01.17)
18 The love between parents and children comes from the parents. We receive our parents’ love from the moment of birth. As long as our parents are alive, we receive our parents’ love no matter what age we reach. This is true when we are children, through our youth, and into the prime of our life. We receive our parents’ love and grow up, and it is a matter of course that each of us then engages in the horizontal love between husband and wife. In order for the love of a husband and wife to continue, they must have children. If a husband and wife have no children, they don’t know love in its fullness. We can feel true love only when there is an object partner to love. Brothers and sisters grow up not understanding what parental love is, but when they reach maturity, marry and have children, they begin to understand parental love. In other words, we come to know parental love only when we experience the cycle that is started by our parents and is completed when we become parents ourselves. Therefore we can say that only after we have children do we become truly mature people. (066-119, 1973.04.18)
19 Children, after becoming mature and experiencing conjugal love, attain the power to create, like God. God gave us a loving heart with which to love our children so we could experience His happiness when He created human beings as His children. God poured the best of everything into us. God created human beings with the expectation that we would live in the Garden of Eden, in happiness and contentment, one with His eternal love. In this way the original state meant for humankind was for all people to live happily as the eternal object partners of the absolute God. Centered on that love, it is impossible to be separated from Him. (52-321, 1972.02.03)
Section 3. The Love of Husband and Wife
1 Sacrifice goes hand in hand with love. The way of love flows downward, making sacrifices. This makes everything smooth. Without sacrifice, everything is thrown out of balance. It is the same for what we call conjugal love, which is the working of the heart that provides balance in the family. If you move alone and independently, problems arise. But as love grows bigger, it spills over to fill even the lowest places. Thus even people living in a slum can nurture the dream of love. They can say, “Since we came here out of our search for love, happiness is right here,” and they will want to settle and live there. (541-332, 2006.10.10)
Through conjugal love we experience God's love
2 You need to go through the love of husband and wife in order to establish the four-position foundation. Only then can you experience the heart of children and the heart of parents. Man is the male or yang image of God, and woman is the female or yin image of God. A married couple is like heaven and earth wrapped up together in a cloth. Therefore they can feel the heart of God’s ideal love. The four-position foundation is the cornerstone of the kingdom of heaven on earth and in heaven. One individual cannot establish the kingdom of heaven by him or herself. (13-067, 1963.10.17)
3 The place where a husband and wife unite in conjugal love is where they can experience the love of God, who created Adam and Eve and all the things of creation. Since in this place they become perfect representative children, brothers and sisters, husband and wife, and parents, they stand in the position of second creators, centered on the mind and body, in the position of God, the first Creator. Because that place is filled with the love of children, of brothers and sisters, of husband and wife, and of parents, they stand in the position of both second creator and object partner. God gave them children so they could feel His joy of creation. Children are the princes and princesses of the kingdom of heaven. (239-240, 1992.11.25)
4 God’s love, which is parental love, is vertical, and the love of a man and a woman is horizontal. The man and woman’s task is to engraft their horizontal love into the vertical love. That is how the two can meet. The two loves can join nowhere but at a ninety-degree angle. A love that does not fit this, a love that does not meet the vertical standard, will end up drifting around. Such love will eventually perish. When horizontal love connects to vertical love at an exact ninety-degree angle, energy is produced that can spread that love’s influence in all directions. Hence when you enter the realm of love where the vertical and horizontal are aligned, you will be able to rule the whole universe through love. You will have a relationship with the whole universe. There you will not want for knowledge, power, money or even life. Life also exists eternally within love. (136-204, 1985.12.29)
5 You have to know the value of human life. A husband is the representative of God; a wife is also the representative of God. A mother and a father, and each of you also, are God’s representatives. A husband represents four generational positions: grandfather, father, husband and son. An heir and heiress couple then appears, representing these four loves. That is why conjugal love is so precious. When conjugal love breaks down, all human love—grandparents’ love, parents’ love and sibling love—is shattered and disperses. This is natural because people live to serve God in this universe. Starting from each person, the love of grandparents, parents and siblings begins to bud. Upon the foundation of thousands of years of life connections through lineage and through horizontal multiplication, there emerges a tribe based on the families, a people based on the tribes, a nation based on the peoples, a world, and then the kingdom of heaven. (224-244, 1991.11.24)
6 After you marry, you cannot behave just as you like. You should live in such a way that you can receive the love of God. Human beings are born as a man or a woman for the sake of love. The husband and wife are to become one through love. What happens when two beings, separated according to the dual characteristics of God, come together in a perfect union? They receive the love of God. In order to receive God’s love, a woman unites with a man and a man unites with a woman. Otherwise there is no way to encounter God’s love. Only through God’s love can you stand in the same place He stands. You are able to stand next to God. Why did God request this degree of love from Adam and Eve? It is because only based on this degree of love can people unite as one with God. Conjugal love is meant to connect with God’s love. When you receive God’s love, you can stand in the same place as He. In the presence of the concept that is called conjugal love, a man and woman stand firmly in the same position. In love, two become one. They cannot depart from each other. They have collective responsibility always. (144-133, 1986.04.12)
7 The question is whether a man and woman are united in mind and body. As much as the whole cosmos likes this perfect unity, it can occur only on the foundation of true love. As a man or as a woman, the question is whether or not you stand in that position of perfect oneness. Today this is the problem that philosophy and religion have to solve. We have not realized that a man absolutely needs a wife and a woman absolutely needs a husband. For a man, the being of greatest value is his wife; for a woman, the being of greatest value is her husband. Before meeting God, a man needs his wife and a woman needs her husband. The unity in flesh, the oneness of husband and wife, is based on love. (247-093, 1993.04.25)
8 Love is the coming together of east, west, north and south as one sphere. It is also the coming together of heaven and earth. This is for the purpose of possessing the universe. What is the purpose of marriage? Its purpose is also to possess the universe. It is to possess God. A husband represents the east and high places; a wife represents the west and deep places. When these two unite in love, they can possess heaven and earth. They can possess God and the universe. (225-046, 1992.01.01)
9 A family whose husband and wife love God and humankind, and unite in an explosion of love for one another, enraptures God and the universe. Such love cannot but be oriented toward God and humankind. The root of this love lies not within the husband and wife themselves. God is the source of this love. (35-240, 1970.10.19)
10 When we speak of man and woman, we are speaking of the horizontal plane. When we adopt a vertical point of view, we speak of above and below. Because all ideal forms are drawn based on the realm of the object partner, all words are spoken for the sake of the object partner. When we speak of human beings, there are men and women. What unites men and women? Keep in mind: each makes up half of the human world. The common denominator among all groups of people, no matter how large, is that they are composed of men and women. In each there will be bad men and bad women as well as good, but still we can divide the membership of groups composed of any kinds of people into two: men and women. The force that drives these two to unite is love, not money, knowledge or power. (198-071, 1990.01.21)
11 When a man and a woman love each other, a variety of things happen. When you know the way to God, when you really taste God’s love, you realize that nothing on earth can compare with it. No suffering or sorrow can defeat one who has tasted that love. Please know this and attend God as our Father. Become sons and daughters who resemble God. Money and power absolutely do not transform us into sons and daughters of God. One who has tasted God’s love is called to live according to divine law, uphold God’s dignity and authority and protect His glory. God’s sons and daughters will never lead trivial, insignificant lives. (39-240, 1971.01.15)
12 Loving one another as brothers and sisters sets up the foundation for conjugal love. This path restores three types of love that God had no opportunity to experience: sibling love, conjugal love and children’s love. When you harmonize these three types of love in your family, you can give and receive God’s love. Within the family we strive to realize God’s ideal of creation. This is the cosmos-centered thought of the Unification Church. (35-243, 1970.10.19)
13 On the way of restoration, as we couples work for the sake of the original world, we should always feel the heart and ideal that God felt at the time of the Creation. Consumed with that feeling, we should risk our lives as we proceed along this path with a heart of gratitude, willing only one thing. From now on, this is the course by which blessed families will realize the purpose of creation. It may cause us suffering, but that is not the intention. God asks us to go this way so we may receive the even more bountiful blessings He has stored up for us. To know this evokes immense gratitude. We couples who were brought together through heart and love are called to build with that love. We are to build a family that goes beyond the realm of daily life. That family should go beyond life itself and be one with God’s purpose. Otherwise we cannot return to God’s dwelling place, the kingdom of heaven. This is the purpose of creation, so we have to move toward making such families. (35-180, 1970.10.13)
Inseparable loving couples
14 Man was born for woman; woman was born for man. A woman keeps a man’s most precious treasure; a man keeps a woman’s most precious treasure. They exchange these treasures with each other. Because a man entrusted his treasure to the woman, he cannot separate from her. Because a woman entrusted her treasure to the man, she cannot separate from him. This is the linkage of love. Therefore a woman is the owner of a man’s love, and a man is the owner of a woman’s love. Throughout history, men and women have been unfaithful to each other. Furtively they steal from the owner, and now the whole world is corrupt and in decline. The woman has the key to the man’s love, and the man has the key to the woman’s love. (142-039, 1986.03.03)
15 The love I value above my life is not my own; it belongs to my partner. That’s why a man’s wife is the owner of what he possesses, and a woman’s husband is the owner of what she possesses. We face each other as owners. However, husbands play around, as if what they possess is their own; they wander about, cheating. This has destroyed everything. Wives are just as bad. Your reproductive organ is not yours. It has one owner, and that is not you. We are talking about ownership based on love, love that makes all the cells of your body come alive. A husband desires that his wife own him with this love, and a wife desires that her husband own her with this love. (140-290, 1986.02.14)
16 Nothing a wife has is her own. That which is horizontal belongs to her baby; that which is vertical belongs to her husband. It is easy for a wife to think, “I have this, so it’s mine.” What a woman has, she does not need for herself. The one who needs what she has is a man. What a man has, he doesn’t need for himself. The one who needs what he has is a woman. God switched the ownership between husband and wife. They have convex and concave aspects; this was the only way to bring about husband-wife unity. There is no other way to create that oneness. When God created the reproductive organs, He said, “These are the most precious things in heaven and earth.” If a brave and ambitious man gets rid of everything but keeps what he wants most for himself, and if a woman keeps what she wants most for herself, there is no stimulation. You feel stimulation due to your object partner. So what a woman possesses is owned by a man, her husband, and what a man possesses is owned by a woman, his wife. If they treat these as their own, the great and divine law of heaven and earth will be violated. (258-027, 1994.03.16)
17 If a man insisted on absolute ownership over his reproductive organ, and a woman did the same with hers, both would remain exactly where they are without moving for all eternity. This is not right. In order to have the other come to my side, and for me to go to the other’s side, ownership should be exchanged. Marital love is this kind of action. The value of the action of giving and receiving appears only when the ownership of the reproductive organs has been exchanged through marriage. When a wife faces her husband, is her reproductive organ her own? The owner of the wife’s organ of love is her husband. The owner of a husband’s organ of love is his wife. Since we haven’t realized this until now, the world became licentious. This law is absolute. This is why marital love is great, because in it, ownership is exchanged absolutely. (140-245, 1986.02.12)
18 What is the difference between a man and a woman? First, their bodies, including their reproductive organs, are different. With that in mind, who absolutely needs the male reproductive organ? And who needs the female reproductive organ? The male reproductive organ exists for a woman, and that of the female exists for a man. One is convex and the other concave: why are they made like that? Why were they not both made pointed, or both made flat? Why were they made different? It is because everything exists for the sake of another. This is why the woman should absolutely value her husband’s organ, and the man should absolutely value his wife’s organ. We have not recognized that, on this basis, the woman’s reproductive organ absolutely belongs to her husband, and the man’s reproductive organ absolutely belongs to his wife. (299-120, 1999.02.07)
19 When you listen to a person’s voice, you can tell what gender that person is. Whose voices are higher, men’s or women’s? Women’s voices are higher. Why is it that women’s voices are pitched higher than men’s, even though women have less physical strength than men? In terms of heart and affection, women are higher while men are broader. Men love broadly. Women are higher, focusing on love for their husband and children, but men have a broader heart of love for their tribe and country. This is why we learn from our mother how to love our sons and daughters and our family, and from our father how to love the world. That’s how it is. Weaving these characteristics of love together creates a sphere of harmony. (129-055, 1983.10.01)
20 Nowadays people tend to be self- centered, thinking, “As long as I'm fine, everything is okay.” But now is the time to discard egoism and share our love with everyone around us. The family is the place for this. A happy family is one in which the husband comes home after work, discusses with his wife everything that happened to him during the day, and plans new projects together with her. A happy family is one that strives together to discover new things. When parents set such an example, the children want to contribute too; they will participate gladly in making such a family. (29-114, 1970.02.25)
21 The place of conjugal love is the flower of the whole universe. A wife is a composite of all people in the museum of human history. She is the flower of her entire lineage. God is present on her wedding night. After waiting throughout history, finally God can settle in the joyful place of a man and woman’s love. How awesome is this place! She must think, “I have the role to open the way, to reconnect the broken path and to explode in love as a perfect minus, where this has never been done before.” From here, the bright sun of love rises above heaven and earth. When a man enters his wife’s room, he should do so as the embodiment of love and of the ideal. (179-091, 1988.07.22)
22 A life with love as its center resolves everything. Even the tiger-like eyes of a greedy old man, when he is in love, will take on the shape of the moon in a painting, and his frozen mouth will break into a smile. Love can completely thaw out things that have been frozen— or freeze something that has melted. Love has the capacity to encompass extremes and go still further. If you look at the Chinese character ho (好), meaning “good,” it combines characters for a female person and a male person. When a husband and wife fight, there seems to be no way to reconcile them, so what’s good about that? Yet if the two of them are in love, even after fighting ten times they can come together again. That’s the enormous power of love. There is a saying that a fight between a husband and wife is like cutting water with a knife. When you cut water with a knife, it doesn’t leave a trace. Likewise, even after fighting, a couple can put their foreheads together and giggle, and everything is settled. Only with love can peace come. (127-245, 1983.05.15)
