統一教-繼承神的真愛

Section 3. . Love, the Nutrient for Eternal Life

You shouldn’t forget that while you were a fetus, you did not just receive nutrients from your mother. You also received love. In a similar manner, people living on earth do not simply receive physical nutrients from the universe (nature).  They also receive love, an essential element of life, from God. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I -1066, 1984.4.24)

Plants absorb sunlight as an element of life, and in a similar way love is an element of life for people. Our earnest desire is for the Kingdom of Heaven on earth or the Kingdom of Heaven in heaven to be built as places where we can revere each other in love eternally. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I -1066, 1986.3.20)

The path that men and women walk exists because of love and for the sake of love. We each have a path to travel, and it is a path of love. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I -1066, 1984.4.24)

We go this way to obtain love, to protect love, and to form an environmental realm of love. When a woman puts on makeup or massages here skin, this also is because of love. When we want something, or when we work, this also is because of love. We endure hardship and move forward in order to obtain precious love. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I -1066, 1982.4.26)

From the moment we are born, we receive parental love. For as long as our parents are alive, they will love us at each stage of our lives, through childhood, young adulthood, and middle age. If we grow up receiving parental love, then eventually the horizontal love of husband and wife will take form within each of us. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I -1067, 1973.4.16)

What is marriage? It can be compared to a school that men and women enter, for the men to learn things they did not know about women and women to learn things they did not know about men. When all the grades are A plus, then the husband will be happy and the wife will be happy. You bear sons and daughters as ways to learn to love the world. Without them, you cannot be connected to the future. Your sons and daughters are given to you as educational materials so that you can be connected to the future world.

Acts of filial piety toward your ancestors, or your grandfather and grandmother, have the purpose of enabling you to be educated by spirit world. All these things are connected with love at the center. The grandfather and grandmother, husband and wife, and sons and daughters are all connected with love at the center.

Similar to blood vessels in the human body, our ancestors in the spirit world going back even to the ten thousandth generation are able to circulate up and down and communicate with their distant descendent. It is important to know that this is how the spirit world is structured, and that it is how the universe is structured. This will take dominion over everything. We can say that becoming a servant in true love and a slave in true love is the greatest happiness. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I -1067, 1985.10.4)

Section 4. What is God’s Love Like?

You should learn about God’s love. How can we characterize God’s love? It can be compared to an environment of a warm spring day. White clouds gently float in the sky, waves of warm air shimmers up from the ground, insects fly around, ants crawl in and out of their nest to see the world, willow blossoms are in bloom down by the stream, frogs sing new songs of spring, bees swarm and butterflies flutter. You feel intoxicated by these surroundings. You feel that you are about to doze off, but in reality you are awake and feeling so good that you want to remain in this state forever.

This is how God feels when He finds His ideal partner. It is as if He is in a beautiful flower garden, with butterflies and bees flying around. Does it make you feel good just to think of this, or does it make you feel bad? These dull-witted men over here may not understand this. It feels good. When you run into someone you are pleased to see, you hold his hand firmly and shake hands. When someone joyfully says, “Wow, it’s been a long time!” and holds your hand firmly, does it make you feel good or bad? If there is someone who says he feels bad, go ahead and kick him.

When you are glad to see someone, do you hold hands tightly or not? Do you like it when someone grasps your hand firmly? (Audience: “Yes, we do.”) You mean you want to like it. How can you say you like it? You have to know the person to like it. If you don’t know the person, how can you like it when he grabs your hand? If it is someone you like, then once you grasp each other’s hands, you cannot let go. What about these young ladies here. Think of how it will be when you are married and your husband loves you. Will you feel good, or bad?

It’s important for people to be straight forward. If your husband loves you, you will feel as though there is nothing in the world you would rather have. You want to just live your whole life staying by his side. It is nice to watch as a man with hands like the front hoof of a cow gently takes the hand of a woman.

Those are the kind of movies that are nice to watch. If the woman were to say to the man, “Oh, you have such pretty hands,” the man would be offended. This is how it is.

