true love

We Can Experience that Everyone Is Our Brother or Sister

What is the Most Important Problem Facing Society?

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1899

The last fish that I caught was fifteen pounds and thirty inches. It was the biggest among all the salmon we have caught until now. We hung it up, displaying it as the finale. It was so strong that we should have scooped it up using a net. Yet, it was hard to see the fish, due to the faint light of the setting sun. But the fish was brave. It could have escaped from the net, since two-thirds of its body was inside, with its head hanging out-side. If you do something wrong at this moment, the net can be torn. (205-322, 1990.10.1)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1241

The literal meaning of the word “blessing” is “praying for blessings.” If you break down the word chookbok(blessing), chook means to pray or wish for something. When you are praying for blessings, what is it that is most precious? It is none other than the blessing of love. The Unification Church uses the word blessing with this meaning. The blessing of love is the greatest, because the fundamental origin of life begins with man and woman coming together in a holy wedding. It represents the most precious commitment of the universe. When praying for blessing, the best blessing you can ask for is the blessing of love, and so the Unification Church refers to marriage as the Blessing.

Richard: Learn more about the Blessing.

Universal Love

True love is universal. It has no Limits. When we are immersed in the love of God, we can experience that everyone is our brother or sister. Here is a major distinction between absolute, true love and the relative love of fallen people: true love is impartial and universal, while fallen love is partial to kith and kin, to friends and compatriots. In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “an individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”
Yet is love for humanity enough? Not if we mean only a general sentiment that can be satisfied by acts of charity and political efforts to benefit the downtrodden. The real stage of love is actual relationships. How can we love strangers and people of faraway nations with the same intensity and concreteness as we love members of our own family? Here scripture speaks of extending to strangers the way we treat members of our own family. Father Moon is very clear on this score. To demonstrate universal love that transcends race, he recommends that we give one of our children in marriage to someone of another race. By digesting every difficulty in relating to our in-laws, we become people whose love truly goes beyond the racial barrier.

1. A Heart to Love All People

May good befall all,
May there be peace for all,
May all be fit for perfection, and
May all experience that which is auspicious.
Om, May all be happy.
May all be healthy.
May we all experience what is good and let no
one suffer.
Om, Peace, Peace, Peace!
The Universal Prayer (Hinduism)

He lets his mind pervade one quarter of the world with thoughts of love, and so the second, and so the third, and so the fourth. And thus the whole wide world, above, below, around, and everywhere, does he continue to pervade with the heart of love, far-reaching, exalted, beyond measure. Just as a mighty trumpeter makes himself heard—and that without difficulty—in all the four directions; even so of all things that have the shape of life there is not one that he passes by or leaves aside, but regards them all with mind set free, and deep-felt love. Verily this is the way to a state of union with Brahma.

Digha Nikaya 13.76-77, Tevigga Sutta (Buddhism)

A man once asked the Prophet what was the best thing in Islam. He replied, “It is to feed the hungry and to give the greeting of peace both to those one knows and to those one does not know.”

Hadith of Bukhari (Islam)

Of the adage, Only a good man knows how to like people, knows how to dislike them, Confucius said, “He whose heart is in the smallest degree set upon Goodness will dislike no one.”

Analects 4.3-4 (Confucianism)

The sage has no fixed [personal] ideas.
He regards the people’s ideas as his own.
I treat those who are good with goodness,
And I also treat those who are not good with goodness.
Thus goodness is attained.
I am honest with those who are honest,
And I am also honest with those who are dishonest.
Thus honesty is attained.
Tao Te Ching 49 (Taoism)

True Freedom in Love Requires Human Responsibility

The recordings of the Dividing Line; Ending the Culture that Causes Sexual Abuse workshop are now available.

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1847

There are many vast lakes in the world. In Alaska alone there are three million lakes more than twenty thousand pyung in area. If fish could be raised within such an area of twenty thousand pyung, it would support two hundred or even three hundred households. So, how many could be fed if there are three million lakes? If each lake is twenty thousand pyung, six hundred million people can be supported. Two times three is six – so six hundred million. That is why if we can make fish farms in lakes in Africa, it would provide a food supply for 650 million people. Then the food shortage would be relieved. Fish is much better for your health than beef or any other meat from land animals. Fish is easily digested and absorbed. Therefore, a time will come when people will not eat meat or beef, even if they are told to do so. (271-39, 1995.8.15)

Richard: A very important issue is solving the problem of hunger (starvation) throughout the world. This topic is close to Rev. Moon’s heart, and it should be something that we are working toward solving.

