Wisdom of True Love
Excerpts from the speeches of Rev. Sun Myung Moon
The invisible love is the greatest among all kinds of love. It would be no fun at all if love were visible. Since love is invisible, it can be the highest, widest, and deepest. Some say love is like the Rocky Mountains or like the Niagara Falls. Those are correct similes. The invisible God is precious because invisible love is precious. It is true that we have to enter the state of the complete absence of ego in order to find God. God lives deeply and quietly in the invisible world rather than in the visible world where we live.
I became aware of what true love and happiness are through nature. It was from the natural world that I could learn the most basic things, more than from education in school. When the seasons changed and I saw a beautiful bird flying, I followed the bird and watched to see how it built its nest and lived. There were times when I walked around for more than ten days to see a bird lay eggs and hatch them. I became deeply convinced of God's mystery and love by looking at the cute and beautiful birds... Birds are made to be hatched through the warmth of their parent's body and their parental love. I once picked up a baby bird and decided to raise it sincerely. Although I took the baby bird secretly, the mother bird cried whenever she saw me. I understood that it was crying, pleading to have her baby back. Mother's love in the bird's world is also very strong. When someone comes and tries to take away the baby bird, the parents try to protect it, even risking their own lives.
When we reach adolescence, our mind and body start searching for love. We walk around without even listening to the words of our parents. The eyes of the mind and the eyes of the body unite into one and move around. If we have a nose of love, we may come to like the smell which we usually dislike. We want to listen to love stories all night long. Once you touch your object of love, you don't want to stop. Therefore, if you are invaded by the feeling of love during your adolescence, your eyes turn strange and everything seems wonderful to you. When your mind and body unite and you fire a love gun, the bullet would be shot right into your partner's heart. Those of you who wish to have this kind of man's love or woman's love, please raise your hand. There is nothing love cannot digest. Love can eat and digest everything. If you have true love, no matter how ugly a man is, he will look handsome to you. Love is incredible. Therefore, whether good or bad, men and women can never forget the first love they experienced during their adolescence.
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The perfection of man and woman's love is the perfection of the universe. When this love is broken, the order of the universe and the vertical world are destroyed.
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Intense first love, done in a rightful and honorable way, comes together and creates a beautiful and powerful spark. The love of God will spark with that love and it becomes the best, most extraordinary spark in Heaven. The impact of that spark is so strong that it flattens you to the ground. Yet still you feel joyful, even knocked to the ground, because of the impact of love.
The first spark of true love is so important and it should not be misused. Once that intense first spark of true love is misused, it is very difficult to completely unwind that mistake. Each person has the duty to preserve his pure first love until the time when it can spark for the sake of the universe and for God. Therefore, you should not behave in a casual way toward your love. True love is noble and sacred; it is not vulgar or dirty, although the sacredness of love can be defiled if it is misused.
When is a person in full bloom? It is during young adulthood. This age is the seven-year period from the age of eighteen to twenty-five. This period of seven years is the time when the flower of love blossoms the most. How precious is this once-in-a-lifetime period when one is fully blooming! You all know the peony (magnolia), don't you? The bud of this flower has a different-colored yellow flower inside. How many layers of petals does it have? The petals are all tightly wound together on the flower. Can you push them open? They are tightly coiled so that it cannot be easily opened up. Men and women are similar to this. When is your bud of love going to blossom? That time is when beauty is manifested to the greatest degree.
You should not ruin your purity during your adolescence, which is the precious time when you cleanse and indemnify the purity lost by Adam and Eve during their youth. You should preserve your purity, precious and clean, and you should have the mind and the determination that "even if I have to live a thousand or ten thousand years alone, my love will absolutely never be misused."