Love is eternal. Love is not two; it is one. You become as one. When a man and a woman become a couple and love each other, they are bonded together. Of course this does not happen literally, but in heart they reach a level even higher than this. That is God’s love. If you live with such love, will you become one or not? Think about it. You are destined to become one. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I -1068, 1970.12.22)

When a man and a woman fall in love, all sorts of strange things happen, don’t they? But if you find a way to know God’s love and really taste it, then you will see that His love cannot be compared to anything in this world. If a person has tasted this love, no amount of difficulty or sorrow can defeat him. Such a realm of absolute liberation should exist, should it not? The question is how to find it. (39-240, 1971.1.15)

God’s love can largely be divided into three major forms. These are parental love, conjugal love, and children’s love. The center where these three forms converge into one is God’s love. (173-278, 1975.11.23)

Section 5. God’s Blessing to Inherit Love and Joy

A glorious new morning will dawn when God assumes a physical body. Even more glorious will be the moment that he has a person (husband and wife) whom He can love. Still more glorious will be the moment He can love His grandchildren. The moment he can love His grandchildren will be more glorious than when He can love His son and daughter.

How do you think God let Adam know about how happy He felt at the moment He created him? God had to teach Adam, saying, “Here. This is how happy I was.” We learn about God’s happiness when we have our own sons and daughters. When children are young, they can’t comprehend parental love, but they come to understand it later when they form their own families and have their own baby. Then they say, “So this is how my parents loved me when they were raising me.” So the day when your child takes a spouse is a day of glory, and the day your child has a child of his own or her own is a day of glory. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 936, 1978.1.22)

You need to know God’s love. You need to have experienced parental love and be able to serve your parents. You need to have experienced conjugal love with your spouse and learn how to serve him or her. You need to have experienced the love your children and know how to serve them. Don’t just order them around, but learn how to understand and serve them as well. Only then can you understand God’s love. Without children, you are in an incomplete state. You cannot understand God’s love.

You have no idea how much God loved human beings, His children. Also, without the experience of being a husband, you cannot know what it is like to have a wife, and without the experience of being a wife, you cannot know what it is like to have a husband. Children do not know what parents’ love is like until they themselves become parents. So without sons and daughters, you cannot become true parents. (133-138, 1984.7.10)

Parents want their children to be married, because they want to pass on to them and teach them all their parental love. When parents die, they leave behind their substantial selves with their descendants. This is why we need descendants.

Love continues forever. Since love is the highest human desire, everyone has their arms outstretched in a desire to inherit it. When parents pass on their love to their descendants, they can stand proudly before God when they are in the spirit world.

It is through the family that such love can be completed. Going to the heavenly kingdom through the family means that the realm of oneness of love has been realized. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 937, 1978.9.21)

People must follow rules and principles. When spring comes, seeds are sown; in summer, plants develop fully; and in autumn, they bear fruit. In winter, you should put things in order and carry the essence of this new seed of life deep within your heart. Only then will you have seeds to plant again when spring returns.

This means that in the future you should be parents and bear sons and daughters like yourselves. It means that you should raise your sons and daughters to be like you. (26-158, 1969.10.25)

Why do people feel sad when they do not have sons and daughters? It is because they cannot form a circle. When you see birds feeding their young, you can recognize the deep love of the mother bird. Western people may not know this, but in the Orient, people like children more than adults. People show polite respect to adults, but they show the utmost love for children. You can realize how much your parents loved you when you have your own sons and daughters and raise them.

Everyone should get married, have children and raise them. This is the only way they can know both children’s love and parental love. It seems that western people are not like this. There are many who avoid having and raising sons and daughters. They hesitate to have children, because children may limit their freedom to marry and divorce. But when people fail to establish the four-position foundation, they cannot go to the Kingdom of Heaven, because they do not know God’s heart of love for human beings. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 937, 1982.4.26)

Section 6. Living in Search of the Center of Love

We are born in love, are raised in parental love, and mature as we broaden our love horizontally. The fist stage of horizontal love is completed when we meet a partner of the opposite sex and grow together to a point where we can represent the love of heaven and earth and bear children as the fruits of that love. Children are born from the heart’s core as a result of love.

A child born from a man and woman who share love based on heart creates a path for the parents to the central point of love. If you go through this center and follow the path, you will meet God. By having children as fruits of love, human beings come to deeply experience the love by which God created all things and human beings. When parents love their children with the love in which they themselves were born and received as they grew up, they come to have a deep understanding of the parental heart. The love that parents pour out to their children is not a materialistic love but an intrinsic love.

Though everything else in heaven earth may change and the eras of history may change, the love that parents give their children will never change. By becoming parents and loving our children, we come to understand much more deeply how God has loved human beings. We can confirm this through our experiences. By becoming parents and loving our children, we can feel how much our parents loved us and come to a realization about this.

This is why we revere our parents even more in their old age and fulfill the duties of filial piety with love. If you are not able to do this, you are unqualified to be parents and your love towards your children can only be considered hypocritical.

Human beings need to feel and realize how much God has loved us by becoming parents ourselves and loving our children. This will let us love God with even greater sincerity. A person should love their aged parents more than they love their children, and love God more than they love their parents, knowing that this is the order and law of love.

When human beings are born, we are born in love. After birth, we receive love and grow through our childhood years. Once we grow to a certain level, our parents’ love alone is not enough for us, and we begin to expand our love horizontally to include love among siblings and love within the clan.

In other words, we mature as we receive all the love that exists in heaven and earth. In particular, as we enter the years of adolescence, we begin to crave for the love of the opposite sex. It is by giving and receiving love with the opposite sex that we are able to enter a realm of love that is comprehensive, and, for the first time, become able to set out in search of the center of love. Because heaven and earth have a spherical shape, it is when we begin to rotate by giving and receiving horizontal love that we are able to form a circular shape on an initial level.

When we choose a member of the opposite sex as a partner and begin to give and receive love, this interaction bears fruit and we come to have children. Then, as we give and receive love with our children, we fulfill vertical love in addition to horizontal love. This creates a spherical shape and, at the same time, enables us to establish the center of love.

The center of love that emerges through this movement of love is also the core of existence for the entire world of creation. The earth exists, because it continues to engage in motion around a center of love. The center of love is a place where there is an unlimited amount of force enabling this movement to continue. The center that appears through the sphere of love in this manner is also the place where God dwells.

So all created beings existing in the world are given birth and exist by virtue of God’s love, and seek the center of God’s love. God is a furnace of love. (126-245, 1983.4.24)

Section 7. The Three Eras of the Human Course

Human beings are born after a time spent in our mother’s womb. We live on earth for a certain time, and then die. Prior to birth, the fetus spends about ten months in the mother’s womb. While it is in the womb, the fetus has limited freedom. It develops by receiving nutrients from the mother through the umbilical cord. About all it can do is straighten and bend its fingers, open and close its mouth, and wriggle its feet.

Nevertheless, for the fetus, the mother’s womb is a world of freedom, and it represents the entirety of the realm of life. After ten months, the fetus is born into the world and begins to grow. This world is the earthly world of the present where we live. It is human society. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I  - 1071, 1983.4.24)

Why are people born? We are born for the sake of love. This is the reason that a child, firmly rooted in parental love, will develop in the mother’s womb, the bosom of the parents’ protection and love. After birth, the child won’t know any better and so may wet the bed, but the parents love will not blame them for this. Their love is such that they do not recognize ugliness as being ugly. Their love lets them digest everything in joy. When a child reaches maturity, at around twenty years of age, he or she should meet an eternal partner in love, and be engrafted onto a love of living for the sake of each other according to the principle of Heaven.

As we follow this life course, we need to experience the greatness of God’s love, so that the substantial realm of God’s love for an object partner can be completed. So we, as parents, need to have children and give our love to them. (143-285, 1986.3.20)

Human beings born into the world are living lives that can be compared to the life of a fetus in the mother’s womb. We are living in the womb of our mother universe for about a hundred years. Just as the fetus is ignorant of the world outside the womb, people living in the earthly world today are ignorant of the reality of the incorporeal world that comes after death.

They only have a vague sense that a world after death probably exists, similar to the way they did not know about the human world while in the mother’s womb. What is clear, however, is that the spirit world exists in reality, regardless of our beliefs or feelings about it. Because the world after death cannot be perceived by our five physical senses, we must overcome our disbelief through religious faith. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 1071, 1983.4.24)

There are three eras to our life course as human beings. The animal world also has the water era, land era, and the air era. Everything must go through these three eras. For human beings to stand as the lords of creation and be qualified to have dominion over all things, we must also have a water era and exist in a more complete form than any other being. After that, we must have a land era and prove ourselves superior to any animal. Then we must also have an air era.

Human beings, however, have no wings. How can we fly without wings? We should be able to fly higher and farther than any bird or insect. Then what should we do? This cannot happen as long as we are in a physical body. No matter how high we may try to jump, it’s no use.

Because human beings are the lords of creation, and because God is a spiritual being, we need to have the same stage of operation as God if we are to stand in a realm of dominion and in a reciprocal position to Him.

Today, people speak of the speed of electricity or light, and the speed of light is 300,000 km a second. Human beings, though, are capable of an interaction that is even faster. This is none other than the spirit self. (112-202, 1981.4.12)

We live in this world, but it is not everything. There is the spirit world. Then what is the place we are to go to and live in? It is the spirit world. This is an eternal world filled with the air of love. Your physical lives are a time of preparation to enter the eternal world of spirit. (140-121, 1986.2.9)

Section 8. Training to be in Rhythm with the Spirit World

I have a depth of spiritual experience. The spirit world is a place enveloped in the elements of love. On the earth, we breathe air, but in the spirit world, people live by inhaling love. The love you give and receive in the spirit world is not secular human love. It is true love. (145-267, 1986.5.15)

When you go to the spirit world, this is what you will find. Those who are well-endowed with love for their parents, brothers and sisters, spouse, and children – that is, those who have experienced deep love in their family life – will enjoy great freedom.

They can go anywhere without restriction. On the other hand, those who have not experienced love are narrow-minded, and even in spirit world they find themselves isolated and with no freedom whatsoever.

The love between parent and child is a vertical relationship, the love between husband and wife is a horizontal relationship, and the love among siblings is a relationship that circles and surrounds. These three relationships differ from one another. Therefore, only when you experience deep love through these three mutually distinct interactions on earth can you circulate freely, vertically, horizontally, and in a circle.

For example, a person who has not tasted parental love, because the parents died early, is in a rather tragic position, because he is missing an important experience of love. Likewise, those who have not experienced the conjugal love relationship of husband and wife, as well as love in the family, become poor people in the spirit world, because they lack a crucial experience of life. Those who have no brothers and sisters will also be in a poor position in the spirit world, because they lack this experience. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 1067, 1977.1.1)

Why do you need to get married? We marry so that we can experience parental love, conjugal love, and children’s love. Then why are these necessary? Spirit world is filled with the air of such love. You need to have a family to train yourself to be in rhythm with the spirit world. Those who go to the spirit world without these experiences of love cannot follow the rhythm there. It will be as if they were without a nose to breath in this air of love. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I -1067, 1977.4.3)

You are born from your father and mother. On a more fundamental level, God gave birth to you by means of your father and your mother’s womb. You come to find the True Parent by going through the universe as your parent and through your physical parents. Your physical parents are temporary, so the moment of your death is a jubilant time when you go to meet the True Parent.

In that place, there is the true love of the True Parent. We call this the Kingdom of Heaven in heaven. It is composed of love, and it is filled with parental love. This is not a love for one’s self; rather, it is a love that connects to a rule of being one-directional under the principles of service and sacrifice. To make the grade here, you must love the universe and love humanity. Life on earth is the training ground for you to develop such love. (105-108, 1979.9.30)

Do you know how important your life on earth is? You only live it once. It is a short moment that only comes once. When compared to eternal life, the earthly life is but a point. It is too short a moment. However, it is at this moment that we must go beyond our physical lives and prepare ourselves for the spirit world. (207-99, 1990.11.1)

Chapter Three

The Original Vision for Love Between Men and Women

Section 1. Bringing Joy to God and All Creation

Though a man and woman may be in love, it needs to be asked whether their love is in accord with God’s will and the standard He requires of human beings. Is their love in accord with the model of love that is in the mind of God? If the first man and woman had become as one in a love that had God at the center, then this would have become the model for love in the universe. God must have desired such love from human beings. Likewise, the man and woman must have wanted this kind of love from each other. Such true love would have to be the core of the universe. It would become the standard against which all others would be compared. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 335, 1983.6.5)

In their essence, God’s love and human love are the same. Love is a force that strives to become as one. Why do a man and a woman long for each other? It is because God can be possessed by the man only through the woman, and by the woman only through the man. This is because God dwells in the place where a man and a woman become as one in love. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 336, 1982.4.26)

Considering that God is the source of dual characteristics, we should give even greater praise to the noble value of God whenever we praise the dignity and value of men and women. (25-277, 1969.10.5)

When a woman loved by God is in a man’s heart and a man loved by God is in the heart of the woman who is his object partner – and the two praise God together – God will rejoice to see this, and all of creation will rejoice. The embrace between these two people will become the value that makes heaven and earth rejoice.

When man and woman embrace each other in mutual affection, this in itself becomes the position where the universe becomes as one body. This is the original vision of God’s creation that would unfold in the context of His ideal. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 334, 1969.2.4)

Originally, a man should meet a woman with whom he can rejoice, and a woman also should meet a man with whom she can rejoice. Even more, it should be an encounter that brings joy to God and all things of creation.

Then, all creation will be mobilized for this couple and want to receive their dominion. Birds will sing for them and butterflies will flutter and dance with joy. God will rejoice, people will rejoice, all of creation will rejoice. Had the first human ancestors started history by establishing such a position, the world would be the ideal world of the original vision. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 336, 1969.2.4)

Section 2. Why Men and Women Are Born

What is the original purpose of a man’s birth? We cannot deny that he is born for the sake of a woman. Likewise, a woman is not born for her own sake. We should know that a problem will arise if a woman cannot come to a clear realization within herself that she is born for the sake of a man.

God, the great administrator of heaven and earth, established this principle as a principle of creation, and we cannot enter the world of goodness, truth, happiness, and peace or the world of love and ideal unless we follow this principle. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 338, 1975.1.16)

A woman is born to meet a man, and a man is born to meet a woman. Isn’t that right? This is the highest truth. Therefore, we seek the realm of blessing by following this principle. Deviating from this highest realm of truth constitutes the highest evil. (21-201, 1968.11.20)

Men and women are physically opposite. Whereas women are one-directional, men are three-directional or four-directional. Women are more likely to enjoy staying at home, and men are more likely to enjoy traveling the world.

The characters of men and women are opposite. Then what can be at the center to bring the more subject-like man and more partner-like woman into oneness? They become one when love is at the center. Love also brings human beings and God into oneness. (38-255, 1971.1.8)

Why is man born? He is not born for the sake of academic pursuits, money, or political power. He is born for the sake of woman. Man is born for the sake of woman. Men have larger physiques, not so they can earn a living only for themselves, but so that they can earn a living for their children and wives.

Man’s sexual organ and woman’s sexual organ are different. For whom do they exist? They did not come into existence for their own sake. Man’s sexual organ came into existence for the sake of woman. Likewise, woman’s sexual organ is for the sake of man. Have you ever thought this way? This is not something to laugh about and then forget. (143-275, 1986.3.20)

What is the symbol of the love between man and woman? Where is the ultimate destination of love? It is the sexual organ which makes them as one body. The sexual organ becomes a channel through which the mind and body can completely merge with love at the center. That which man has is not his, and that which woman has is not hers. Man has what belongs to woman, and woman has what belongs to man. Men and women are not born for their own sake. They should know clearly that they are born for the sake of their partner. (132-146, 1984.5.31)

Why are men and women born on earth? They are born in order to love each other. Since God is the great king of wisdom, He switched the ownership of their love organs. A man has a sexual organ, but that does not mean that he is its owner. The same is true for woman. Those who have acted carelessly with no regard for their sexual organ’s ownership will have to be judged for having violated love. If men know that they will be punished under the most fearful law, would they dare think of other women instead of their own wives? Conversely, can wives think of other men instead of their own husbands? (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I -340, 1986.3.14)

Section 3. Men and Women Absolutely Need Each Other

Love is something you absolutely need, isn’t it? Human beings, a man and a woman, are an absolutely necessary element for love. Man needs woman and woman needs man.

How much do they need each other? They need each other more than they need Korea, more than they need the world, and even more than they need God. If there were no women, the entire human race would perish in less than a hundred years. No matter how much man boasts of unifying the world, all would be gone within one hundred years if there were no women. So women are absolutely necessary. (25-180, 1969.10.4)

When we say “human beings,” we refer to man and woman. When we consider a particular man, we see he has to be with a woman, and when we consider a woman, she has to be with a man. Man is not born through his own desire, nor is woman who is absolutely needed by the man born through her own desire. After we are born we discover we are either a man or a woman. (67-267, 1973.7.22)

When you were born as a man, were you aware that there are women in the world? If a man were born and found out that there are only men, would he not feel bad? And if a woman were born and found out that there are only women, she would feel bad, wouldn’t she? So when a woman is born, is she born with or without the knowledge that there are men? Although I was born without this knowledge, the one who gave birth to me knew it. The reason a person is born as a woman is that there is a man who needs her.

Likewise, the reason I am born as a man like this is that there is a woman who needs me. We are all born like this, with God’s knowledge. (37-19, 1970.12.22)

Man absolutely needs woman. Man absolutely needs God, but before he needs God he needs a partner called woman. Human history has been miserable because men have failed to correctly understand the absolute need for women. Conversely, women have not understood that they absolutely need men.

Tasting true love requires a realm of ideal, and for this man needs woman and woman needs man. You should know that an absolute man and absolute woman pursuing true love are joined through their efforts of becoming one in heart. When such a man and woman are joined as one, God dwells in their midst.

God does not like to see a couple joined by true love separate; so the love of an absolute man and woman is eternal. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 340, 1986.8.20)

God is omniscient and omnipotent, but even the Absolute Being has no meaning when He is alone. Similarly, no matter how handsome and healthy a man may be, these things have no meaning if he is without a woman. A man living in fascination with his own good looks and health leads an ugly existence and has no value. The problem is that there are many men in the world who have sunk into such narcissism, and this is one reason why history has moved toward tragedy. It is important to understand that God’s providence works to change and improve the world immersed in such self-centeredness. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I -341, 1986.8.20)

Section 4. Love Comes from Your Partner

Love cannot be realized by oneself. Where does love come from? Love does not come from me but from my spouse. Since love comes from my spouse, I must bow my head and serve her. This is where the heavenly principle of living for the sake of others originates. We must practice the philosophy which teaches that when something highly noble comes to me, I must honor and serve it in order to receive it. (143-277, 1986.3.30)

Human beings have love. However, when we are alone, love cannot manifest itself. Love does not appear when man is alone, but only when woman is there as his object partner in love. Only when an object partner in love appears, does love finally spring forth. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 342, 1982.10.29)

We say that parental love is good and conjugal love is good, because genuine love is not something self-centered. Love does not start from me; it starts from my partner. It is important for you to know this. Love comes from your husband and from your wife, and from your sons and daughters and from your brothers and sisters. Love does not start from your own self but from your spouse. Therefore, who is the owner of love? Your spouse is the owner of love. (34-331, 1970.9.20)

Where did we say love comes from? It comes from your partner. If your partner is homely or ugly, love recedes; if your partner is pretty and lovely, love advances more quickly. The way love functions is determined according to your partner’s attributes: her speech, her beauty, her scent, and her taste. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 343, 1982.10.29)

Where is the base of love? The base of love is not me. The word love must be used in reciprocal terms. No matter how handsome a man may be, he cannot love if he loses his partner and is alone.

The base of love is not me. “Love comes from me” are words that Satan has been exploiting. I am not the base of love. You may think that you are the base of love, but there will be no progress in the future unless such a mindset is totally dismantled and transformed.

Until now, wives have put themselves at the center, and husbands have put themselves at the center, with both wanting to be served. This has been destroying relationships. Since the basis of love does not come from me, but from my spouse, then if I am to possess that love, I must sacrifice myself for its sake.

Love always demands sacrifice. Also, love requires that we overcome. From this perspective, this is the only place in all heaven and earth where we can find the content to overcome the satanic world. God is holding tightly onto love, because it can be found only in accordance with the principle of love that places God at the center. The word “compassion” (jabi) cannot be expressed in the absence of love. The word “benevolence” (in) also cannot stand on its own. The words “jabi” and “in” are all used only in reciprocal terms. (46-35, 1971.7.18)

Section 5. Men and Women Harmonize in Love

Man symbolizes heaven and woman, earth. Therefore, the two must unite and realize harmony. Men and women are different. Men’s muscles are rugged and women’s are smooth. Men have beards while women do not. Their voices are also different. If we compare men and women, we see their contrasting features fit together well. Harmony unfolds between them. When we look at the physical structure of human beings, their left and right sides form a correlative pair. These two halves are bound tightly together.

Ladies and gentlemen, do you like things that are only high or only low? You like things that create harmony. Judging from the line formed by the horizon, fish live below this line, and mammals, birds, and other creatures live above it. Women menstruate once a month, like tidal variations based on the moon. Breathing is similar. A man and a woman need to establish a line of balance and create harmony.

The reason people like to go to Disneyland, with its rides that go up and down, is that this is similar to the way the universe is. Which do you think will be more pleasing, men socializing only with other men, or men and women socializing together? Men and women together is better, because this reflects the harmony of the universe. We should live in step with the beat of the universe, the universe that promotes harmony through the harmony of yin and yang. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 344, 1984.5.31)

When man and woman create a harmony of love, they initiate circular movement. When a man and woman become one body in love and bear the fruits of love, God comes down and they go up and they meet in the middle.

God becomes the center of this sphere, and spherical movement begins. From this central point, connections can be established in any direction. The center of the sphere is the place where harmony of love is realized. It is the place where life emerges and moves, and it is the starting point of human equality and communal philosophy. This is so because the power of love is there. So the force that embraces all interactions of the universe is love. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 345, 1982.4.26)

For human beings love is eternal. It is never two, but always one. Once a man and a woman are joined in love, they are to live together for a lifetime and then eternally even after death. They are two bodies, but by revolving in oneness with each other, they become as one body.

When the two bodies become one, they revolve with God to form a four-position foundation of love. This is the ideal world of love. Only true love dwells there; false love cannot invade. When man and woman are blessed by God and achieve the position of perfection, God is able to come to them at any time.

When they form a four-position foundation of love, they will come to love each other’s heart through each other’s body, and when they come to love the heart their body will follow. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 346, 1984.1.1)

Section 6. Enraptured by True Love

What is the most sacred thing in the world? It is true love. True love begins with God. If God exists, there can be no other path. God truly desires the path of true love, and without traversing the path of true love, we cannot go before God. It is important to understand this point.

God wants to see, hear, eat, and touch through love. As for human beings, if we were to receive God’s kiss of love, our joy would be so great that we would feel as though we might explode from the inside. This is where God’s desire lies. Having diamonds or jewelry would not give him joy. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 381, 1986.8.20)

The human body has five senses, and every human being feels and confirms true love through the sensations of the five senses. If the eyes are directed toward true love, they will be colored by true love and intoxicated in it.