The holy of holies and the original palace of love
23 The way of love means looking for the place that is God’s holy of holies. The Tabernacle was not the ultimate holy of holies. Fallen people built that Tabernacle. Of greater value than the Tabernacle is the place where God’s original love before the Fall can be found. The reproductive organs of men and women are the real holy of holies. If you misuse them, you will be struck by lightning. Just as God struck and killed any Israelite who violated the Holy of Holies, if we misuse our holy of holies we will bring ruin to heaven and earth. Husband and wife have to be the high priests responsible to protect love. A couple becomes the high priests who protect love. They are the high priests who pass God’s love on to the next generation. (144-227, 1986.04.24)
24 The reproductive organs of men and women are the treasure store of the heavenly nation’s royal palace. Even God cannot do whatever He wants with them. The owner of a man's reproductive organ is a woman, his wife; the owner of a woman’s reproductive organ is a man, her husband. Because God is the King of wisdom, in marriage He exchanges their ownership. Since these are the most precious treasures, to own them, a husband and wife must treat one another as the most precious beings. They must treat each other as more valuable than their own life, more valuable than their own children. (194-346, 1989.10.30)
25 Both men and women have a place that is the holy of holies. This place cannot be bought with money. You can say, “Surely it is true, I cannot buy love for all of heaven and earth.” This is because love is the holy of holies. The holy of holies is the place that is connected with the center of the universe, and whoever is in this place can enjoy the privilege of becoming the owner of everything. Everything is in the holy of holies. It owns everything. Which is more precious, life or love? This has not been defined in human history. Why is love precious? No matter how much life there is, neither a man’s life nor a woman’s life can take the place of love. Life itself has no connection to the holy of holies. Only in love can we connect with that place. Therefore love is more precious than life. (132-072, 1984.05.20)
26 Through marriage and the meeting of their reproductive organs, two half beings become complete. Man becomes complete through woman’s love. Woman becomes complete through man’s love. Man perfects woman, woman perfects man. They become one through true love. In that place, two lives come together as one, with love at the center. That place is the crucible where man’s blood and woman’s blood become one. From this place come sons and daughters. This place is more precious than your sons and daughters, your spouse and even God. It is a place that is more precious than your children, your spouse and even your parents. If the reproductive organs did not exist, parents, husbands and wives, and sons and daughters would be of no value. Since this place is that precious, the treasure of treasures, it is kept under lock and key, hidden from public view for an entire lifetime. Furthermore, the wife owns the key that can unlock a man’s reproductive organ, and the husband owns the key to hers. (280-200, 1997.01.01)
27 The reproductive organs, with which a man and woman make love, are the original palace of love, the original palace of life and the original palace of lineage. Your grandfather and grandmother live holding on to this palace; your mother and father live holding on to it; your couple lives holding on to it; and your sons and daughters to come in the future also will live holding on to it. Then why have we turned this into something base and vulgar? The name of this original palace is actually something that is very holy. We must uphold it with holiness. It is because of it that eternal love is connected, and from it that eternal life and eternal lineage appear. It is the most precious thing. That is why whoever violates this will not be welcome in the world of life, the world of love and the record of history. (210-101, 1990.12.01)
28 Because of the Fall, we have misperceived, mistreated and abused the word “love” to this day. In truth, love is the original, holy palace. The original place of love is the holy palace, the most precious place. The palace door cannot be opened just as you please. Only when you become the king and queen of love can you open that palace door. This is the original tradition of love for all people. The king and queen who have True Parents can open that palace door. From that palace, that original palace, God’s beloved sons and daughters are born. (128-326, 1983.10.02)
29 Your organ of love is more important than your brain. The origin of true love is not in your brain. The origin of true lineage is not in your brain. Where is that origin? It is in the reproductive organ. Everything is in the reproductive organ. In there is life, in there is love and in there is lineage. It is the original palace of love. We find also the root of life and of lineage residing there. This is the most precious place, not only in the human body but also in the world and throughout history. Without it, the multiplication of humankind would be impossible. (203-105, 1990.06.17)
30 In the Old Testament we find terms such as “holy place” and “holy of holies.” The holy place symbolizes a person, and the holy of holies symbolizes the house of love, the house in which you can love. Every person has his or her own holy place and holy of holies. In other words, the holy place is a house where you can attend God. As for the holy of holies, since only God has the privileged dominion of love over it, it is the place where you come into relationship with God. The holy of holies is the place where you connect to Heaven. It is where you create a direct relationship with God. If you wonder where that place is, it is your reproductive organ. No one can touch this. There are surely not two high priests serving the holy of holies. There is only one. Long ago, the one who had the key to Eve’s holy of holies was Adam, and the one who had the key to Adam’s holy of holies was Eve. (132-246, 1984.06.20)
31 Love begins with investment. True love begins with the act of giving. This is a universal principle. Because the universe moves according to this law and its rules have this content, if you act only to receive, that is a betrayal of the universe. Heavenly fortune will repel that. When you have a mutual relationship between subject and object partners, the universe protects you and you grow until you meet your object partner. When you grow up, you have to meet your partner. If you cannot do this, you have no way to go. The heart of a man wanting to marry a woman and of a woman wanting to marry a man comes from the universal force. (219-186, 1991.08.29)
32 When you have a mutual relationship between subject and object partners, the universe protects you. But if you have no such relationship based on love, the repelling force of the universe will cause you to feel pain and regret. Why do you feel pain when you are sick? When a husband or wife passes away, why does the other feel sorrow? In both cases, the universal force makes you feel that way; it is a function of the universal force. This force protects subject and object partners. If the two come into conflict, the universal force repels them. Without a subject and object partnership, new things cannot arise. Therefore as long as you preserve your relationship as subject and object partners, the balancing force of the universe will protect both of you as its object partners. If something is missing, the universal force will repel you, and your suffering will be so great that you will cry, “I want to die!” (219-186, 1991.08.29)
33 The infinitely vast universe is a place in which subject and object partners share a common purpose. It has the power to protect itself as it protects and nurtures entities comprised of subject and object partners. If subject and object partners do not unite, however, the universe repels them. This is how it is possible for existence to continue forever. This supportive energy is called attraction, and the opposing energy is called repulsion. They also can be called acceptance and rejection. (89-224, 1976.11.27)
34 When your mind and body are united, you receive the protection of the universal force and you feel happy, but when your mind and body are not united, you encounter opposition from this same force and you feel pain. By this principle, disease causes pain. When subject and object partners are out of balance in your body, the universal protective force is lost and as a result you feel pain. A doctor prescribes medicine to stimulate harmonious interaction between subject and object partners. As it is with the physical body, so it is for the individual and for the family. (89-225, 1976.11.27)
35 Once a couple is married, they do not like interference from others. After marriage, when the subject and object partners are united, they feel happy and content under the protection of the universal force. At that time, if a second man or woman interferes, it presents a danger that the couple’s unified energy will be disturbed. So there is a repulsion. The protective energy accelerates the perfection of the couple so they can live eternally. In a similar way, electricity functions smoothly when plus and minus interact, but if plus and plus come into proximity, or minus and minus, there is a repulsion. All existing beings function in this way. By the same law, a good relationship between subject and object partners brings stability and joy. (89-225, 1976.11.27)
36 Why do we feel sad when our father or mother passes away? It is because the universal force they embodied is swept away. We should go to the spirit world only after experiencing the love of our mother and father, love as parents for our children, and our love as a child for our parents. Only then does resonance occur through 360 degrees. When a woman’s husband dies, she experiences a big void in a part of her life. The fortune of heaven and earth protects that which beats in accord with its rhythm. But when her husband dies, that rhythm is lost. All the force of heaven that he embodied is swept away. This sweeping away is experienced as pain. When you suffer from illness, it is similar. When you lack something, the force that expelled it from the protective realm of the universe and heavenly fortune causes you pain. The pain is the result of such an expulsion. Because it alerts us to protect the balance, this pain supports continuity. (202-088, 1990.05.06)
The principles of absolute sex and education for true love
37 The thing that is absolutely necessary for a man is not convex. For him, convex repels. There is no happiness there. That which is absolutely convex needs what is absolutely concave. When absolute convex meets absolute concave, God is there, and when it is not like that, God leaves. The fact that it is not like that means that Satan’s lineage still remains. Even though 98 percent may be done, if so much as a shadow of Satan’s lineage remains, God cannot come down. God can find your family and become its Lord only when vertical and horizontal meet at a ninety-degree angle based on absolute sex, absolute partnership and absolute love. (331-077, 2000.08.29)
38 There is only one true love. The first love must be that which unites one husband and one wife. There absolutely must be only one true love. This is what absolute sex means. Absolute sex will eliminate the attraction of “free” sex. Do you think a woman’s fluttering eyes belong to her? No, they belong to her husband. If she makes sidelong glances at another man, in her spirit self her eyes are rotting and her bones are dissolving. The universe does not countenance violations of this principle of one true love. It is incompatible with salvation. God will expel her. She can be restored only through tens of thousands of generations of descendants. (282-326, 1997.04.07)
39 We know the concept of fidelity. In Korea, who is the lady who represents fidelity? Her name is Chunhyang. Korea is the country of moral traditions that value fidelity. The model faithful wife is Chunhyang. The model daughter of filial piety is Shimchung. You ladies, you should be better than Chunhyang, better than Shimchung. Governor Byun asked Chunhyang to come to him, but she rejected him. Even at the risk of your life, you have to be able to do the same in such a situation. Since you are born for love, if you sacrifice your life to resist false love, in the end you will be revived in resplendent true love. (282-327, 1997.04.07)
40 In a woman’s mind, the most elevated state and the deepest misery are both related to love. If women are like that, what about men? Sure, men are gruff and assertive, but who has a more loving heart, women or men? Men more than women tend to suffer from being lovesick. This is because men have embracing hearts. A woman’s love goes in one direction at a time, but a man’s love covers all four directions. As a man’s love can scan in all directions, this can lead to many conflicts in love. (166-215, 1987.06.07)
41 It is not a question of virtue. Once a man is infatuated with a woman and becomes lovesick, he will be ready to sacrifice his money, knowledge and power. Even if he is lying on a bed of gold, he will lose it all with no thought to his dignity. He will just want to follow that woman. If God really enjoys true love, when someone appears as His object of true love, it’s not a question of holiness; He too must follow that love. (168-174, 1987.09.20)
Academic study does not teach us love
42 People do not need to study in order to know how to love. When a man and woman marry, they don’t need someone to teach them how to behave on their wedding night. In the world of insects there is no sex education, but they know very well what to do, and human beings are the lords of creation. There is no one who is incapable of conjugal love, so no education for that is necessary. If God had made men and women to need such education in order to love and become complete, then God would not be omnipotent. Without a need for sex education, you know the way of love. By practicing it, you obtain a qualification that can transcend heaven and earth, the whole world of creation. (266-231, 1995.01.01)
43 Did you learn how to love in your family? What kind of father would tell his child to learn how to love from him? Also, does a mother tell her child to learn how to love from her? Furthermore, did the parents learn from someone how to love their children? Did the bride and bridegroom learn from someone that they should love in a certain way? They were not taught it, but they know it well. This is something truly mysterious. (23-020, 1969.05.11)
44 Does someone instruct parents on how to love their children? You women gathered here, when your babies were born, did you have to be taught how to love them? Is there a school somewhere that teaches love? There is no such school, but everyone attains a perfect score in this. The more you feel your love is not enough, the closer you are to perfect love. That which is perfect does not need to be learned or improved. That which does not need adjustment is completed. That which is complete does not change, and that which does not change goes on for eternity. (38-228, 1971.01.08)
45 The meaning of love is vague. Love is difficult to understand through words. No matter how much you explain parental love to a person without parents, he or she will not be able to understand. No matter how much you explain conjugal love, people living alone cannot grasp it. Those with no experience of giving birth and raising children cannot enter the domain of parental love. (058-290, 1972.06.25)
46 People always need stimulation. Happiness does not come without stimulation; there has to be stimulation. Just as hunger makes each meal taste like something new, stimulation makes the love between husband and wife fresh. The more a husband and wife see each other, the more they should long to see each other even more, until they just want to be together all the time. In light of this, you need to research about yourself and about God. (23-057, 1969.05.11)
47 True love is attained through life experience and is understood through the spiritual senses. True love is not something that can be mastered through words, writings or general education. Its complete attainment comes only by living it. In their process of growing from infancy, Adam and Eve were supposed to reach perfection by experiencing and understanding in daily life, through their spiritual senses, the heart of true children, the heart of true brother and sister, the heart of true husband and wife, and the heart of true parents, step by step. When they experienced the whole of God’s true love, then for the first time the world would have seen ideal people who had perfected the purpose of creation. (277-197, 1996.04.16)
Section 4. Children's Love
1 In the parent-child relationship, if the parents’ love is the cause, the children are the fruit and result of love. The result and the cause do not begin separately but in the same place. The result and cause start from one place. What does it mean to say, “My parents’ love is the cause and I have appeared as its result”? It means that “I” come as the result of my parents’ love. Therefore in the parent-child relationship, the child is born with a value equal to the parent, because the cause and result are one in love. (127-013, 1983.05.01)
The original foundation of the universe
2 The parent-child relationship is based on blood ties. The concept of a father involves love and lineage. To be children of his direct lineage, you and he should be one body in love, connected through lineage. Blood creates life. It possesses the life that transmits the parents’ traditions. And it is based on love. (142-267, 1986.03.13)
3 The original foundation of the universe is nothing other than the parent- child relationship. Joy blossoms from this relationship. If sorrow begins, there is no place that creates a greater sorrow. The joy with which children relate to their parents should be the emblematic joy of the world, and the joy with which parents relate to their children should be emblematic of what fulfills their desire and the desire of the world. Even if it means that parents have to lose everything due to some external problem, for them there is no place where they can live happily and with hope other than with their children. (62-018, 1972.09.10)