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Even to the most beautiful girl, adolescence only comes once. During that time, she is the most beautiful flower of all, and it is the most precious time for her in her entire lifetime. So would a girl think, "I want to live alone"? Such a person is not a woman. Does such an animal exist? Also, among men who look very good at the age around sixteen, would any of them say he wants to live alone? At this time they all start to look for a reciprocal partner. Whom do they resemble that makes them this way? They are this way because they resemble God. If God is not like this, how can His children be like this? It is because God is like that. During adolescence, which is the most precious time in one's life, the desire to seek a partner is the same in man and woman. Is it so, or not? If you think it's not, go ahead and age and die alone. Try saying to a beautiful woman, "Beautiful women are said to be unfortunate. A beautiful person like you should age and die alone." Even a quiet beautiful woman would really get mad. Nothing worse can be said to a person. This beautiful woman will have value only when there is a man who appreciates her completely and connects her to heavenly love.
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In giving of the love of God to other people, you are sharing your love with them. Then your love, rather than being diminished, will be multiplied. You will be proud of what you have given. Only by giving can we receive. So we want to give of our whole being. We want to give of our family, our clan, our nation, and our whole world to God. In return He will fill our hearts with such love that we can embrace the whole world and the whole cosmos.
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Respect all things as holy things. Respect all men as holy men. Respect yourself as a holy person. Respect your mind as holy. Respect your body as holy. Pay deep respect to all people, no matter what kind of person they may be.
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When we think that the people who have divorced or are willing to divorce are all people who once were in a love relationship of life and death, we must say that something has gone wrong. There may be many reasons to get divorced, but in general it means that something changed, that something became different between the two. This is because they could not keep and grow their love. Love itself does not change; it is the person's mind that changes.
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We first get married thinking that the man is handsome. But one week later, if an accident happens and the husband's body is paralyzed, it is not true love to call for a divorce. That is false love.
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True love is absolute, unchanging, and eternal.
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You will be in trouble if you try to rush the experience of love. The feeling of being intoxicated by love and becoming happy is like a preview of what is to come when the time is right for the gate of love to open... The gate should proudly open when you have become the master of love.
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Achieving the highest ideal of human love is possible only when one takes responsibility for love. We can think of this responsibility in three ways. The first responsibility is for one to become the master of true love, truly free and thanking God for the freedom of love and knowing how to cultivate and control oneself. This responsibility for a love relationship should not be taken merely because of law or social convention. Instead, a person should establish responsibility through his own self-control within the life-committing vertical relationship with God.
Second is one's responsibility toward the object of love. By nature, people do not want their spouse's love to be shared with others. Horizontal conjugal love, which differs from the vertical love between parents and children, loses its potential for perfection the moment it is divided. This is because the principle of creation requires husband and wife to become one in absolute love. Each spouse has the responsibility given by love to live absolutely for the sake of the other.
The third responsibility of love is toward children. The love of parents is the basis for children's pride and happiness. They would wish to be born through the total and harmonious unity of their parents in true love, and they would wish to be raised in that kind of love. The most precious responsibility of parents is not only to rear their children externally, but also to offer them life elements of true love that can perfect their spirituality. That is why the family is so valuable.
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Recently, we see people here and there making love as if they were making instant food. This is a problem. This is like trying to deepen love by taking a perfume bath. I would say that love is deepened, purified, and lasts longer when a couple living in the countryside take a cold bath and sleep together.
When we look at recent generations, we can say that calculating, artificial and deceitful love is so widespread that it confuses our concept of what human happiness is. We can say that this kind of love is the main criminal leading this world to destruction.
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Marriage can be said to be a ceremony which allows you to open the door of a palace of happiness and enter into it. Therefore, marriage is the biggest event for humankind. Love transcends time and space and it is the greatest thing for humankind. Marriage is a ceremony that reveals and confirms this greatest love.
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Achieving the highest ideal of human love is possible.
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If there were no marriage, then what is called love would not have started in the human world. Who is the master of that love? We must know that the master is not man or woman, but God. When God's love is manifested in us, it becomes God's joy and pride, and we are able to feel this as God's love. Love cannot be realized alone; it is only realized through a reciprocal relationship. Therefore, when man tries to realize love, he cannot do it by himself alone. The same can be said about woman. When Adam and Eve unite through love, they are able to receive God's love for the first time. From this viewpoint, we can understand that we human beings are born from God.
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