How beautifully those colorful, intoxicated eyes will shine! Think about how enchanting the smiling lips of a person immersed in true love will be. Try to imagine the intense beauty of the five senses moving in intoxication with true love and the harmony of the five senses moving toward God.

Alone, God cannot experience the joy of such beauty. He can experience such beauty only when He has a partner, and this was the purpose for God to create human beings.

How would God feel as He observed a beautiful man and woman absorbed into one another through eyes intoxicated in true love, or kissing with lips intoxicated in true love, and playing the melody of a heart of true love? If there is an Eve of true love, God would want to traverse her world of heart completely.

God would feel an impulse to find out for Himself just how far and how deep the world of heart of this beautiful Eve extended. God would want to traverse both Adam’s and Eve’s world of heart, a world more beautiful than the heaven and earth that He Himself created. It is certain that God would want to travel the world of the heart of a person of true love even more than he would want to travel the universe. God would feel that He would never want to leave Adam’s and Eve’s world of heart and true love.

If, after God created human beings, He fell into their true love and became lost in that love, what kind of world would we have? God would dwell in the midst of human beings, and the world formed by God and human beings in oneness certainly would be a world filled with joy and beauty. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 382, 1986.8.20)

If true love had been perfected, the God of responsiveness would have no regrets at being totally absorbed by true love. God’s nature is such that He would be completely happy with anything that happened within the realm of true love. If human beings were to live in this world of true love, they would live their entire lives happy and free from regret. Moreover, this would be a world without a history of warfare and free of complaint and misfortune. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 383, 1986.8.20)

Section 7. Love Happens in Completely Natural Settings

This is a story from my childhood. One day, I caught a pair of birds and tried to make them kiss each other’s beaks. To see them kiss, I put them in a cage, fed them, and watched them. I did it out of a child’s desire to see them love each other and sing happily together.

This was an experiment, out of curiosity, to understand the principles of nature. I continued this experiment, which I now understand to have been quite naughty.

It was only much later that I came to the realization that love happens in natural settings. Sincere love is realized naturally, in a most natural setting. It was only as a result of a long series of experiments that I came to a correct understanding about love. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 353, 1986.1.3)

When someone has lost the value of love, what good would it do for this person to receive a university education? Such persons will only accumulate knowledge, become individualistic, and come to worship materialism. Just as Korean bean soup tastes right only when it is served in an earthenware bowl, so character training can reach its purpose only when it is based on love.

The flower of world civilization should blossom on the basis of artistic harmony. In this sense, roasted ribs should be served on a platter and Korean bean paste soup should be served in an earthenware bowl to bring out the proper taste of each dish. Once you grow accustomed to the rough, deep, and refreshing taste of Korean bean paste soup, you will never forget it no matter where you may go.

Likewise, once people have become used to the earthy, deep, relaxing taste of love, they will not change. Just as we easily tire of instant foods that are usually heavily sweetened, if we could obtain love easily and anywhere, like we can instant food, we could not call it true love. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 354, 1986.1.3)

There are people everywhere today whose love is like instant food. This is the problem. Love does not deepen because you bathe in a fragrant bath. I would say that the love of a couple living in the remotest countryside that wash themselves in cold water before going to bed is purer, longer lasting, and ever deepening.

A couple that has to brush their teeth before kissing is not experiencing natural love. The toothpaste smell will prevent them from tasting the unique smell of the other. When I look at people who brush their teeth before kissing, I don’t know whether they are trying to taste love or taste toothpaste. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 354, 1986.1.3)

When you meet with someone you like and love, you want to embrace and kiss that person. This is a natural instinct between the sexes. The reason we have a relationship with our environment is so that we can feel affection toward the universe. It is natural for us to do this, as a part of our search for a partner.

When all people related to each other within the ideal of partnership – with each man relating to one woman and each woman relating to one man – there will be no acts or incidents that violate the order of love. The order of true love emerges only when man and woman meet on the basis of the ideal of partnership. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 355, 1981.1.13)