Lack of Love Cause of Society's Problems

Sometimes, years down the line in a marriage, a spouse will wonder with pain where the love they imagined for themselves has gone.  To them, it seemed there was more affection at the beginning of their marriage and they lost it as the relationship progressed. People boil this down to the honeymoon stage is over.

The fond feelings have been replaced with something that resembles contempt.  Children and teenagers witness this loss of love in their parents' marriage and react.
Disillusioned by their parents' failing love, they seek love among their peers and mostly in a destructive way such as sex outside of marriage which their parents disapprove.  When people look back on their family relationships, they can only see guilt and regrets.

Lack of love robs us of community among our neighbors and frustrates our desire for peace in the world.
For instance, when we do not exhibit love, when we see our neighbor's children not deserving the love and attention we give our own children, we will not intervene in their mischief to avoid  offending their parents. If we want to begin to resolve conflicts that lead to war, terrorism, oppression of minorities and the poor, and ethnic violence, we have to sacrifice for true love.

How many individuals possess such a love in this day where they would put their lives on the line to stand against the hatred?  Saints and pioneers of the past have suffered greatly for the whole, but in our modern time it is a rare find an individual who suffers greatly for the whole.Somehow, the pipeline of true love has been broken. Love is thus the core of human striving and the raison d’etre of the created world.

No matter how deep the hurt, how intractable the trauma, no matter how profound the alienation or how deep the sin, love can seep in and penetrate like cleansing warm waters to ease the pain, salve the wound, and restore wholeness.

No matter how deep the hurt, how intractable the trauma, no matter how profound the alienation or how deep the sin, love can seep in and penetrate like cleansing warm waters to ease the pain, salve the wound, and restore wholeness.

Love makes life on earth worthwhile, and it presages life in the next world as well.

Everybody, even those who deny it, yearn for love and yet, it eludes us.  We seek it through love stories, relationships and everyday life.
The Centrality of Love
That “mysterious identity” is true love and God is love.
Psychologist M. Scott Peck said that issues of love were at the bottom of all the problems his patients struggled with. He asserted, “The essential ingredient of successful, deep and meaningful psychotherapy is love.”

Dr. Karl Menninger, a towering presence in medicine, observed, “Love cures people—both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.” Health experts are finding that feeling loved is far more predictive of long life and good health than even such important factors as diet, exercise, and abstinence from smoking.
When a parent must discipline and educate their children of the way of the world, it is impossible and not effective unless one gives priority to the questions of love.  When one sees the value in relation to love in every aspect of life, we can tackle and address any issue in life.

Teilhard described love as a force, mysterious yet binding, even on the molecular level. Within each entity in nature, from the most sophisticated and complex to the simplest, he found an observable attraction to other entities. Teilhard said, “Driven by the forces of love, the fragments of the world seek each other.”He saw the entire universe as bound together, molecule by molecule, by the force of love: “We do not get what we call matter as a result of the simple aggregation and juxtaposition of atoms. For that, a mysterious identity must absorb and cement them.”

Many religions and cultural traditions call the beginning of this broken pipeline "the fall of man".  It is the beginning of evil and sin flooding the gates of a once world of paradise where according to many traditions, man walked in oneness with God's heart. Many religions and cultural traditions call the beginning of this broken pipeline "the fall of man".

It is the beginning of evil and sin flooding the gates of a once world of paradise where according to many traditions, man walked in oneness with God's heart. Still, we have not exactly been able to pinpoint the true beginning of the problem in order to bring about a true solution to lead us toward peace.  There is not enough love in the world, and where it exists, it is rarely true love that is connected to God.  There are two kinds of love, false love connected to the fall and true love connected to God.

Love is a healer. 
Philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote, “In the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined.”

When  we do find love, we find out that it is rarely true.  When we see this absence of true love in life, we can identify it as the root problem that colors human life with its dark and ambiguous hues.
If we were to define love, it is living for the sake of the other, which requires one to let go of ego and to sacrifice for the other.

For example, let's look at the relationships within a family.  It is very hard to give and to continue to give to one another and forget what we have given.