8500 children die every day from malnutrition worldwide. 165 million children experience stunting (below normal height for age) from malnutrition each year, which contributes to one half of these deaths. These deaths are entirely preventable.

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1188

As viewed from God’s original ideal of creation, the eldest son should come from God’s side and, of course, the second son should also come from God’s side. Due to the Fall, the position of the first son was taken by Satan, and the position of the second son went to God. This has to be made right. Thus, when we consider the story of Esau and Jacob in the Bible, Jacob united with his mother and received her help. He gave Esau the pottage of lentils and bread in exchange for the birthright of the first-born son. Until today, we could not understand why Bible history is the way it is. With the appearance of the Unification Church, its meaning was clarified for the first time. (134-304, 1985.8.16)

4. True Love Begins from Faith and Character

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

People seek love with each other—horizontal love, while God’s love is vertical love. If love is to be perfect, the horizontal and the vertical lines must be connected. (238:140, November 22, 1992)

A Man Is Born for the Sake of a Woman, and a Woman is Born for the Sake of a Man

The recordings of the Dividing Line; Ending the Culture that Causes Sexual Abuse workshop are now available.

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1676

How old is the planet earth in this solar system? It has been revolving for billions of years, and yet has it ever been off-course by the merest trifle? It is right on course day after day. In the same way, all creation follows its rhythm. Would the building of nests be the same for American sparrows and Korean sparrows, or would they be different? Answer me: same or different? They would be the same. In terms of evolutionary theory, the nest building of sparrows should develop with time, shouldn’t it? If so, then how is it that they have been building their nests in the same way for thousands and tens of thousands of years? How do they know about building their nests? The swallows build their nests in their own way, as do the sparrows and the orioles. In the latter case, they build their nests on trees. (179-246, 1988.8.12)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1503

Heaven must be established from the family. Since Jesus couldn’t form a family, he could not enter heaven, but instead is in paradise. Paradise is like the waiting room you have to pass through before entering heaven. Hell came into existence because of the Fall. God did not create it from the beginning. (21-199, 1968.11.20)

True Love

3. Love’s Circular Motion

Love works in a circle, for the beloved moves the lover by stamping a likeness, and the lover then goes out to hold the beloved in reality. Who first was the beginning now becomes the end of motion.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica4 (Christianity)

Love Cannot Be True Love if It Is Only for Me

The recordings of the Dividing Line; Ending the Culture that Causes Sexual Abuse workshop are now available.

Cheon Seong Gyeong 588

Do you wish to receive good fortune? Do you wish to live eternally? To do so, you must become public people. In educating your children, don’t love them only as your own. Become parents who love their children as offerings for the sake of the people of the world. When holding your babies to your breasts and nursing them, think of yourselves and your babies as representatives of the entire human race on earth. Nurse your babies with such a heart. Instead of caring only for your children and their appearance, cherish other people’s children with a loving heart as if they were yours. Babies who are suckled by such mothers will certainly grow up to become great people. Such results may not surface right away, but after the first and second generations among your descendants there will be born great figures who can rule the world. This is the formula. (31-167, 1970.5.24)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1187

The Ceremony of the Settlement of the Eight Stages signifies that the historical course of vertical indemnity and the course of horizontal indemnity that went through the stages of individual, family, people, nation, and the world. That is the vertical and horizontal courses consisting of eight stages are completed. Due to this, the right of eldest son has been restored, and the course of indemnity for all humanity is abolished. That is what I have done by holding this ceremony. The right of the eldest son is restored; the Parents are embracing all humankind. Thus, an end is brought to the history of war and struggle that was necessary in order for the right of the eldest son to be restored in the realm of parental love. The time has come when indemnity is not needed and we can reach harmony in love. In order to achieve this, I had to hold the Ceremony of the Settlement of the Eight Stages. By holding this ceremony, the Parents forgave both the elder and the younger son, so that next we can enter the age of the realm of forgiveness for the fallen parents. (193-173, 1989.10.3)

True Love

2. Compassion and Benevolence

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

True Love Gives, Forgets that it Has Given and Continues to Give

The recordings of the Dividing Line; Ending the Culture that Causes Sexual Abuse workshop are now available.

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2112

If you go forward with strong conviction, your ancestors will put pressure on your mother or any of your relatives to stop them from opposing you. It is like telling them, “Listen to me!” Why is this so? The original tribal foundation within the realm of goodness can be connected to the True Parents on the national level, and this, in turn, can be connected to the global level in which Satan has been pushed out. As a result, Satan and the fallen evil spirits have begun to retreat and your ancestors in the archangelic spirit world can now help you. (184-91, 1988.12.20)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1188

True Love

1. The Nature of True Love

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon