Where is the School of Love?

Why is it that something as love which is vital to human life as breathing, the ability to give and receive does not come to us naturally?

Rather, true love must be taught, learned and practiced. Humans spend many years as immature, dependent children who have to learn how to act in the world and then provide for themselves.

Schools, teachers, masters of trades and parents teach them skills, but there is no formal school or system that teach people how to love and be loved.

Left without instruction on the proper way to love centered on God, people are left floundering, having to learn about love through painful trial and error.

We have witnessed science and the arts flourish rapidly throughout the centuries, yet our wisdom about love and relationships grows slowly at best and unevenly.

Pitirim Sorokin, a sociologist at Harvard, expressed his chagrin at “our enormous ignorance of love’s properties, of the efficient way of its production, accumulation, and distribution.”

We are living the era to remedy all the love ails by studying about and educating for true love.

Even though to love and be loved properly is one of life's most daunting challenges =, it is essential more than any other aspect of life people work hard to achieve.

Psychiatrists have been visited by high-powered professional people who break down in their offices because they are at a complete loss when it comes to their most important personal relationships. 

Despite all of their qualifications and accomplishments politicians, business executives and celebrities find that their wealth, power and talent fail when they are faced with the demands of love.

Therefore, to study the true way of life begins with a life lived in true love. Only after people are well-versed in the nature and practices of true love will they find a path to follow that will satisfy the human longing for true love.

The most precious philosophy is to live for the sake of others.

—Sun Myung Moon

For people to live in love, they need to understand it.

It is utterly difficult to define love.

The ancient Greeks divided love into different categories, describing features of each.

For example, 'eros' was an impassioned romantic attraction; 'eunoia' stood for general benevolence or good will; 'xenlike' represented kindness to the guest or stranger; and 'agape' love which defined as an unselfish affection for others. 

Agape love became a keystone of Christianity. It is recognized by all the faiths of the world. Buddhism calls agape love 'compassion', Hinduism and 'human-hearedness' or jen in Confucian thought.

Additionally, there are all kinds of love found within the family:

There is devotion of parents toward their children, the children's affection which is reciprocated. Siblings care about one another in a unique special way, and there is the love between spouses which is a world in itself.

Grandparents have a profound regard for their grandchildren.

All these types of love have their distinct features.

There should be an all-around definition for love that encompasses all types of loves and form.

Reverend Moon states that true love is to live for the sake of other people. Within this definition, love that is not true is weeded out. Love that is deceptive and lead people to despair rather than joy are left out when defining what true love is.

True love is other-centered.

Why was humanity necessary?

We were created to completely fulfill His love. Love is the reason that humanity are the supreme creation.

True love only happens in relationship to others. Even God required an 'other' in order to fulfill His love.

God created humanity as His love partners who will share in the glory of His creation.

Even though God is almighty, He needed an object, someone to share in the creation with. God also needs a relationship in order to experience love fully.

If God is so, so must be His creatures.

As author Sherwood Anderson said, “Two oddly sensitive human atoms” find one another, cling together and think, “Here is this other.”

A love that satisfies is only possible when in the presence of another person. The Bible emphasizes the love others in the presence of others. The Old Testament testifies to the greatest commandments which were to love God and love one's neighbor as one loves themselves.

Jesus echoed this truth by telling his followers to not come to the altar of God if they quarrel with their brother in their heart. They had to set things right between their 'brother' before approaching God.

Jesus later pronounced that God only forgives those who forgives others.

Jesus told his people that when two or more were gathered in his name he would be present. He was implying the need for believers to seek communion not only with God, but with one another as well.

Loving others is always in couplet with loving God well.

The prophet Muhammad stated that on the day of judgment, God the most high will say, “Son of Adam, I was sick and you did not visit Me.” 

The son replied how could he visit the Lord when he was the Lord of the Universe. God replied, “Did you not know that My servant such and such was ill and yet you did not visit him? Did you not know that if you had visited him you would have found Me with him?”

Russian thinker Vladimir Solovyov said that love “forces us with all our being to acknowledge for another the same absolute central significance which, because of the power of our egoism, we are conscious of only in our selves . . . shifting the very center of our personal lives.”

Reverend Moon refers this shifting of center from self to others as a 'revolution'. He holds that such a revolution toward true love is necessary for happiness and peace in the world.

Modern culture says that love is a spontaneous feeling within a person's heart toward one another when in fact, ethics figure prominently in successful and loving relationships.

Upon further examination, it is shown that ethics enable true love and love that is based on feelings alone is dangerous.

If a man feels that he has truly fallen in love with another woman, he will leave his wife and children for her. He will leave emotional devastation in his wake in the pursuit of false feelings.

A teacher may feel that they are romantically attracted to a young student and end up causing psychological damage to the student for life when they approach them sexually.

Psychologist M. Scott Peck points out, “Many, many people possessing a feeling of love and even acting in response to that feeling act in all manner of unloving and destructive ways.”

In order to benefit the other, true love adheres to ethical principles.

Even though a truly loving person does not feel benevolent feelings toward another person, he will behave benevolently to someone based upon principles.

Such a person will be kind to a spouse even when the other is being surly because the person believes in kindness even when the other is not evoking such feelings.

Such a person believes in preserving and protecting marriage itself.

A person who helps a homeless man on the street is a person who believes in treating one's fellow human beings with compassion even if society does not see such a person as reputable.

To love a person who has harmed others means having a belief that all people can be redeemed, including the reprobate.

Return for Tomorrow’s Post: True Love is ...




This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook, Educating for True Love, Chapter 1 written by a team of writers to explaining Dr. Rev. Sun Myung Moon's thoughts on morality, society and Family.