When we do not have love for one another, it is hard to back down from blaming others, arguing, become power hungry or refrain from sowing seeds of resentment within each other.

This can be quickly remedied by looking at another's point of view, to listen and really understand their opinions and different interpretations on subjects.  This is almost impossible to do without love being present.
When we look at the national level, patriotism is beautiful, but this level of love for nation falls short of what we need in order to acquire peace.  In a way, nationalism is a form of self-love even though it is on a larger scale.  This can take a monstrous turn.

Paul Tillich called it “a god who certainly proves to be a demon.”

Just take a look at North Korea, the last frontier of communism that wants to exalt its power and beliefs onto the world.  Rarely will you see a nation that is capable of unselfish love that would b able to create lasting world peace on its own.

No matter how rich, successful or aloof a person is, we all desire for true love which dominates all human life.

Philosopher Erich Fromm noted that love “is the most powerful striving in man. It is the most fundamental passion, it is the force which keeps the human race together, the clan, the family, society.
The failure to achieve it means insanity or destruction—self-destruction or the destruction of others. Without love, humanity could not exist for a day.”

Even our very cells which flow through our body unceasingly responds to love, yearns for love and drives to seek for love.  Our face was meant to communicate with others in love.  The face is meaningless in isolation away from love.

From the arched eyebrows that rise in conveyed interest, to lips capable of smiles and words of affection, the old song rings true: “You were meant for love.” As Benjamin Disraeli observed, “We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end.”



We all yearn for unity with another and others.  This yearning for oneness in love is a glue that binds the universe together, thus, without love there is no existence.

When we search for the understanding of the principles that delineate a true way of life, there is no better way than to study the principles of true love.

When we catch on to true love, we feel that we can give all, risk all, love all for the sake of true love.  It is what motivates a mother to run barefoot over glass to save her child.  It moves an older student  to confess to a teacher, "It is my fault," and to take a punishment that his younger brother may have incurred.
It was the motivator for Jesus to stand against his accusers, to love them after their beatings and taunts and to take the unjust way of the cross.
Love is a sustainer. As Viktor Frankl recounted of his life in a Nazi concentration camp:

I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way—an honorable way—in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.

“Death, where is thy sting?” Romeo inquired when he realized that his love for Juliet went beyond her demise.
“Death, be not proud,” penned poet John Donne, for love lasts beyond death. Many widows and widowers continue to love, talk to, and pray for their deceased partners, cherishing hopes of meeting again on the other side.  The ultimate experience is that of divine love.

“Man is meant to be intoxicated by the love of God,” Reverend Moon has declared.

“Since humanity lost this original capacity, people seek unnatural, artificial intoxication—getting drunk on alcohol, marijuana, or other drugs. The perfect individual, however, is created to be intoxicated in God’s love. There is nothing that can go beyond this feeling of joy. Every cell in your body will explode with joy. Your eyes and ears, the tissues in your face, your arms and legs—everything will be newly alive in a rapture of joy.”

To paraphrase Saint Paul, no power, no principality, not even the gates of hell, can prevail against it. Inevitably, then, our search for the true way of life will take love as its major theme.

True love alone has the power to breach distances, resolve problems of opposites, and dissolving the complexities into an integrated whole. All of this only comes through true love and that alone.
>Return for Tomorrow's Post: Make New Relationship With God 

This post was rewritten and derived from the Textbook: Educating for True Love

Liberation of the World's Women

What kind of woman was God's ideal before the fall?

Eve tempted Adam who still enjoyed God's direct dominion out of fear and wanting to be closer to God through Adam.  Ever since, our first ancestors fell away from God's commandment and law, women have been cursed away from their original position.

Afterward, God said that woman would be under the rule of her husband and he was to rule over her as a master.  If this is the curse given after Eve's disobedience, what is God's original ideal for women in this context?


All Creation Exists in Pairs

Everything that exist has a partner.  The pair system is very important.  If we find ourselves in the upper position, we must think about the lower position.  If we are on the right side, we must consider the left side.  We consider the other side because we want to harmonize.  This concept is a must: whatever position you have, you must keep the other in mind.

Everything in creation lives for the sake of the other.  When you say up, you must first recognize down, before you recognize up.  When you say right, first recognize left then recognize right.  Even when in circular motion, one moves for the sake of the other.  The person that is down lives for the person that is up.  Without this you do not have motion.

When an individual does not keep the other person in mind, this is the beginning of destruction.

"Everything we see, including motion, is the expression of the desire to serve the other. So the more we move, the greater we serve. Here we see the principle of God's creation."

Satan's way is opposite of the true way.  He says, "Live for the sake of me".  Who are women born for.  Are they born for the sake of themselves?  No.  This cannot be.  When we mention 'women' we automatically think of a man.  Women are born absolutely for man.  And men absolutely need women.  This principle does not only work for men and women, but everything in all of creation works this way.  Because of this principle, we see that the universe was able to develop.

What if a grandfather in a family starts to say to his relative, "Live for the sake of me"?  Harmony would not be possible only destruction and separation.  Instead, when we live for the sake of the other, the more we move forward, the greater the other becomes.

In a situation, if the object and the subject each demand they be treated best by the other, they will fight constantly and begin to decline.  This situation is turned around when they say, "I should live more for the sake of the other" and the greater the good will come to the whole.  If each says, "I will live more for the sake of the other", this creates a circular motion and they will rotate faster and grow.  Is this true or not?


Consider America

When we consider today's situation of America with its deep roots built upon sacrifice of the people and a Christian foundation, we see now that it has become a country of individualism.  Yet, the citizens do not think twice about the country's position and think is fine.  But, this defies the principle, the law of the universe which spits at America. 

The law proclaims that those who say, "You live for me", will perish.  Those who live for others are protected. This fate and outcome is connected to the cosmos and is eternal.  When the universe sees one living for the other, it is good.

When your mind and body is centered and united on God's will and live for the other, this is good.  This base will grow larger and larger connecting to the universe. 

How does one connect mind and body?

The first principle is to deny oneself and get rid of ego. The rule of living for the sake of the other is cardinal and when it is practiced, you will feel good and universal fate will support you.

When you roll like this, you are dancing.

But look at dancers today: are they dancing for the other or are they trying to pull others to themselves? If someone drinks a lot of wine in order to give money to another, that is good, but there is no such drunkard. They all drink for themselves. If there was a drunkard who drank to give money to others, there would be lines of people following him.

The situation of individualism, living for oneself, is the worst disease and is America's unfortunate reality. 

Women reading this, do you consider man's appearance or his mind to be more important?  Even the most handsomest man who is empty will be rejected over a man of heart.  The man's mind and soul is important.  Can we see the mind?  How do we distinguish if someones mind is good or evil? 

We can see if the mind is living for the sake of the other.  One who lives and sacrifices for another is a good man.  Don't you think if you find such a man and marry him that both of your future will be good? 

The true champion of the world's women would want to live for the sake of the world.  This woman would not have to make up her face.  No one can deny that living for the world and others is the best policy.

What constitutes a truthful woman?  When a man loves a woman with intensity and the woman tries to return this love, this is a truthful woman and vice versa.  What happens in a relationship where the two partners cannot out do each other when loving the other?  True love will grow.  There is an infinite potential which breeds infinite prosperity.

America's way of living is to sue the company if they work for less, but this is not God's way or how He thinks.  If you are willing to work for your company for less, you will become the head. 

What if God decided to sue humanity for not paying him?  The whole human race would be wiped out. 


True prosperity

Everyone in the world wishes for a peaceful planet.  This will not happen without this principle stated above.  Everyone wants to be the center and the top of the world.  When the one appears who is the representative from the level of the individual to that of the universe, then the universe will be saved.

Why? Because God exists and God is like that.

Even if that is only invisible or a dream and only exists in the mind, it will come about, because God will create it for us. How wonderful.

The awesome conclusion is that each person wants to become the best. To do that, each must think, "I represent the entire world and live for the sake of the world." If you think that, then you think that you represent the past, present and future. Such a man loves woman the best, and can come to the conclusion that there is no woman who does not love him.

All women will want to marry that man.

In order for you to have that kind of husband, you must be that kind of woman.  In that way you can be the best. When you learn about this, you say to God, "I will do not only that but better." If you are anxious to do better than God, you can climb on top of God's head and God will say, "That feels good."


Return for Tomorrow's Post: First Man and Woman's Mistake Was Love

This text was rewritten and taken from one of Reverend Sun Myung Moon's speeches which is based on his book: The Divine Principle.

World Problems Began w/ Families

If a wife, as she lives supporting her husband, gains deep insights into the truth, and is continuously moved and inspired by his life and character, this is an occurrence which should be revealed to the world.

Why?

Because the fundamental reason for this world becoming an evil world full of rampant sexual freedoms, criminal activity, conflicts and corruption is the breakdown and disharmony in the basic relationship between husband, wife which is then multiplied through the children.

At present, there are almost 7 billion people living on the earth, but if we look at it in another way, only two people are living here. We could say that a man and a woman, a husband and a wife, only two people, are living on earth. Countless numbers of people are living together and there are all kinds of relationships and problems, but at the core of all of those problems are the problems and relationships between two people, a man and a woman.

When we look at things in this light, it becomes important for us to investigate the way of heaven that man and woman were to go when God created the first ancestors. In Genesis, it is recorded that after God had created the heavens and the earth, He created the ancestors of humankind: a man, Adam, and a woman, Eve. This happened at the same time that He endowed them the three great blessings, and He gave them a portion of responsibility.

The three great blessings were: "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing...." But to the man and woman He also gave the responsibility: ". . . but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. . ." This teaches us the purpose for which God created the universe and humanity, and also shows us the basis for life.


The blessing to be fruitful means that all people born on the earth must grow to be people of perfected character. The second blessing of life, to multiply, means that, as a man and a woman with a perfected character, they must establish the bond of perfected husband and perfected wife, give birth to True children, and raise them. This means that we have not inherited truly the first blessing.

What happened instead was that humanity began from two people who were not perfected, and multiplied their mistake in the Garden through the production of children who are born with a spirit that is immature.  This is exampled through all humanity being born in sin.  Sin was spread through an illicit relationship outside of the realm of God, and between one man, and one woman.

This is the beginning of humanity's misery, thus multiplied through their children, Cain and Abel through the first physical murder on earth.


God's Purpose of Creating Humanity

God's purpose of creation is, as a husband and wife fulfilling their duty as father and mother leading a family, they should construct a far more comfortable, prosperous world and establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

This purpose of creation was to be realized if the first ancestors had obeyed God's commandment, ". . . but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat...." But before the first ancestors, Adam and Eve, were perfect, while they were still immature, they did not keep God's commandment; because of Satan, they fell, and all humanity became the recipients of an evil blood lineage.

Due to the Immoral Fall of the Original Human Ancestors, Humankind Has Lost the Purpose of Creation

Ladies! What is the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that God told the original ancestors, Adam and Eve, not to eat? It is not the real fruit of a forest tree. It is a way of expressing the husband and wife love relationship that the first ancestors were to have in the future after their maturity.

Due to the temptation of a third being, while still in an imperfect state, the first man and woman entered into an immoral sexual relationship. Actually, in the Garden of Eden, the third party besides Adam and Eve was the archangel. In the Bible, it is revealed that Lucifer was the archangel who tempted Eve and committed an immoral sexual sin. This was the fall of man, the original sin which planted the root of sin in the world.

Man committed the sexual sin before his Father God, the Lord and Master of heaven and earth, and the first ancestors had children out of this immoral love; and the world of evil was realized. In other words, they married centered on Satan and by planting false love, false life and a false lineage they became ancestors of evil.

As human society expanded from the individual, family, tribe, race, and nation to the world level, due to this immoral relationship between man and woman, the root of the evil blood lineage was established everywhere, at all times, and this world became hell on earth: it became a false world filled with sin, war and fear. The fallen ancestors, Adam and Eve, should have established the position of True Parents as the eternal good ancestors of humanity, but they fell to become false parents leaving a blood lineage of evil.

This is the first cause of all the tragedy and misery of humankind. What could be more tragic or cause greater indignation than becoming the descendants of false parents and all humankind losing their True Parents?

And how great must be the suffering and sorrow of God, the Father of humanity, whose purpose of creation, to establish the true ancestors of humankind and to multiply people of goodness, was stolen by the blood lineage of sin through the immoral fall of the first human ancestors. Just as the cause of a disease must be discovered and treated in order to save a person suffering from it, in order to liberate human society from the suffering of such sin and misery, the fundamental cause of this sin and misery must be revealed and corrected.

The fundamental cause is the fall of the human ancestors, the original sin. Accordingly, unless the cause of the disease called original sin is eliminated, we cannot pull up the root of misery and sin from the world. No matter how many great men, heroes, scholars, politicians or philosophers appear and try to straighten out the world through the reform of the laws and systems or through the education of moral principles, unless the original sin and the content of the fall is clarified, it will be impossible. All remedies will prove useless. That is because the original root of sin and misery is still alive, and it will continue to sprout buds.

The Role of Religion:
The Salvation of Humankind from Evil

Religion teaches the fact that man fell, it reveals the contents of the fall, and directly and indirectly shows God's providence through which He seeks to save man completely from sin. Therefore all religions are the most active prescriptions for saving the sinful world. Religion is the foundation of all education or teachings.

The teachings of the four great saints Confucius, Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad and the teachings of the founders of other religions transcended their ages and locations, and have preserved the conscience and morals of humanity.  They have been the generative powers of cultural development. Accordingly, all religions seeking to liquidate the world of evil and to establish the ideal world which God and people desire are co-workers and collaborators.

Among them, the scriptures through which God most directly revealed His providence of salvation is the Bible. Through the Bible we can know that the ancestors of humanity, Adam and Eve, committed the original sin and became false parents, and that God's work in the providence of salvation is to restore the lost purpose of creation.

The main point of the message of the Bible is that in order to give rebirth to all, the Messiah or the True Parents must come in place of Adam and Eve who became false parents. Adam should have become the true father, and Eve should have become the true mother; that was the purpose of the original creation. In order to restore the purpose of creation back to its original state, God cannot help but carry out the providence for the recreation of Adam.

That is the main point of the providence of preparing the chosen nation of Israel and having Jesus born there. From the time Adam and Eve fell and humanity multiplied with its blood lineage centered on Satan, God immediately began working to separate the blood lineages of goodness and evil. From Adam's family, God separated the second son, Abel, who was in a position to relate to God, and the first son, Cain, was in a position to relate to Satan. God sought to restore the order of the creation to its original state by having Cain yield to Abel of his own accord. Just as Lucifer the servant was to yield to Adam even though he was the eldest before them. 

Instead, Lucifer reversed dominion and dominated Adam and Eve, and Cain repeated this mistake through the murder of his younger brother.

Through Cain's murder of Abel, the history of struggle to separate good and evil was extended all the way to the time of the Second Advent.

Finally, we must endeavor to learn and practice the duty of the True Parents, the true spouse and the true child. Through the organization of the Family Federation for World Peace, we must make sure that immorality and corruption will not be able to set foot anywhere in this world. In this way, humankind must cleanse the evil blood lineage and suffering which was caused by the original sin of fornication committed in the Garden of Eden. This has lasted until this era, and humanity must quickly prepare to meet the new world.

Until now everyone has been helpless to stop the wantonness and immorality which has been destroying humankind. But now a new truth which can completely solve these problems has appeared in Korea in the very age in which we are living. The truth which was revealed by the True Parents will be the light which will bring about the unification of North and South Korea, and build a world of peace and happiness.

Let us learn this new truth given through the Divine Principle and rise up and become women soldiers who will end this world of sin, which has caused us to suffer since the beginning of history. Let us build a unified world overflowing with freedom, peace and happiness. Let us go the way of the True Mother. Let us go the way of the true wife. Let us go the way of the true daughter.


Tomorrow's Post: Love Your Enemy = Nation Loving Nation