4 Sons and daughters are co-participants in parental love. From whence do sons and daughters come? They come from their parents’ love. So in this world, sons and daughters come into existence by participating in their parents’ love and uniting with it. Where do I come from? I was born in a place where my parents’ love blossomed frilly. Children are planted as seeds in a place of joy, a place where their mother and father, who were born as man and woman encapsulating the universe, made their love blossom. (83-162, 1976.02.08)
5 I am the one who participated in the fundamental root at the beginning of my parents’ love; I am the one who appears as the result of my parents’ love. Because cause and result start in the same place, our relationship cannot be severed. The source of parents’ love, which is the cause, and of the love I have in my life, which is the result, are one. In this sense we can say that a parent and a child are one body, based on love. Without love we cannot talk about one body or oneness. Love is the cause. We receive our parents’ love from the time we are in the womb. The love and all the attention of our parents focus on us from the moment our mother becomes pregnant with us through the essence of love. Why is that? It is because we are the fruit of love. So we are born in love and connected to life through love. When we grow up in love, and the time comes to meet our partner, we decide who our spouse will be. (127-014, 1983.05.01)
6 As participants in parental love and conjugal love, children are born with the highest authority. In other words, children emerge from that unchanging, unified love and share the nature of that love. This is why, no matter what they do, nothing can sever the parent-child relationship. Since children have the subject- nature of their parents’ love and life, cutting off that relationship would mean the parents are denying their own existence. Parents are unable to deny the results of their love. This is why parents will sacrifice their lives for their children. This is very logical. (83-163, 1976.02.08)
Participants in parents' love
7 It is from our parents’ love that we were born. We were born from the love of our mother and father. Before life and lineage comes love, so it is through love that our life and lineage are connected to our parents. Why is person- hood so precious? It is not just because the person has life, but also because the person participated in his or her parents’ love. It is their parents who loved, but the person is the fruit of their love. The one who is born as both the beginning and the result is not the mother or father; it is a new person. That’s why each person is precious. (140-234, 1986.02.12)
8 I am not only the one who combines the life of my mother and father, but I am a participant in my parents’ love, as one body with them. Taking it further, I am one with my parents’ ideal. The ideal includes everything: peace, happiness and all else. To parents, the joy of living a successful life on earth pales in comparison to the joy of meeting their child who has been lost. To parents, children are the fulfillment of their highest ideal. (298-303, 1999.01.17)
9 My mother and father’s lifelines are connected to me, their “love line” is connected to me and their “ideal line” is connected to me. No one can cut this off. Even God cannot cut this off, and the universe also cannot cut this off. To the contrary, all the power of the universe protects this. Thus wherever I go, my parents follow me. My parents always want to be with me, even in the spirit world. Thus it is the greatest sin if you dislike your parents accompanying you. This attitude is destructive of the entire universe. If you dislike the company of your parents, it means you are off track from the universal principle and are going the way of the Fall. Hence, thinking of and loving your parents as if they were your own body and carrying out your filial duty are of the highest value for human beings. That’s why it is said, “Heaven’s blessing comes to the harmonious family” (298-303, 1999.01.17)
10 People without children are said to be lonely. Our children enable us to experience deeply the heart of God, the subject partner who created the entire universe through love. Our children are born through us, through our motivation, but by having and loving them we come to realize, “Yes, this is how God loves people.” Once you have your own children, without anyone teaching you, you realize the importance of filial piety toward your parents. (136-202, 1985.12.29)
11 You have to return the love your parents gave you. When parents are raising their children, they don’t worry about their own hunger. If there is something to eat, they will hold their hungry stomach, keep a stiff upper lip and give that food to their children. By the nature of love, children will return such love to their parents. After the parents have gone the way of love, the children go the same way to comfort their parents. It begins with your heart to comfort your parents. Then your sons and daughters will become such sons and daughters to you. You need such sons and daughters in order for people of a good blood lineage to continue. You cannot become a filial child if you center your life on yourself and neglect your parents. (35-241, 1970.10.19)
12 What kind of person can we call a filial child? The son who treats his parents as they treated him is a filial son. A filial son moves Heaven. Even though parents devote themselves to raising their children, if the children don’t care about their parents, that family will go to ruin. In order to gain a return on their investment, they need to establish an objective standard based on the principle of giving and receiving. When that happens for the first time, God will come and dwell in that place and the kingdom of heaven will be realized. What kind of children can reside in the kingdom of heaven? They are those who pay the debt of parental love on their own. When their parents become old and senile, the sons and daughters should endure the difficulties of their care without feeling it is difficult. They should possess the same heart their parents had toward them when they were little, cleaning up their urine and feces. This is what it means to be children of filial piety. (35-241, 1970.10.19)
Filial piety is the duty of true children
13 What is a filial son? The filial son is the person who, throughout his life, sacrifices everything for his parents and does not assert his subjectivity. Then his parents’ true love remains. Filial piety preserves and protects the realm of true love. Because of filial piety, we can build a bridge to the universe. (112-151, 1981.04.12)
14 Fulfill your filial duty to your parents; become a filial son or daughter and a patriot. It is your parents who have led the nation and the world. Before becoming a patriot, become a filial child, and before becoming a filial child, become a proud family member who truly loves your brothers and sisters. “Family member” is the name by which siblings can praise each other. You have to show filial piety to a degree greater than when men and women married and had children, created a family, and fulfilled their filial duty to their parents in ages past. You cannot be a truly devoted son or daughter before you get married. You can become a truly filial son or daughter only after getting married. You can establish the realm of true filial piety only after you have married and the wife’s filial piety is added to the husband’s in front of his parents. Only through this foundation of devoted attendance to the parents can a true realm of filial piety be established. (30-220, 1970.03.23)
15 In order to become a filial son or daughter, you have to align yourself always with the direction of your parents’ heart. To walk the path of filial piety, you should not do things separately from your parents. When your parents go east, you go east, and when they go west, you also go west. If you are going one way and your parents say, “Turn around,” you turn around. There should be no question about it. Even if you are told to go a certain way and then to turn back ten times, you should turn back again and follow your parents. (62-032, 1972.09.10)
16 In your family you have heard of filial piety. It means to attend your parents on the path of love they walk. The parents’ path of true love follows heavenly principles. The parents are not walking alone; they are guided by vertical heavenly principles that move with them. Thus, becoming one with your parents means you are going the way that connects the horizontal and vertical realms of the historical heart. This is the reason to fulfill your filial duty toward your parents. (136-203, 1985.12.29)
17 You have many gifts to offer your Father. Even though you may not have many possessions, there is one present you have that you can give to God, something other than things of which worldly people are fond. You must prepare yourself in front of God by shedding blood, sweat and tears for Him. This is the best gift for our Heavenly Father, who is suffering in pain and bitter sorrow. (11-102, 1961.02.12)
18 In the family, you as sons and daughters are responsible to fulfill your filial duty toward your parents. Why do you have to fulfill filial duty? The path of filial piety is connected to the path of patriotism, and a person who is loyal to his country should then walk the way of a saint for the sake of the world. There has to be one straight line. From this viewpoint, if you were unable to fulfill your filial duty and yet became a patriot, your parents would not say you had not fulfilled your filial duty. They would say, “You have done so well.” Even if you did not accomplish your filial duty but instead had abandoned your parents and left home, if you then became a patriot in your nation, your mother and father, even though they might have died and gone to the spirit world, would praise you, saying, “You did really well!” (100-155, 1978.10.09)
19 Even though parents and children are unworthy, they at least have to communicate. If they don’t, parents are not really parents and children are not really children. A filial son is not one who receives his parents’ love because he accomplished something easy or something beneficial to himself. He is one who, in order to take responsibility for his parents’ sorrow, seeks out the difficult tasks and fulfills his responsibility. This brings joy to his parents. If the parents have done ten units of work and the child has made the effort to do fifteen units, the five-unit surplus will translate into that much joy for the parents. The one who makes effort to serve his parents and thinks how to take on some of their work is a child of filial piety. (24-261, 1969.08.24)
Section 5. Love among Brothers and Sisters
1 Why do we need brothers and sisters? It is so that a brother, by looking at his younger and elder sisters, can understand, “Oh, that’s how our mother was as she grew up!” Through them he sees the process of his mother growing up. Also, a sister observes carefully how her elder or younger brother grows up to understand how her father grew up and lived. This is the love among siblings; you become one by growing up like this. That’s the value of loving your brothers and sisters. (184-061, 1988.11.13)
The love of brothers and sisters is the model for loving all people
2 The relationship of brothers and sisters is connected to both the vertical and horizontal planes. If we say the relationship between Adam and Eve is horizontal, then that between God and Adam and Eve is vertical. East and west form only a horizontal line. This is why two linear dimensions that form a plane are necessary. And then the front-back aspect gives the required third dimension. Only the love between brothers and sisters expands the love of the family to a new dimension. Only through adding that love can a sphere of love come into being. That ideal sphere represents the highest standard of hope for men and women. The sons and daughters in substance are the embodiment of the love God hoped for at the time of creation. These sons and daughters will be able to inherit heaven and earth and the love that represents God. These sons and daughters grow up as brothers and sisters, and they mature. When these children grow up, they have to find their father and mother, and the father and mother have to find their sons and daughters. Through this encounter, they become complete. This is the principle of counterparts. (236-012, 1992.11.02)
3 When we embrace the world with the love of humanity and the love of brothers and sisters, everything will compose an ideal sphere. Once that happens, collisions will not create any shock. For the first time, in that place the entire substantial world will bear fruit as God intended. God’s ideal children will come to that place, bear fruit and unite. They will become substantial children of love. Next they will become the substantial fruit of brothers’ and sisters’ love, the substantial fruit of conjugal love and the substantial fruit of parental love. When the invisible God fulfills the plan He made at the beginning of creation, then up and down, right and left and back and front will unite in harmony. (236-146, 1992.11.04)
4 Man is the subject of life who contains the seed of life that woman receives. This is why we say that man represents the east and woman the west. The sun rises in the east and the west receives the sun. An axis plus east and west together make four directions. Up and down, east and west form a cross but not a sphere. That’s why we need brothers and sisters. Through brothers and sisters a nation arises and all humankind arises. So it is brothers and sisters who form the sphere. Brothers and sisters expand to become a people and the world. So the love of siblings is connected with the love of the world. A family in which many brothers and sisters grow up is like the model needed to create the ideal, the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God on earth and in heaven. (235-269, 1992.10.01)
5 In the world, normal circumstances do not bring about unforgettable love between friends. You cannot forget the friend who protected you or even risked his life for you in a crisis. No matter what may come, you can’t forget him. If you have such a friend, you will tell your children. You will write in your will that you are leaving something for him when you die. This is your duty toward your friend and benefactor. No one can interfere in this deep connection and relationship. (28-120, 1970.01.04)
6 The desire for harmony and unity with God, the desire to praise Him, the desire for equality in the world, the desire for all humankind to live in prosperity and peace originate not in the body but in the mind. The wish in our original heart of goodness is not malice or enmity toward one another; it is not bloody struggle, fighting and killing each other. Instead our heart of goodness wants to live in freedom, peace and happiness, loving one another as brothers and sisters. This is the hope of all humankind. (41-070, 1971.02.13)
CHAPTER 3 The Practice of True Love
Section 1. The True Way of Life
1 Originally the relationship between God and human beings was to have been as parent and child, with God in the position of parent and each person in the position of child. God the Parent and we as His children would have been bound together by love. Children born from the love of their mother and father begin their life as participants in their parents’ love. That is a great thing. But even more, from the beginning of our existence we would have been participants in our Heavenly Parent’s love. Had we been born from our Heavenly Parent’s love, we would have connected to our Heavenly Parent’s life path centering on love. Yet, no one living on earth today fully relates to the Heavenly Parent’s life or life path. That is why even human parents walk a path of life that goes over mountain passes of sorrow mixed with joy, as they struggle amid the suffering of humankind. (135-267, 1985.12.15)
The path of love that human beings must follow
2 We human beings come into this world through love. After growing up in love, we are to connect to another dimension of love. This is because we leave the love of our parents to find love with our life partner. We can call living in the love of our parents, formation-stage love, and conjugal love, growth-stage love. Yet, no matter how much a couple may love each other, their love is not complete until they have children. This is why couples want to have children; it is to know completion-stage love. Therefore, the core of human life is to go through the course of love—love from our parents, love for our spouse and love for our children. This is the fundamental path of love, to realize the ideal of God’s creation. The purpose of a true love family is not only for the family but is also to build the kingdom of heaven. To achieve the goal of oneness throughout the universe, a family must expand its purpose to the people, nation, world and cosmos. It must go out all the way to the world and then return. (48-012, 1971.08.31)
3 Which comes first, life or love? Life does not come first. Love comes first. Because what comes second must adjust to what comes first, it is natural that we devote our life for the sake of love. We human beings should be born in love, walk the way of love, and die for love. If we live, love and die in such a way that God, the angels, all the things of creation and all human beings—that is, the entire universe—publicly recognize us, then the whole universe will welcome our love. This is the purpose for which we were born. (83-164, 1976.02.08)
4 We are born in love, and so we have to go the way of love. When it comes time to die, we also have to die for the sake of love. Love is not only more precious than life; it precedes life. This is why we willingly sacrifice our life for the sake of love. Love is eternal. That is why there are many literary works, novels and poems about unchanging love, eternal love. This makes it plain that the love we want is not momentary or temporary. We want eternal love. (298-299, 1999.01.17)
5 Love has such an authority that even God is totally captivated by it. By that I mean that God is weak in front of love. The fragrance of human love makes God’s face light up with a smile. God delights in stories of love. If God so delights in stories of love, how much more would He delight in the real thing? The various organs of the human body were made for one purpose, love. The eyes were made to see, but to see what? To look for love. This is the common purpose of all the sensory organs. The nose was made to smell, but the most important fragrance is the fragrance of love. The ears were made to listen for the sounds of love. Of all the sounds we hear, the ones we never tire of are the sounds of love. It is the same whether we are young or old. (298-300, 1999.01.17)
6 We were born in love, raised by our parents in love, and we learn to love our spouse. We give birth to our children and raise them in love; we love our family and then our tribe. In this way we connect to the wider world of love, from our individual love all the way to the love of God. In other words, love is like the water that begins as a small mountain stream, flows to the sea and becomes a great ocean current that rejuvenates the globe. It makes for a world of love, which rejuvenates nations of love, tribes of love, families of love and individuals of love. (205-345, 1990.10.02)
7 Man symbolizes heaven and woman symbolizes earth. As for men, since they are in the position of subject partner, they do not like anyone to interfere with him. As for women, they prefer to respond to love more than to initiate it. Since men symbolize heaven and women symbolize earth, their union is analogous to the union of heaven and earth— the cosmos. Since love alone can govern the cosmos, and since through love alone can we become the subject partner of the cosmos, we should respect our partner as greater than heaven and earth. The only thing that can exist forever and connect these two worlds is unchanging love. Because the spirit world centers on love, people who live amid ties of love on earth will go to heaven. (48-011, 1971.08.31)
8 When God and human beings unite completely, man and woman will unite naturally. When a perfect couple appears, heaven and earth become one. Where does God wish to dwell? Since love arises between a man and a woman, He wants to dwell where a true man and a true woman love each other. Since God is with them, their love can last forever. They can achieve eternal unity as God bestows on them the ideal of eternal life. Those who attain that love can possess everything. (48-011, 1971.08.31)
9 You should love your family, but you should love your country even more. You ought to love your nation more than your family; you ought to love the world more than your nation; and you ought to love God more than you love the world. This is the path of a true human being. It is the exemplary and direct route that human beings should have gone as human history unfolded. If you go this way, you will never stumble and fall. With the family as your foundation, you will move forward to the nation, from the nation to the world, and from the world to God. By doing so, you will become filial children, patriots and saints who will be remembered in history. After that, you can become God’s sons and daughters. Human beings’ ultimate purpose is to become God’s sons and daughters. When you teach this position, you can attain the highest peak of your desire. It is a sublime happiness without limit, not only for you but also for the whole. When you reach that point, the whole will support you and live for you. Let us follow this way, going straight ahead. (69-022, 1973.08.19)
10 Humankind is walking a path that began with God and should end with God. In order for us to return to God as an individual, a family, tribe, people, nation, world and cosmos, we need to be linked to true love. Without being linked to true love it is impossible. Neither can we achieve mind-body unity without true love. This is why our mind prompts us to sacrifice ourselves to discipline the body. It does its utmost for the body and repeatedly forgets what it did. The mind’s position represents God; hence, it is our greatest teacher. The mind is the center of the self, sent by God on His behalf. It is the vertical self. (226-060, 1992.02.01)
11 On the path of life, our final goal should be to possess God’s love. Whatever we have, our mind drives us to continue seeking something higher. Even if we possessed the whole world, since God is in a still higher place, we would want to possess God too. But even if we were to possess God, we would lose Him if we failed to possess His love. Thus our highest desire should not be to conquer the world, not even to conquer God, but to win God’s love. Winning God’s love has nothing to do with external talents or skills. Anyone can become a son or daughter of God and possess God’s love if only they follow the right way. In the end, the best life is a life by which we become God’s sons and daughters. (38-326, 1971.01.08)
12 We came from our mother and father’s love. We came from our mother and father’s life. Because we are connected to our parents’ love, we can say, “Father and mother, you are mine!” And our parents can say, “You are the extension of my love and life, so you are mine.” Likewise, anything that has God’s love and life force belongs to God. The hope of fallen human beings is to become God’s object partners and to belong to God. However, in order to become God’s object partners, we need God’s life and God’s love. This is our cherished hope. Such is the path of human life; we must walk it whether we live or die. This is the path that we should find, and this is our final destination. (116-084, 1981.12.20)
13 The original way of love will lead us to the place where the ideal abides. That ideal was God’s original ideal when He created human beings. Love is a most mysterious thing. Because of love, even if we possessed God, our heart would not rest. Merely to possess God would not make us happy or satisfied. We want to possess everything in the core of God’s heart, even the love in His secret treasure house. Only when we completely possess this love will our heart’s hunger subside. Human beings are like warriors standing at the starting gate of a competition to possess God’s love. (18-026, 1967.05.14)
14 In order to get to the kingdom of heaven, we first need to collect all kinds of God-centered love. We must gather the love of the family, the love of the nation and the love of the world, and then go to the kingdom of heaven and unite with God. When we unite with God on this foundation, everything will orbit around God. How do we human beings arrive at the place where God’s love dwells? We must go the way of a filial child, the way of a patriot, the way of a world saint, and the way of a son or daughter of God. Then when we arrive at the place where God’s greatest love dwells, we will settle there. For anyone born as a human being, this is the happiest way and the way of ultimate perfection. Everything is designed to reach this realm. (113-164, 1981.05.03)
The true path to life that fallen people must walk
15 God has been leading His long providential history through good individuals, good families and good peoples. In the past, ascetics followed a path that Satan could not go. They went a path that no one wanted to go. They went the path of suffering in order to discover what the mind is, what love is and what truth is. All people need to go this path. (11-311, 1962.03.05)
16 Human beings should be receiving God’s love and blessings and enjoying a happy life. So how on earth did we end up this miserable? Human beings should be walking paths of hope and victory, so how on earth did we end up going the way of defeat and death? If you think that it is your fault, and therefore you want to take responsibility on God’s behalf, and if your heart is bursting with compassion for the suffering of humanity, you will surely gain victory. Although you may have to suffer on the way, God will be with you throughout your life, and you will live ever grateful to Him. (13-324, 1964.04.14)
17 Our path as fallen people is the path of repentance. We have to find the path of repentance. Unrepentant people cannot say they love their nation, nor can they say they love the world. How do you repent? You need to find someone among human beings who can represent God. That person is the Messiah. What kind of person is the Messiah? He appears as the friend of friends, the teacher of teachers and the parent of parents. To love the Messiah with your whole heart means to enter the realm of his love for the world and his love for the cosmos. Unless you make a relationship with him, even though you strive to love, you cannot truly love. This is the situation of the descendants of the Fall. (32-026, 1970.06.14)
18 We should be devoting all our hearts and minds to becoming the progenitors of goodness that humankind has been seeking and that God has been seeking. We should be the parents of good parents. By practicing the right principles of love we should be examples for humanity. If you have been unable to do so, you should blame yourselves. If you have been unable to do so, you should be sad, even indignant. You need to understand the reality that you were born from the blood of the enemy. You must extract all that tainted blood from your body, so that you can become new people who can offer yourselves before heaven. No matter what suffering and persecution you endure, if there is a way to find your true self, you should go that path in silence with a joyful heart. We may have to face death a hundred times or a thousand times, but that is our destiny. Unless we take the path of negating this fallen world, we cannot find the way. This is the path of religion. (41-159, 1971.02.14)
19 The first human ancestors were born into the realm of God’s love. Therefore, without fail, we must receive God’s lineage so that we may go the path of true love that is unchanging for eternity. No longer will we go in two different directions, with our minds and bodies divided. We will exercise self-control on the path of life, with the mind controlling the body. Ultimately we need to become people who, even without any spiritual discipline or cultivation, can know this path and proceed upon it. A compass automatically knows north and south and does not deviate in its orientation. Even rats on a ship know when a typhoon that can destroy the ship is coming and escape along the mooring rope. Yet how is it that we, who should be the lords of creation, have become such low and insensible brutes? We human beings are a miserable lot, with no sense of direction and no understanding of our purpose. (121-115, 1981.10.24)
20 Nowadays the paths people follow are all divided: families, tribes, nations and the world zigzag every which way. Some people follow money, some follow knowledge, and some follow power. All of them are wicked. The path of true love has one eternally unchanging direction, whether for individuals, families, tribes, peoples, nations or the world. When God calls out to people, “Come directly to Me!” He is speaking of the path of true love. The path of true love is the shortest and most direct route. It leads you straight ahead. There is no zigzagging. True love leads individuals to take the direction that benefits their family; it leads families to take the direction that benefits the nation; it aligns a nation with the direction of the world saints; and it aligns the saints with the direction of divine sons and daughters. It is the path of spiritual cultivation, and we fallen people must walk it. We must go this one direction our entire life. (211-208, 1990.12.30)
21 All individuals should follow the direction of true love, but fallen people have lost their way. In the devil’s world everything centers on the physical body. The devil’s love is always self-centered and self-serving. Love on God’s side does the opposite; it centers on the whole. Thus, following the desires of the flesh is the path that leads to death, but following the desires of the heart and mind is the path to life. They are 180 degrees opposite. (211-311, 1991.01.01)
22 In our life on earth, there is a right path for human beings to follow. What is that right path? It is the path that is good for individuals, for families, tribes, peoples, nations, the world, the cosmos, and even for God Himself. We all have to advance upon this path. This path is the one and only way of original love. (147-184, 1986.09.21)
23 Human beings born since the Fall have faced a terrible fate. Therefore, you need to have the heart that you are willing to spend tens of millions of dollars just to find a precious member to whom you can say, “It is wonderful, isn’t it, that I could meet you and bring you to God!” No matter the difficulty and pain, you should have a heart that says, “To find one precious spiritual child, I am ready to go anywhere.” If you devote yourselves to this ideal with this spirit, then even if, like Jesus, you may have to leave the earth without completing the Will, you will surely encounter God’s love after you die. (8-159, 1959.12.06)
24 Fallen people live in regret while asking, “What is the way?” Let us therefore stand before them proclaiming “Hallelujah! Amen!” as victorious brave soldiers who have overcome history and attend our cosmic Parents. Then we will reach the stage when we will sing as cosmic brides and bridegrooms. Then the stage will come when we will love our cosmic sons and daughters. These are the three great paths that all fallen people must go. National borders will pose no problem. The gap between East and West will pose no problem. If we become such people, our parents will bow to us; if we become such couples, everyone will bless us; if we have children like that, all people will bow to us and serve us. This era is destined to come. Where is the place where it appears? It is the place where the Lord of the Second Advent dwells. Those who attend him are the people who will go before the throne of God. (8-110, 1959.11.22)
25 Our path is the way of love. It is one path, whether an individual walks it or a family walks it. The way of love is the same for both. East or West, whatever ones race or nation, the way of love is the same for all. The direction does not differ. Between the path of love for the individual and the path of love for the family only the number of people is different; the way is the same. It is one road with the same focal point. It is the path of God’s love. Our birth is rooted in God’s love. We all were born within an amazing path of love, which is connected to the cosmos and rooted in the original love within our parents. Even after the Fall, this root holds strong. Our tendency to pursue goodness and our desire to add value remains. It is what makes historical restoration possible. That origin within us can foster new development. (142-118, 1986.03.06)
26 After God created all things in heaven and earth, He bestowed governing authority upon human beings as His children, in order to realize the Will for the ideal world and the ideal of love. That Will was lost. Nevertheless, God has led the history of re-creation through the providence of restoration, centered on those who can represent His love and character. This effort is not based on human love or human character, but on God’s love and divine character. Why do we need God’s love and character? Without God’s love, we cannot transcend Satan’s worldly love. God cannot intervene if we hold on to Satan’s love. God’s character cannot co-exist in a world pervaded by Satan’s characteristics. The only way we can make a new beginning and carry out God’s Will is together with God, based on His love and character. (120-127, 1982.10.05)
27 In the Unification Church you learn the law of indemnity. My burden includes the burden of a servant of servants, the burden of a servant and the burden of an adopted son. As the leader of the Unification Church, I want you to work with me to remove this burden from all humankind and guide them. This is what is great about the Unification Church. I myself had to go through the course of indemnity to find the original world of love, so I started from the position of a servant of servants. Then I took the positions of a servant and of an adopted son. You are responsible to go through this indemnity course only for yourself, but I have to take responsibility for all things and even for God. My entire life to this point has been for one purpose, to carry all this burden. (108-019, 1980.06.13)
28 The world of our fallen, evil ancestors has gates open from the individual level on earth to hell in the spirit world. It is for True Parents to abolish all of that. But to do this, they have to receive worldwide persecution. It cannot be done for free. They have to be struck first, and then they can take back what was lost. That is why after being struck, they are entitled to demand compensation for the damage. The way for good people to go is to be struck first and then to claim what was lost. This is why good people are always struck first. After they are struck, over the course of time something develops. That is the way of heaven and earth. It happens because good people keep investing. When investing love, the output is always greater than the input. This is how eternal life can be sustained. (210-245, 1990.12.23)
29 We have to win the fight against Satan. Those who lose to Satan cannot go to God. What must we do to defeat him? That is the question. The problem arose with the Fall of Adam. Therefore, you should do what Adam could not do. Adam did not believe in God absolutely, so to surpass Adam you need to believe in God’s Word absolutely. Also, Adam failed to practice God’s Word. Adam fell because he did not believe in God or practice His Word. Only when you practice God’s Word can you connect to God’s love. The original way for human beings who have nothing to do with the Fall is to believe in God’s Word and practice it. Had Adam and Eve done so, they would have moved on to the next level. There, God’s love awaited them. God’s blessing awaited them. (76-050, 1975.01.26)
Section 2. The Practice of True Love
1 Nothing is good unless it is in harmony with the essence of God’s love. Love does not focus on its position as a subject partner; rather, it focuses on its object partner. If you focus on yourself, you cannot go the path of love. Suppose you are the leader of a nation; you cannot function in that position if you are all alone; you need to recognize the value of others as your partners. The basic principle underlying the organization of the ideal kingdom of heaven is that within the family, husband and wife openly affirm each other. A man who is not affirmed by his wife can hardly expect to be affirmed in the ideal world. It is a contradiction for a man to seek the world’s public recognition when his wife does not first recognize him. In order for a man to attain world-level recognition with dignity and authority, he should be recognized as the linchpin of his family, without any shortcomings. A family with that kind of man as a head will remain intact and not be divided. Then that family should take the position of subject partner to its tribe and live sacrificially, overcoming challenges for its tribe’s sake. Its purpose should be for the sake of others, not for itself. (46-037, 1971.07.18)
2 The way of love does not go here and there. There is only one way. Is the way of love two or one? It is one. If you go that one way, you can go everywhere. The way of love is the way of purity, the way of tranquility and the way of caution, like a priest making a sacrificial offering. (233-146, 1992.08.01)
The way of true love through self-sacrifice
3 A human life is conceived centering on the ideal of love; therefore, its essence is love. Since our life originates from love, it is Heaven’s principle that we live for the sake of others, just as God does. So we can say that we were born for the sake of true love. True love begins by living for the sake of others. Human beings were originally created to live with God’s true love within their mind and body and to respond to His love directly. Their mind would respond to God centering on true love, and their body naturally would resonate with the mind. The true love of God that they would inherit and experience would be the basis of true unity, where there is no conflict between mind and body. (234-271, 1992.08.26)
4 God’s love is not meant to appear only in the heavenly realm. It must first arise in the physical universe—the created world— and ultimately in human beings. Parents’ love is seen in their children. A husband’s love is seen in his wife; a wife’s love is seen in her husband. This is the mutual commitment of love; this is the direction that love takes. Unless you follow this way, you cannot perfect your love. (083-179, 1976.02.08)
5 For God to love, He must sacrifice Himself. Likewise, for us human beings to love, we need to sacrifice ourselves. This is the way we should go. Why? It is because God goes this way. If we are to go with God, we must go this way. When I as an individual take the path of sacrifice, it leads me to the position where God participates in my family along with me. Next, when my family sacrifices, it earns the right for God to participate with it in the life of the tribe, and so on to the people, the nation, the world and the cosmos. From the time we begin our course in the world of love, as we travel through all the stages on the path of love, we will come to earn these qualifications. This is possible because our life from the beginning is centered on love. It is because we always strive to participate in God’s love and tune ourselves to the direction of His love. This is how we can be free from the realm of the Fall. (097-263, 1978.03.19)
6 The way of love is not to live for oneself but to go the way of self-sacrifice. Love is so powerful that hearing a single word from your beloved can give you the strength to endure ten years of suffering. It is why just a one-word promise from your beloved husband or wife can enable you to persevere through any hardship, for ten years or even for your whole life. The more adversity you face, the more difficulties you overcome and the more misery you endure, the more you cherish that promise of love and the more value it holds on a higher and multidimensional level. (115-191, 1981.11.15)
7 When a husband has a sacrificial heart for his wife and offers her his absolute, self-sacrificial love, his wife will do everything possible to become a good life partner to him. She will not do so unwillingly but joyfully and with sincerity. There is no suffering in it. Her sacrifice does not make her miserable. Instead, it has a sweet and interesting taste. Parents’ love for their children is inevitably accompanied by sacrifice, but they do not demand repayment for it. Parents sacrifice and forget their sacrifice. Sacrificial love is to give and forget how much one has given. God has been giving and sacrificing for humankind, then forgetting how much He gave, how much He sacrificed. This is why Jesus said, “When you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” (Matt. 6:3) If you give expecting something in return, you are not a real owner of love. If you give and then forget how much you gave, you can be a central person of love. (56-340, 1972.05.18)
8 Let us go the path of love that God wants us to go. Only when we reject the path of the Fall that the devil wants us to go, and follow the path of love that God wants us to go, can we be separated from the devil. We cannot be separated from Satan by our worldly knowledge, by our understanding of doctrine, or by having better skill or wisdom. Love is what enables it. The reason Christianity has endured to this day is because it promotes the way of self-sacrifice, even to the extent that many believers have sacrificed themselves, willing to go the path of martyrdom and shedding their blood. (138-252, 1986.01.24)
9 The way of love is the way of giving yourself to be used by others for a higher purpose. Individuals who have love want to be used by their families, families who have love want to be used by their nation, nations want to be used by the world, the world wants to be used by the cosmos, and the cosmos wants to be used by God. This is the way of true love. (206-222, 1990.10.07)
10 The way of faith requires long endurance; endurance and sacrifice are the way of faith. Human beings have been able to go on living because they have faith in God’s promise of a world of love, and with faith they are willing to endure and sacrifice to attain it. When we are told, “God is love,” we need to understand that within that expression is sacrifice and endurance. (112-051, 1981.03.29)
11 When people love each other—for example, parents and their children— their love knows no seasons. When you weep for the ones you love, your tears transcend spring, summer, autumn and winter. True love transcends youth, middle age and old age. True love follows the track of eternal life, eternal joy and eternal happiness. This world is one of change upon change. Revolutions come and go; life and death come and go. But true love never changes. Therefore, let us always maintain the environment of love in our hearts. To do so, we need a life of prayer. By that we can grow. When going the way of God’s Will and the way of love, prison is not a problem; even death is not a problem. In fact, the way of true love is about overcoming death and difficulties. (277-013, 1996.03.17)
12 There is a power that enables that which is true to exist forever. In order for us connect to it—in order for us to connect eternally to what is beyond time and space—we must be connected to God’s true love. To possess that love, we need to sacrifice ourselves to secure love with our eternal partner. By sacrificing as couples, we should recover the family; by sacrificing as families, we should recover the tribe; by sacrificing as tribes, we should recover the people; by sacrificing as peoples, we should recover the nation; by sacrificing as nations, we should recover the world; by sacrificing as a world, we should recover heaven and earth; and by sacrificing as heaven and earth, we should find God. Even for God, going the way of love requires sacrifice. God sacrifices too. He sacrifices Himself for love. (180-102, 1988.08.07)
The one who sacrifices becomes the central person
13 To walk the path of love, you need to serve and sacrifice for others. Without serving and sacrificing, your love cannot grow. Although you may have a capacity to love that rates only ten, if you sacrifice and serve, that capacity can grow to one hundred, one thousand, even ten thousand. Especially, if you have some ancestors who were evil, your love rating may be even lower than ten. Nevertheless, you would want to increase it to one hundred, one thousand or even ten thousand if only you could find a way to do so. That way is the path of love, by serving and sacrificing. Because I understood this principle, no matter what kind of abuse and indignities I suffered, no matter how many times I went to prison or faced pain to the point of death, I endured everything. When it comes to loving people, I am willing to sacrifice more than anyone else. When I meet anyone whose sacrifice and love is greater than mine, I immediately resolve to sacrifice and love more. If it means I have to sacrifice and love one thousand or ten thousand times more, I will go that way. I know that only by becoming like that is God able to pour out His love upon me. (44-203, 1971.05.07)
14 The way of love opens to us only when we sacrifice for others. After parents love their children, they do not say, “We raised you for twenty years and sent you to school, so now, according to the principle of restoration through indemnity, you have to sacrifice for twenty years for us.” No. Parents sacrifice for their children without considering or calculating the extent of it. In fact, the harder they work for their children, the more their children’s love for them grows. Even though parents ask no compensation, their children’s original mind cannot but love them. That is why children whose parents loved them are never unfilial. It is impossible for a child to be unfilial to such parents. In a family of sacrificial parents, filial children will emerge. The more a nation’s king sacrifices for his subjects, the more loyalty they will display to him. On the path of love, sacrifice and suffering do not diminish your value. Instead, they double it. Such is the path of love. (63-196, 1972.10.14)
15 Love drives you to the place of sacrifice. You may feel that being pushed to sacrifice is unfair. Especially if you collapse and die as a sacrifice, you may feel even more that it is unfair. But unbeknownst to you, God’s love builds up behind you. So widen that place by going over the realm of your tribe and your people. Widen it even further to influence your nation. On the day when you change the standard of your nation, you can take the flag of your renewed nation and march toward the world. The Unification Church is going this way toward that goal. Therefore, you must love your country more than you love your own children. You are in the position of following God’s Will, so you should expect to take responsibility as His representative over and over again. (32-228, 1970.07.19)
16 Sacrifice accompanies the way of love. It is how you can totally possess the love of your partner. You need to sacrifice, because doing so builds the foundation for your partner to completely unite with you and follow you. People can unite completely with those who sacrifice themselves to pay the price of love. It turns out that the dwelling place of love is not in yourself, but in your partner. Do not think that your husband or wife loves you because you are great. (44-349, 1971.05.30)
17 The center of your love has to be your counterpart, not yourself. Only when you fully recognize the value of your counterpart will his or her full value in love become manifest. Why do you have to sacrifice on the path of love? It is because your love does not belong to you. You must make your counterpart the focal point of your love. That being the case, unless you make the condition to be completely in accord with that focal point of love, you cannot fulfill love's purpose. Therefore, if you want perfect love, you must sacrifice completely. When you follow the way of total sacrifice, you will see perfect unity. (45-226, 1971.07.01)
18 Without fail, the sacrificial person becomes the central person. In a family the filial child is the one who sacrifices the most; thereby he or she becomes the center of the family. A patriot who sacrifices the most for the nation becomes the central person of the nation. The saint who sacrifices the most becomes the center of all saints. This is Heaven’s principle, so follow this way with sincerity and become individuals who can bring people into harmony in all respects. When you do so, God’s new hope will dwell within you and the power of God’s love will be added to your efforts. (113-326, 1981.05.10)
19 Sacrifice makes the way of love shine. That is why the Bible says to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. It says that it is the first commandment. As commandments go, it is indeed the first among all the commandments in the universe. It is the most important law, because once we fulfill this law, we can create a realm in which all other laws will be followed. From this perspective, in order to fulfill God’s Will, God’s ideal of creation, we have a path to follow: We must make a relationship with God in absolute love; then we will realize the ideal of creation. (63-160, 1972.10.14)
20 The way of true love is to move toward something greater, even if it means sacrificing your own interests. As you move forward toward a bigger world, you make sacrifices and accept greater hardship. With respect to the family, if your family lives for the sake of society, then leaving your family is not leaving it behind but uniting it with society. For example, when your son grows up he will find his life companion, and they will join as a couple. Even though he leaves you, his parents, his loving relationship with you can deepen, and when he has children, your family will expand. Further, when your son’s family moves into society, your family grows even bigger. As its links with society develop, your family will grow ever greater. (48-012, 1971.08.31)
21 If parents love their children in a self- centered way, their love is false. If children love their parents in a self-centered way, that too is false love. What do I expect to see in the Unification Church? If our church represents a true religion of true love, we should not love the Unification Church for the sake of the Unification Church. Just as you become a filial child by loving your parents at the sacrifice of yourself, and you become a true parent by loving your children at the sacrifice of yourself, in the Unification Church we should love the nation and the world even at the sacrifice of the Unification Church. This is the shortcut to establishing the law of love. (34-330, 1970.09.20)
22 For us, to sacrifice our individual selves for the family is to find the path of love to the family; to sacrifice as a family in order to save the tribe is to expand the path of love to the tribe; to sacrifice as a tribe in order to save the nation is to expand the path of love to the nation; to sacrifice as a nation in order to save the world is to broaden the path of love to the world. In this way, by loving the world we should go to reach the love of God. This is the path we have to go from now on. (41-356, 1971.02.18)
23 Religions teach individuals, families, tribes and nations to sacrifice their own interests. The nation of Israel was built upon the sacrifices of its tribes. Among the nations of the world, those that stood on religious beliefs walked the way of sacrifice throughout their history. If we are to realize the ideal of creation, we must become God’s object partners of love. But unless we go through sacrifice, unless we practice this essential principle of love, we cannot become one with God. Nor can we form a relationship with the ideal world of love that God is to govern. To form a relationship with the ideal world of love, there is no other way than to inherit the tradition that takes sacrifice as a cardinal principle. This is why religions place great emphasis on the path of love that requires compassion and sacrifice. The division between heaven and hell, between good and evil, is right there. (60-087, 1972.08.06)
The way of blood, sweat and tears
24 Throughout His course of searching for human beings, God has been confronting Satan. We have to learn from God’s course of devotion and follow in His steps. We now know that God has devoted Himself throughout history, in ways beyond description, to finding His lost children with the heart of a parent, in the shoes of a servant, sowing sweat for earth, tears for humankind and blood for Heaven. We too, in order to find and attend our Heavenly Parent, must shed blood, sweat and tears for Him, and in order to experience the heart of our Parent, we must go forward in the shoes of a servant. God suffered pain to find us, and we suffer pain to find God. The tears we shed on this course are not for ourselves alone; they are the tears we share with God. Our sweat is the sweat we share with God. Our blood and sacrifice are not for ourselves only; we shed tears and blood to participate in the sacrifices that God has been making. (13-244, 1964.03.29)
25 God comes to the earth with the heart of a parent and in the shoes of a servant. When you shed tears, He also sheds tears; when you shed sweat, He also sheds sweat. When you stand in the place of death, He sheds His blood for you. You have no idea how many tens of thousands of times God sacrificed Himself for your sake. You have no idea how many times God Himself played the role of high priest. How many painful experiences did God endure in the course of this work, from the individual level to that of the family, tribe, people, nation and world? God sent His Son to do this mission, arid when he was unable to complete it, He had to do the Son’s mission Himself. (11-214, 1961.07.17)
26 We were dead, yet God went the way of death in order to revive us. Hence, we should go the same way—the way of blood, sweat and tears with a parent’s heart. This course is our destiny as descendants of the Fall When Jesus came to earth, he shed tears for humankind, blood for heaven and sweat for the earth. When Jesus went the way of the cross, he set the substantial standard of heart for the past and present simultaneously. We human beings had been unfilial children, yet Jesus made the indemnity condition in heart on our behalf when, before he died, he set the standard of forgiving us all. (13-055, 1963.10.16)
27 You must connect to God in heart and experience His heart. Unless you experience His heart, you can never come before God. At the time of Jesus, what did the people of Israel do? God had shed tears, blood and sweat for them, to prepare them as the chosen people, and all His heartfelt tears, blood and sweat still remained with them. Yet they utterly forgot all of it. (10-278, 1960.11.06)
28 We are destined to go the way of one mind and one heart. How can we continue on this way without ever changing? If we cannot go this way with wisdom, we will have to go with sweat and tears. If we cannot go with sweat and tears, we will have to go even shedding our blood. We have to offer our sweat as God's sweat and our tears as God’s tears. We should shed blood for Heaven, tears for humankind and sweat for earth. We should totally demolish the basis of God’s bitter sorrow, which has blocked the union of God, the earth and human beings. This is our task. We should strive to make our daily life one in which “God’s work is my work; my work is the work of the earth; my work is the work of all humankind.” We should reach the point where each of us is praised as a person of divine value. (10-179, 1960.09.25)
29 We who know the existence of the living God will have to save humanity before Satan inflicts more destruction on the world. Even though I might end up in the lowest position and perish there, my urgent concern is how the Unification Church can establish measures to save this country and the whole world. We need to provide something of substance. We need substance that we can present to history, which we can present to all time and to the future. What is that substance? That substance is our blood, our sweat and our tears. Our heartfelt blood, sweat and tears should make God and all humankind weep. Each of you needs to shed blood, sweat and tears. Then, when the people of the world listen to you, they will be so moved that they will not be able to hold back their tears. (13-191, 1964.03.15)
30 What do you value most among all your possessions? No matter what it is, you should be able to give it away without hesitation or regret. But to me, your tears, sweat and blood are what have greatest value. You should shed sweat for all things of creation. You should shed blood for Heaven. You should shed tears for all humankind. This is the motto of our Principle movement. You should be able to give these precious things freely. Only by doing so can you bring unity in the spirit and in the heart. (15-069, 1965.02.13)
31 You should be the cement, you should be the gravel, you should be the sand and you should be the water. Your blood, sweat and tears are the water; your flesh is the sand, and your bones are the gravel. With these materials, you must build your foundation of concrete. The foundation you create in this way will remain for a thousand years; even ten thousand years later it will still be standing. Although people may try for ten thousand years to knock it down, they will not succeed. (28-221, 1970.01.11)
Loving our enemies and the way of the Principle
32 Why did Jesus teach that we should love our enemies, even as he did by carrying the cross? It is because there is no way to subjugate Satan other than by love. God-centered love is love that seeks to save the world. It seeks to reclaim the realm of love from Satan’s world. God’s love has a purpose: it is to liberate Satan’s world. The goal of salvation is to fulfill God’s Will and providence. The core element for fulfilling God’s providential Will is love. We must love, because it is the way to recapture this world from Satan. (138-253, 1986.01.24)
33 The biblical teaching to love your enemy means to love human beings, people who are under the devil’s influence. It does not mean you should love the devil himself. Our cherished hope is eternal life. The only way we can have eternal life is by walking the path of true love. We create unity when we strive over and over again with our mind and body to live for the sake of others, centered on God’s love. Unity comes when the body serves the mind as much as the mind serves the body. If you give and receive in that place, based on the central axis, unity will certainly come. When you stand before this axis of principled love at the point where the horizontal line and the vertical line meet, your position will be established. (209-229, 1990.11.29)
34 Every human being is connected to two lineages. One is Satan’s lineage; we are linked to it through the historical line of our ancestors. This happened because they had a self-centered consciousness. Then what is the other lineage, God’s lineage, about? It is to live not for oneself but for the sake of the whole. This lineage lives for the sake of others. This is why arrogant people can never escape Satan’s lineage. How can you free yourself from that lineage? Worldly people live for themselves, but godly people are the opposite. They live not for their own sakes, but for the sake of the whole. That is why I tell you that the way to be free from the fallen realm is to love your enemy. (332-067, 2000.09.05)
35 When you journey to find love, your mind goes first. But if your counterpart does not reciprocate, all your investment disappears. It is not so with God. His heart will keep pounding and He will keep trying again and again until He establishes His love. He just cannot stop. He continues searching unceasingly for His beloved ones. He continually strives to forge relationships with them by filling all their cells with love. He continues to invest over and over in His work of creation until He reaches His goal. This is the basic logic behind the principle of living for the sake of others. (202-293, 1990.05.25)
36 To say that God created all things means that God totally invested His heart of love in them. Since God is like that, when His object partners appear, they will have the same heart. Then not only will God be able to have a relationship with people, but His love will manifest through people. Such people will prosper. You may not grasp this by reasoning it out, but nonetheless the conscience guides you to love one another and to live for the sake of others. Further, all religions teach sacrifice and living for the sake of others. (112-301, 1981.04.25)
37 God set up the principle of living for the sake of others. To use the analogy of the atmosphere, it means He becomes a total vacuum. The environment of a total vacuum is an area of low pressure toward which a high-pressure area automatically moves to create balance. Likewise, to find His object partners God continually gives and gives of Himself, giving out until what He has given automatically returns. Based on this logic, God made all creations in pairs, advancing step by step to higher levels, in order to make the ideal footstool for the love between God and human beings. (199-276, 1990.02.20)
38 To demand that others live for your sake is not true love. The true ideal, true happiness and true peace do not stand on the foundation of telling other people to live for you. They stand on the foundation of living for the sake of others. That is why true husbands and wives, true parents, true teachers and true patriots do not start out by pushing others to sacrifice for them. They start from the point of giving themselves for others. The act of creation itself was an act of investment. (077-106, 1975.04.01)
39 People who wish to succeed need to help people in the world around them. With this in mind, the Unification Church advocates living for the sake of others. We were born for the sake of others. The act of creation required God’s total investment. It means that God created with love and for love. The world has been advocating, “Live for me!” but this is wrong from the outset. I as a human being am born for my parents, for my wife, for my husband. My life is a continuation of my parents’ lives. I inherited my life for the sake of my parents. The life a husband inherited is for the sake of his wife; the life a wife inherited is for the sake of her husband. The life I inherited is for my brothers and sisters and for my country. Ultimately I was born for the sake of the world. (169-087, 1987.10.25)
40 Was the Unification Principle made before the Fall of Adam and Eve, or after? The Principle existed before the Fall. The way of the Principle was the way Adam and Eve were supposed to go. If Adam and Eve, as the ancestors of humankind, had become perfect and achieved oneness with God in the realm of His love, no one could have separated them from each other, not even God. The way to salvation is the path of restoration, and the path of restoration is through re-creation. For re-creation, we need to apply the general rule of the Principle, from before the time Adam and Eve fell, to assess the value of things in relation to their progress toward completion. Otherwise we cannot go back to where we can have an original relationship with God. (135-305, 1985.12.15)
41 The path of the Principle is to walk, while the path of restoration is to seek and find. The path of restoration through indemnity is to seek and find. Once you find the path, you are to walk it. Thus far, no one knew about the path of restoration. Now that I have elucidated it all— the path of the Principle, the path of the Principle of the course of restoration— you are required to walk it. This is the formula course. Hence everyone from your ancestors to your descendants must go this way. (213-331, 1991.01.21)
42 It is not only human beings who have to walk the path of the Principle. God also has to go this way, in order to meet us. God seeks to walk the path of the Principle even as we try to walk the path of the Principle. God and human beings can meet in a victorious reunion only when they both have walked the path of the Principle. What is evil? It is what opposes those who would go the path of the Principle. Evil tries to stop us from going on the path of the Principle. Evil sets up obstacles on that road. This is why, by the rules of Principle, evil cannot be tolerated. (58-010, 1972.06.06)
43 Since our ancestors Adam and Eve lost the way, we have to find that way again. That is why I am saying that the way of restoration is about seeking and finding, while the path of the Principle is to be walked. When you are walking the path of the Principle, you will be walking the same path as I. However, there is a difference between you and me: I had to pass through a course of incredible battles with Satan both in the spirit and in the flesh, that is, with Satan in the spirit world and with evil people in this world, and triumph over them. However, you do not have to walk the path of confronting Satan on the world level or evil people on the national level. (34-266, 1970.09.13)
44 To ride on heavenly fortune you must go the way of the Principle. You must become a person who walks the principled way. This is my philosophy of life. I have been persecuted to this day, and many people thought I would perish. Yet I leaped up from a place of ruin to a bigger world and a bigger stage, and I have been advancing ever since. The reason why God cooperates with me is because the path I walk is in alignment with Heaven’s principle and law. (149-187, 1986.11.21)
45 Through me as your teacher, you Unification Church members came to know the Principle by which you seek out the path of restoration. All of you are required to walk the path of the Principle. On the path of the Principle, there is no need for forgiveness. This is the path that everyone without exception—your grandparents, your parents and you, including blessed children— have to go. (143-032, 1986.03.15)
46 I am going ahead of you in seeking, because the way of restoration is the way of seeking. I am seeking and testing the way, and I am building the path of the Principle. So walk this way exactly as I do. When a guide leads you across the ocean you have to follow him; when a guide leads you over a high mountain pass you follow him. If you say you hate this way, you cannot reach the realm of liberation. (58-092, 1972.06.06)
47 While following the way of the Will I have never uttered one word of complaint. I was imprisoned even though I committed no crime. There I was beaten and bloodied by interrogators, but I never complained or asked, “God, what is this?” Servants may oppose God for tens of thousands of years, but as a son, I should never take their side. Knowing that Satan opposes God, how could I as a son oppose my Father, God? Isn’t that right? Even though I may die, I have to die on my Father’s side. You too, after enduring all sorts of difficulties and pains along the way of the Will, may have many things that you would like to say to God the Father. But what will make you great is to say nothing. (044-297, 1971.05.24)
48 You must keep going, no matter how miserable the course. I too have been through this course. On the way, you should not resent anyone. If you have the urge to complain, rather be concerned about what will happen to this nation and the world as well as to the way of God’s Will. This is the proper attitude of those responsible for restoration. Set up this inner standard before God. (29-214, 1970.02.02)
49 Go the way of restoration with a joyful heart. Even on the way of death, when you go with a joyful spirit, God will come to you. But if you go disheartened and lamenting, Satan will follow you. Also, in case you become a martyr, if your motivation is to go to heaven, you will end up in the opposite place. Thus, if you go the way of a martyr, it should be with the desire to liberate God and to save the world. Jesus’ life purpose was to save the world, including the Roman Empire. This is why he could love the Roman soldier who pierced him. He died for the sake of Rome, and so in the end the Roman Empire came into the bosom of Christianity. If he had complained and lamented on the cross, God would have lost the position to claim Jesus; Satan would have claimed him instead. Therefore, those who follow the Will of God cannot complain, even unto death. So to make friends with those who complain is a most dangerous thing. (291-324, 1998.03.19)
50 When you are joyful, God takes an interest in you and you can enter God’s realm of love. But the question is: how can we live with joy under any circumstances? The answer is this: When you do everything with joy, do not keep it only for yourself. Rather, share your joy and bring harmony among all things of creation, making them your partners in joy. Your life of faith should be fun. Also, all the work you do on the way of God’s Will should be enjoyable to you. It is no good to do things reluctantly or unwillingly. No matter how difficult, you should not take it as difficult, but rather as something fun to do. This attitude should be deeply rooted in your daily life. (277-012, 1996.03.17)
51 You are called to expand your experience of the community of cosmic brotherhood and sisterhood. It is not enough for your family to live alone. For at least three years, you can live together as four families from four nations under one roof. There, you should not regard only your own children as your children. In your community of four families, you should love all the children as your own sons and daughters. You should create such communities of families and experience what God wants to enjoy through your brotherhood and sisterhood. (310-200, 1999.06.15)
52 In the future we will have apartment buildings that serve as family training centers. I envision apartment buildings serving as intercultural residences. We will make a residence in which at least seven families can share life together for several months at a time, training for community life among people of different cultures. These apartment buildings will be training centers. I want you all to go through such training. I would like to see three households living together in those apartments, eating together and studying together. This is based on the Principle. (44-154, 1971.05.06)
53 I want to see the three wives of your trinity united as one. I am training you for this. In the future, twelve families should dwell in one house, then one hundred twenty families, then twelve hundred families, all under the same roof. People who live in the same village should not fight. The time when you live with True Parents on earth is the time to set this tradition so that it will endure for tens of thousands of years to come. Big problems will come if you fail to set up this tradition. By this tradition, if one family among the three cannot have a child, the other two families will step up to give them a child. (44-154, 1971.05.06)
The way of filial children, patriots, saints, and divine sons and daughters
54 Even though the ways of a filial child, a patriot, a saint, and a divine son or daughter differ, they all belong to one sequence. What makes their ways one sequence? In this world, the love of filial children for their parents lasts for but one generation. The love of a patriot is confined to one nation. But if you move centered on true love, your path remains forever. When an ancestor sets up this foundation, it will endure even if his own children cannot continue it. When anyone in the future builds on his foundation, his merit will increase. For this reason, the more we fulfill the duties of filial children, patriots, saints, and divine sons and daughters centering on the direction of true love, the more we will progress, never to retreat. (219-208, 1991.09.29)
55 Have you ever considered that God wants you to be a filial child in your family, a patriot for your nation, a saint for the world, and a divine son or daughter before heaven and earth? Looking at history, all the main founders of religion taught people to be filial children and also to become patriots, saints, and divine sons and daughters. Religions that did not teach this have not survived. It is your destiny as human beings to become such people. Destiny concerns what cannot be changed, such as the relationship between parents and children. Fortune, on the other hand, refers to things that you can change. You can change your fortune, but you cannot change your destiny. (287-024, 1997.08.10)
56 You can be victorious only when you go the way of the Will with the title of a devoted son or daughter in front of God. You have to become the princes and princesses who are obedient to God and committed to take responsibility for the six-thousand year history of sin and evil. Just as Jesus set the standard of a devoted, filial son when he said, “yet not what I want but what you want” (Matt. 26:39), you should also set the standard of a filial child and say, “In the end, Satan surrendered to me.” Only then can you enter kingdom of heaven. In this way you will become the ancestors of the Word, the ancestors of substance, the ancestors of heart, the ancestors of obedience and the ancestors of lineage. (11-350, 1962.06.07)
57 A filial son will disregard himself, his wife and his children in order to follow his parents. Such is the path of a filial son. The path that we walk is the path of the Will, and the path of the Will that we walk is the path of love. To love is to place the greater good ahead of oneself. This is why the way of the Will is the way of love. (18-023, 1967.05.14)
58 A filial child is someone who is faithful to his or her parents, out of love for them. A patriot is someone who loves his or her country, and a saint— that is, a world-level saint—is someone who loves the world. Divine sons and daughters are people who love and uphold the authority of the Palace in the heavenly kingdom. Hence, as people who hold the Will in your heart, if you follow the way of the Will with the hope that you will be respected by all the people of the world and that your names will be known throughout the world for upholding the Will, then you must become warriors who can shine more than anyone else on the path of suffering. (199-071, 1990.02.15)
59 For the sake of his nation, a patriot will sell his land. He will sell his cows and pigs. He will continue in this way even if it means that he cannot afford to send his sons and daughters to school. A patriot’s way is to fight for his country at the sacrifice of his flesh and blood. He does so for the sake of his descendants. (138-041, 1986.01.13)
60 A patriot is ready to sacrifice his or her family, relatives and tribe for the sake of the nation. A faithful wife is ready to sacrifice herself for the sake of her husband, and a filial son sacrifices himself for his parents. Sacrifice is the basic principle-sacrifice for the sake of goodness. Sacrifice means denying oneself. Perfect sacrifice is total self-denial. (127-258, 1983.05.15)
61 For citizens of a nation, the way of truth is to serve the leader of the nation with unchanging devotion. This is the way of a patriot. As we are citizens, we need to go the way of patriots. For members of the human race, the way of truth is to go the way of a world-level saint. As we are members of the human race, we need to go the way of world-level saints. It means that we love the people of the world beyond the borders of our nation as we love our brothers and sisters and as we love our spouse. This is the way of truth for the world. (169-082, 1987.10.25)
62 In this world there are people who are loyal to their family, there are people who are loyal to their community, and there are people who are loyal to their nation. Those who are loyal to their nation make the condition to leave a legacy—to pass on their national ideals as a tradition to their descendants. However, everyone living in this earthly world is destined to stand at the court of judgment. To prepare us for it, religions teach us to become not simply patriots who are loyal to our nation, or children who are filial to our parents, but children who are filial to God, the Father of the entire world, and to the King of kings and Lord of lords. This is the right way that all religions teach. (9-224, 1960.05.29)
63 It is said that a person whose loyalty is for his nation is a patriot and a person who loves humanity and the world beyond the borders of his nation is a saint. This principle defines the right way for filial children toward their family, patriots for their nation, saints for the world, and divine sons and daughters for the sake of heaven and earth. We are called to be people who, like Jesus, connect humankind with love to the law of the heavenly kingdom and to the decrees that come from the Heavenly Palace. This way leads us in one straight line. On the other hand, the love of the devil goes the opposite way. That is why the habits of those on Satan’s side are 180 degrees different from those on Heaven’s side. Historically, the character of people on Satan’s side is to demand that others invest for their sake, whereas the character of people on God’s side is to give of themselves for the sake of others. In the end, it is the latter who become owners. (213-015, 1991.01.13)
64 What is the difference between a patriot and a saint? A patriot does not go beyond his or her nation, but a world- level saint transcends his or her nation. The love of a saint is not limited to one nation. That person lives a life of love, enduring hardships and suffering, for the sake of humanity and the world. (223-142, 1991.11.10)
65 Christianity speaks of sons and daughters of God, people who are like Jesus. These divine sons and daughters represent all the realms of the love and work of the heavenly kingdom, and they represent the realm of love for humanity on earth. Beyond this, divine sons and daughters are equipped with the internal and external qualities of the heavenly kingdom, they uphold the kingship of the Palace, and they live a life of love. Divine sons and daughters are different from world-level saints. Saints, even world-level saints, endeavored to love humanity based on brotherly love—a somewhat nebulous concept. Divine sons and daughters, on the other hand, focus their love on building God’s kingdom—the kingdom of heaven on earth and kingdom of heaven in heaven. Their subject partner is eternal. People in a nation live for their generation, but the kingdom of heaven’s sovereignty should represent eternity. Sons and daughters of God are those who pledge to center their love on the sovereignty of the kingdom of heaven to the very end. (223-142, 1991.11.10)
66 What is the way of divine sons and daughters? It represents the tradition of loyalty and filial piety, but for the sake of the invisible spirit world as well as this visible human world. The way of divine sons and daughters requires sacrificing the love of even the great world-level saints in order to pave the way to a higher love. When Jesus Christ came to earth, he knew the law for divine sons and daughters and how to follow the right way of a divine son. Therefore he loved even his enemies. (140-146, 1986.02.09)
67 The founders of the great religions were world-level saints, people who loved the world. All religious leaders should follow the right way of these saints. Theirs was the path to love the world, transcending human history and national boundaries. Theirs was a love that has lasted for thousands of years. Then, who are divine sons and daughters, like Jesus? They are the people who are centered on God and who love God’s kingdom and His sovereignty. (211-276, 1990.12.30)
68 Filial children are those people in a family who love their parents and live for their sake. Patriots are people who love their nation and live for its sake, and saints are people who love the world and live for its sake. I am teaching you to become divine sons and daughters who love God and the universe, by living for their sake. In order to become a divine child of God, you need to have a loving heart like God. (129-099, 1983.10.01)
69 What is the common thread running through human history? Even though the world is fallen, history has unfolded based on ethics and morality. The center of morality is love. Filial children are those who love their parents more and more; patriots are those who love their country more and more. The path of a saint teaches us to transcend nationality and love the world. A world-level saints takes it as their duty to love the world more than they love their own family or own country. The way of divine sons and daughters teaches us to transcend this world and love with the highest love in accordance with the decrees from the Heavenly Palace. All these levels unfold in this way, centering on love. (206-062, 1990.10.03)
70 Once you become a patriot, you are automatically a filial child. As a patriot, you stand above tens of thousands of filial children. When you become a world- level saint, who is on a higher level than a patriot, you can embrace tens of thousands of patriots. Divine sons and daughters are God’s children. When a person follows the way of a divine son or daughter, saints in vast numbers will necessarily love and serve that person. What kind of person goes the way of a filial child, the way of a patriot, the way of a saint and the way of a divine child? It is a person who loves and serves others for a higher purpose, loving them more than they love their own life, more than they love their own spouse and children. (194-275, 1989.10.29)
71 Being a saint does not make you a divine son or daughter; it does not make you a filial child of God. You still have to become a divine son or daughter. No matter how devoted you are to the ruler of your nation and the people of your nation, in order to become a divine son or daughter you have to know the decrees issued from the Heavenly Palace. You have to know the one law as decreed from the Heavenly Palace, be governed by that law, and move to its rhythm. (147-282, 1986.10.01)
72 On earth, you must equip yourself with the qualifications to earn the title of a patriot, then the title of a saint who can represent the world, and then the title of a divine son or daughter who can represent heaven and earth. Who are divine sons and daughters? They are those who know how to keep the decrees of the Palace in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus Christ knew how to do that, and that is why we call him the Son of God. Filial children of God invest their entire life in giving love for the sake of others; they love their family, their nation and the world. When you walk the way of divine sons and daughters, you are investing not only for one generation; your position represents many hundreds of generations. The question when you die is: How much, through your investment, were you able to bring your ancestors in the spirit world down to earth to help you widen your foundation and influence the world beyond your nation? In the heavenly kingdom, your status is determined by the scope of your love for others. (170-202, 1987.11.15)
73 The way of divine sons and daughters requires you to know and adjust to the decrees of the Palace in the kingdom of heaven on earth and in heaven. This is the duty of heavenly princes and princesses. This is what Heavenly Father does, so we should inherit God’s parental heart, inherit the heart of His kingship, and day and night aim to live up to it. This is what a true son or daughter of God does. A divine son or daughter should walk the way of love along the shortest route, without twists or turns, from the family level all the way to the kingdom of heaven. (194-224, 1989.10.22)
74 A saint is a person who devotes his or her life for the sake of humanity. A divine son or daughter is a person who not only lives for the sake of humanity but also serves the people of the world as if they are serving God. Those whom history recognizes as world-level saints are those who lived and died for the sake of the people of the world, while those whom history recognizes as the children of God—divine sons and daughters—are people who were loyal to God but also lived for the sake of thousands of people in the same way that they lived for God. Such is the difference between world- level saints and divine sons and daughters. Truly devoted sons and daughters live for the sake of their brothers and sisters just as they live for their mother and father. True patriots serve their nation’s people just as they serve their king. Likewise, true divine sons and daughters love all things that belong to God just as they love God. (133-243, 1984.07.19)
Section 3. The True Parents' Practice of True Love
1 Tribulations and persecution are no problem for those who have tasted God’s love. I have suffered persecution to this day, but I walked tall all the way. It is only because I know God that I could overcome world-level difficulties and come to this place to meet you today. I know what God’s love is. Who can block the way of true love? No one can stop even the human love between a man and a woman, so who can stop the love of a person who has tasted the love of God, the origin of human life? No one can. (142-118, 1986.03.06)
The path of love True Parents walked
2 To share my history with you, I would have to tell so many stories. There were times of despair, but I never succumbed to despair. I was put in places of servitude, but I was never without backbone. I still remember vividly my experience in Pyongyang. As I walked into prison wearing handcuffs, I waved to the members who had come to say goodbye to me and bid them farewell. I will never forget that moment. Other people go to prison in disappointment and despair, but I went with a heart of hope. God had told me what sorts of people I would meet in prison. When I was hungry, God mobilized people to bring me food. Even though I was unable to speak about the truth, I was always confident, because God showed me living evidence that He was with me by making many people come to me and follow me. (17-032, 1966.11.06)
3 One cost of following the Will was that my clan came to ruin. My father, my mother and most of my siblings perished. Yet with the destruction of my family, God drove me to love all of you. By sacrificing my family and relatives, God led me to love my enemies and their families. Drawing compensation from my enemies for the sacrifice of my family was God’s idea; it is the teaching of Unificationism. It explains that God sacrifices His own sons and daughters and those who are closest to Him as He loves and strives to recover nations and peoples that are owned by the enemy. (36-262, 1970.12.06)
4 In my historical position I have been through all manner of shame. You have no idea how much humiliation I endured to set straight the way of the Will. Once I devoted myself for one year and eight months to witness to one woman. Every time I went to her house her husband persecuted me, yet still I sat down at the table to eat with him and witness to her family. To uphold the Principle, I went through the worst course of humiliation a man can endure. (218-153, 1991.07.14)
5 In the course of attending God I never thought of myself. I never asked God, “God, You call me Your beloved Son, so why are You giving me a life of unremitting difficulty?” Instead, I thought of God as more deserving of sympathy than me. That was my thinking even when I was behind bars. From the very first step of my walk on the way of God’s Will, I comforted God. I told Him, “I am still alive to do Your Will. Thank you for protecting me.” I walked such a path in order to leave behind a standard of indemnity in history. To this day, this is the tradition of the Unification Church. No one can invade it; no one can take it away. Only Heavenly Father can touch it, no one else. (043-054, 1971.04.18)
6 On the way of the Will, no matter where you go, if you have the bone marrow of love, heaven and earth will protect you. Even if you are imprisoned, you will not be defeated. In prison I never prayed, “Father! Your beloved son is in prison, so please take revenge on my enemies.” Instead I prayed, “The barriers to God’s love have not yet fallen, so I must go through this course in prison. As Moses struck the Red Sea with his staff to divide it, please strike my mind and body, to divide the Red Sea of this fallen world. My flesh may be torn and my bones may be broken, but I will go on. I am still alive!” (180-119, 1988.08.07)
7 Until I complete the Will, I cannot afford to be exhausted. It is because I know God’s situation. In this respect I am different from you. Even though all of you may abandon the way of God’s Will, I absolutely cannot. You may be able to return to the world and give up the Will, but I cannot. I must keep going, even if I am the only one remaining. (33-246, 1970.08.16)
8 I have done a great deal of work up till now, and I also invested large amounts of money. But I never invested money for the purpose of making more money. I have never worked for honor or fame. I have shed blood, sweat and tears to liberate God from His sorrow and pain and to bring true peace to humanity. Why? Unless we liberate God from sorrow and pain on every level— from the individual and the family to the nation and the world—and thus make Him happy, true peace can never come to humankind. Because I thoroughly understand this point, I have been practicing this way of life. (198-163, 1990.02.01)
9 I have walked this path at the sacrifice of my family, my wife and my children. When I began this path, I never thought of first giving worldly blessings to my mother and father and my clan. The way of a patriot is to give his love and devotion to his nation before serving his own family. Such is the way of a patriot. The way of a world-level saint is to leave his own country behind, set out to love and serve the world, and teach the people of the world to love their own nations. The way of divine sons and daughters is to be born anew as princes and princesses of the heavenly kingdom and live by the divine law on earth. Then they will continue loving based on the divine law when they go to the heavenly kingdom in heaven. (172-334, 1988.01.31)
Loving your enemy
10 In my life I have had many experiences as a wayfarer. I wandered along many roads at sunset as the last light heralded nightfall. I still cannot forget the time I prayed, carrying my rucksack on my back, “I have continued on for Your sake. I left behind my wife and child. Yet I cannot do otherwise.” I was facing a fork in the road. I had to succeed in going the path of loyalty to God. I knew that if I failed, I would become nothing but an enemy. Therefore I prayed, resolving not to take time to love my own wife and child until I could welcome God to the earth. This is the bloody road I had to take in order to save this world. I knew that unless I made this resolution, I could not build a true world. You too need to make such a resolution. You are in a position to build this world with me, so you should not weep while holding on to your wife and children. Rather, you should shed tears while embracing the greater world that you are working to recover in the future. (18-164, 1967.06.04)
11 There were no shortcuts, there was no smooth path for this wayfarer with a rucksack on his back. Mine was a tiresome, difficult path as I searched while shedding blood and tears. My course as a wayfarer, as a youth seeking the path of Heaven, was like that of a hunted and hounded lamb. On that path the tears that fell from my eyes were not my tears; they were tears that God shed through me. (18-164, 1967.06.04)
12 The Bible warns us not to forsake our first love. My first love is for God, and to this day I have never forsaken Him, even while walking the way of suffering and adversity as I carried the responsibility for the providence of restoration. No matter what anyone said, and even though my life was tom to pieces thousands of times, I could not deny that love. God knows it. When I see God, I feel heartrending sorrow. When I think of God’s situation, sometimes I feel resentful toward the thirty million Korean people who are opposing God’s Will. But when I think of His suffering throughout the six thousand years of providential history, of His endless endurance as He leads the providence of restoration, I feel ashamed. This is why I too must endure. (17-033, 1966.11.06)
13 If God had cursed fallen human beings, their way for the future would have been blocked. But God did not do that, and hence the hope of salvation has remained throughout human history. I have inherited this tradition and this heart of love; therefore, I prayed for my enemies, even though they hounded me to the point of death. I filled their cups with God’s blessings. I am praying even now for God to bless them. This is my teaching as the teacher of the Unification Church. You who have been attending me for many years cannot deny it, because you witnessed it with your own eyes and experienced it as a fact. I am the one who carries God’s bitter sorrow deep in my heart. Yet I know that even if I could draw a sword and slash to pieces the heads and bodies of the thirty million people of this nation who behave like my enemies, it would still not dissolve God’s bitter sorrow. Instead, since I know that the way of love is to love them even more, I have to make known to them the love of God that I keep in my heart. (22-108, 1969.01.26)
14 I was whipped brutally while walking this path. Sometimes just thinking of what they did to me filled me with indignation. When I felt that way I just wanted to smash them all. But when I thought of God, I pitied my enemies. I knew that God still persisted in His affection for them and I resolved to love them more. When I thought of that, there was nothing I could do but try to comfort God. When I returned after being severely beaten, I busied myself with trying to comfort the broken heart of my Father, who shed bitter tears on receiving me, His son, in that condition. I have been busy on my path. I paid no heed when village dogs barked at me, or when a landslide nearly buried me. This has been my path as the teacher of the Unification Church. For decades of my life I devoted myself to this path. During the time of the Japanese occupation, even while I was busy with this work, I was persecuted and imprisoned. Wherever I went, I was harassed, hounded, rejected and cast into miserable circumstances. Still, I never reproached Satan; I only lamented that the environment was not yet prepared, and I continued my work. (18-254, 1967.06.11)
15 In the Bible we learn that Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. Unless you adopt this tradition, you cannot rally people around you. I have done that. Once, when I heard the news that my enemy’s children were going hungry, I sent them everything I had except my underwear and one of my blankets. For one week I lived with only one set of underwear and one blanket. Later I sold the only blanket I had left, for them. Why did I do it? It was not because I was a fool; it was because I had to set the condition of totally loving my enemy on the way of restoration. I did it because I had to practice the Bible’s words, “Love your enemy.” (23-320, 1969.06.08)
16 Because of whom does God support the Unification Church? I hope you are a person who can say, “It is because of me.” Please live in such a way that God can give you His help and support. You must become such people. This has been my secret and my philosophy of life. I am saying that you must be the people who leave God no choice but to help Korea because of you. You should become such leaders. The question is whether you can draw God to the Unification Church. Do not hate your enemy. Do not rejoice at your enemy’s ruin. If God were happy to see His enemy ruined, this world would no longer exist. When God cannot hate anyone, not even Satan, how can I? (17-343, 1967.05.10)
17 When you shed tears, lamenting sorrowfully that you could not love God enough, or you could not love the world enough, or you could not love your country enough, God will comfort you with tears, saying, “It’s alright. That day will come. Because you have such a sincere aspiration, I will bring it to pass.” I need you to become such people. Once you are able to live that way, then you can love your tribe, your family, and last of all yourself. This should have been people’s central mindset throughout God’s providential history. (22-149, 1969.02.02)
18 I came to know the story of God’s sorrowful history. I came to know of God’s heart when He sent Jesus to his tragic fate. So I thought about how I could offer myself for the sake of God's Will. While the entire Korean people ridiculed me and the world persecuted me, I loved my enemies more than anyone else in order to bring them back to God. I not only loved them, I even wished blessings on them. Then I thought about how I could leave in my will a request to my sons and daughters that they would bless my enemies and love them on my behalf. This has been my aspiration, and I have paved the way to bring it to pass. (22-131, 1969.02.02)
The practice of loving the people in the realm of Cain
19 My mother loved me dearly. She gave birth to thirteen children, eight of whom survived, two sons and six daughters. Among them, my mother loved me the most. But I never had a chance to show her my love. I did not even buy my mother so much as a handkerchief to express my devotion. This is because I had to follow God. I had to love the world more than my mother. Had 1 not, it would have been as if I were stealing God's love. I would have become a swindler. I have to love this world more than I love my mother, and more than I love my wife and children. Even if I was not able to personally love an enemy who shot arrows at me, I have to love that enemy’s children. Even though God cannot love the fallen archangel himself, He has to love his descendants and restore them. This has been God’s providence. Therefore you and I also have to love Satan’s sons and daughters. (25-224, 1969.10.04)
20 After endless, bitter suffering, I discovered all the secrets of the spirit world. This discovery was a precious treasure, of priceless value. Yet I could not share it with my parents, my brother or my sisters. Isn’t this tragic? When I left my mother by herself, I could not stop crying. I said in my heart, “Mother, I’m leaving home, and because of the way I must go, I may never see you again. Please forgive me.” After I departed like that, she came to see me in prison, weeping endless tears. But I could not offer words to comfort my own mother. Instead, I asked her to stop crying. I encouraged her, saying, “Accept that you are not the mother of an insignificant man. Please accept that you are the mother who gave birth to a great and true man.” This is my history. (22-125, 1969.02.02)
21 You must love the sons and daughters on Satan’s side before you love your own sons and daughters. Without making the condition of loving the children on Satan’s side, you should not love your own children. Because I faced that circumstance, I had to desert my child and cross the thirty-eighth parallel into North Korea. I had to make the condition of loving many people in an enemy country and then return. I could return only after I had gained that victory in the enemy country. (100-321, 1978.10.22)
22 Until I turned thirty I never bought clothes for myself. It was not that I had no money. It was that I was in charge of many members and I was unable to take care of their needs sufficiently. I wanted to look after those whom I considered my sons and daughters first, with all my devotion, before looking after myself. This is the teaching of the Way, and this is the heart of a parent. Since I had not reached the point where I could provide for my members’ needs, neither would I buy clothes for myself. Also, until I was thirty, I never went a day without feeling hungry. It was not because I lacked money. I had money, but I did not spend it for myself. Once I spent it on a man who was lying ill on the street and could not go home. I helped him, even carrying him on my back for a long distance. (34-349, 1970.09.20)
23 Whenever I saw people coming to the Unification Church in threadbare, patched clothing, I gave them money to buy clothes. But I never bought my mother or father a single set of clothes. Then how could I face my parents? Whenever I saw people pale from hunger, I could not eat the food that was in front of me. Even after they left they would come to my mind, and I could not eat. So whenever I had something good to eat, I saved it and gave it to the next hungry person I saw. I served everyone who came to see me with all my heart, even going to great lengths so that they would never forget. (22-172, 1969.02.02)
My prison life and the practice of truly loving others
24 I experienced life in the prison of all prisons. I have been imprisoned a number of times, but prison life never drove me to sorrow. I looked at prison as my best training ground. Could I truly love humanity? Could I truly love my enemy? Could I truly share my breath, nose to nose, with those who were sentenced to death? Thinking about such things, I considered prison to be a good environment for training myself. Also, it was where I reflected on whether I could really feel the bitter sorrow of my people and whether I had the passion to sharply criticize social injustice. Prison is where our church began. It was there that I had to find the way to overcome the environment and set up the standard of human dignity. There I had to be a champion of the standard of character that God envisaged for the person who would become His original embodiment. My guiding philosophy has been to secure this victory; this has been my lifelong pursuit. (26-017, 1969.10.14)
25 While in prison I was whipped, beaten, tortured and bloodied, yet I never resented those who beat me. The true God is the God who sacrificed His beloved son to save His enemies. Not only that, He gave away all His treasures to His enemy. That is the love of God. God’s way is to pray with tears for the one who holds the whip. This is why I did so, and still do to this day. (32-270, 1970.07.19)
26 I have experienced prison life many times since the age of twenty-four. I am a man who never surrendered to the authorities. Even under torture, even when my nose was broken and blood oozed from the wounds on my head, even when my neck was injured, I kept absolute faith and conviction in God. I held out against my torturers, thinking, “Go ahead and hit me. The bat will break, not my body. Go ahead and cut off my hands. No matter what cruel tortures you put me through, still I will not give in.” Countless such stories are embedded deep in the marrow of my bones. In these incomprehensible places, where no one can come up with answers as to why, I came to recognize that my Father’s tearful love was right there. And still I know that many thorny paths and deep valleys lie ahead of me, paths that others will not understand and which I must face alone. (025-120, 1969.09.30)
27 My parents came to visit me when I was in prison, but immediately I sent them home. I had to do that. I never accepted visits from my brother and my sisters. I sacrificed my brother and my sisters, my family and my relatives, in order to find new people. I have loved all of you more than I loved my own parents, brother, sisters and relatives. I have done so because God is like that. God sacrificed His own Son to save the world. God had to sacrifice the life of His only begotten Son. Hoping to save the whole world, He would do even that. I am following His example. (52-196, 1971.12.29)
28 In prison I met so many people who followed me. They received revelations from Heaven to follow me. But those who followed me before I went to prison dispersed. They doubted, “How can someone whom God loves so much end up in prison?” Jesus too lost his twelve disciples when he went to the cross. So I had to restore those twelve disciples in prison. In the prison cell were communist spies disguised as inmates, so I could not speak a word. But the spirit world testified and people followed me. When I was hungry, people brought me rice balls. It was because their ancestors appeared in their dreams and asked them to do so. (52-155, 1971.12.27)
29 You have no idea how relentlessly God put me through hard training. To me, God was not a loving God. Thinking of how He treated me makes me shudder. If I had the mind of a businessman, I would have run away long ago. I would have forgotten about the Will and run far, far away from God, with the fear that He would come after me. And yet, it was when I was suffering in prison that I felt God’s love the most. In that place I came to know, “Truly, truly, God loves me.” So I did not dislike going to prison. You Unification Church members need to suffer, even if it means going to a prison or a detention center. Where can you meet God? It is in the most serious and difficult place that you can meet God. (217-266, 1991.06.02)
Endless investment for the nation and the world
30 Many Korean patriots have shed tears for their people, but I do not know anyone who has shed more tears than I have. Even now, I cannot forget my prayer at two in the morning on April 1, 1941.1 was looking back at Korea from the boat on which I had just left the dock at Busan on the way to Japan, where I was to study. I promised Korea, “I am leaving you now, but when I return I will love you more than ever; I will shed more tears for you than ever.” In Japan, whenever I met Korean friends who were going hungry, I gave them whatever food I had, even though it left me with nothing. Whenever I met starving Korean students I embraced them in my arms and wept with them. When they had no food, I took off my school uniform and worked at the dock as a stevedore or worked carrying coal on my back to earn money for their food. Please understand how I fought to love my young comrades. Whoever met me came to think of me as their best friend. (22-123, 1969.02.02)
31 To this day, whom have I loved? Not my parents or my wife and children. I have loved the world and I have loved my country. In order to love the world and love my country, I also have to love my people and my tribe—the Unification Church members. To love the nation that God wants to love on earth, I have to love the tribe that God wants to love on earth and love the family that God wants to love on earth. I have shed so many tears of love for humankind. I am confident that God will recognize this publicly. I also have shed so many tears for this country. I have loved my people more than anyone else has, and I have loved my tribe more than anyone else has. (22-137, 1969.02.02)
32 This man with knowledge of the new truth was born in the impoverished country of Korea. Born in this war-torn land, I suffered beyond anyone’s imagination. I was scorned countless times, and I was hounded relentlessly. Yet despite all that, I have come this far. Do not ever think that I am sitting here comfortably on a wave of good luck. Please wake up! While you were enjoying yourself in comfort and humming along, I shed tears for the Will while standing under the eaves of some farmer’s house to get out of the rain. I wandered about the streets like a beggar in the sleet and cold. I am still fighting for my people and for the world. I tell you, when on a bus or on a streetcar you see some poor young person in dripping wet clothes, you should not mistreat him. Your teacher walked that road. (22-143, 1969.02.02)
33 I was not born into a lowly family. It was not my lot in life to suffer. But had I not chosen the path of suffering, I could not have opened the way of restoration. So I had to go this way. My heart was burning with ardor to love the Korean people and all humankind. I longed to move God’s heart to tears so that He could relate to this people and the world, and love them. Because I moved God to relate to this peninsula, this desolate land, I have no doubt that the day will come in the future when the whole world will welcome Korea as their homeland, centering on the teachings of Unificationism. (22-143, 1969.02.02)
34 I left my hometown, I left my country and I left my church in Korea, only to be persecuted, abused and pursued as I continued on my way, even to this hour. Yet even while we are pursued and hounded, we are growing. We are not people of despair; we are people of hope. We are people united in one love that cannot be severed by anything in the world; therefore no one can conquer us. Only love can bring the complete victory. Where there is love, there is eternal victory and the possibility to build the eternal kingdom of heaven. In the presence of love, everything is liberated. This is where I am heading. (48-014, 1971.08.31)
35 I have loved God, I have loved the world, and I have loved humankind. Right after the liberation of Korea from Japan, I loved even the enemies who had tried to have me executed as a criminal. I even sold my suit, even my undergarments, and gave the money to one of these men when his son was starving. Then I lived for two weeks with nothing. I could not even go outside because I had nothing proper to wear. I did not do this from a calculating motivation; I did it from my genuine heart. I never pray in tears for my own sons and daughters; instead I pray in tears for you. Were it not for this foundation of shedding tears for you, God would not have carried out His works to this day. (22-149, 1969.02.02)
36 My desire for you is that you love God first before you love me. I have been trying to teach Mother and my children that they should not love me unless they love God first. Hence, they should not be sad when I leave home to travel for tens of thousands of miles on a pilgrimage to love God. All of you must love God and humankind before loving me. I want you to practice the law of public righteousness and, wherever you go, stand on that authority. Without doing that, any promises you make are empty. Here heavenly law and the principle of human morality are the same. (22-147, 1969.02.02)
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