Advantages of Marriage

A man and woman will learn from each other through their union things about themselves, humanity and our Creator that can not be known in any other way.


“Man is born to meet woman and woman is born to meet man.  And man and woman together are born to combine with a higher level of love, God’s love. Neither man nor woman can touch God’s higher love by themselves.”

This means that when a man weds, his woman is a kind of savior in countless ways.  Just as a husband is like her personal messiah.  This is the where the foundation for spouses to have inexpressible gratitude for one another.

Oneness between a man and a woman is relative.  First, they have the deal with the inherited legacy of conflict between men and women.  Then there is the inherent contradiction between partner's words and their actual deeds that makes true love itself a great struggle.  This is why when masculine and feminine become one, it remains a grand challenge as uniting the mind and body.



The Rewards of Commitment

In a husband and wife relationship, research supports the power of having continual investment.  A study found that couples whose relationship was distressed that almost 8 out of 10 reported being content in their marriage after they persevered for five more years.

Those who gave up on their marriage and decided to divorce, they were not any happier the ones who stayed married in their peer group, or those who even remarried.

This information reveals the importance of sticking things through and staying commit meted.  If people remained through the ups and downs, this investment will surely yield fruit.

“One advantage of marriage,” notes author Judith Viorst, “is that when you fall out of love with each
other, it keeps you together until maybe you fall in again.”

The heartbreaks and hardships that accompany any long-term relationship can turn into an element of deep bonding.


“I did not even want to deal with all the difficulties in my marriage. It was easier just to put on a game face, have a few drinks and dive deeper into my job,” one man remembers. “But my pastor forced me to say some things to my wife that needed saying, and to face what I was doing wrong too. Now I look back at that time as a period that made us a lot closer.”

The Bible encourages couples to love each other in a proper way - as “joint heirs of the grace of life..in order that your prayers may not be hindered. (1 Peter 3.7 RSV)

The oneness between spouses is a lightning rod for divine blessing.

At the same time, when a man and woman unite in deep abiding love, the joy that is created and prosperity they share from the blessing will spread to their children, all who know them, the greater human community and the Creator Himself.


Identifying with their gender community


Societies used to have rites of initiation when a boy was transitioning into manhood aor girls into womanhood so that they youth could solidify their gender identity.

In modern society, boys and girls still participate in single-gender team sports, or clubs like the Boys and Girls Scouts, to give challenges and opportunities to win respect among their elders and peers.

The military still serves in this traditional way for young men.

Even after marriage, men and women both continue to receive empowerment and comfort when they are in the company of their same-sex friends.

When they are joking around together, this characterizes the banter of male buddies.  They give silent respect and honor one another which in turn renews them.

Likewise, the “girl talk’ between women is a reassuring reinforcement of a sense of connection and support in their lives.

This is why both sexes need to enjoy the company of same-sex company on a regular basis to ‘retreat and regroup’ to strengthen their ability to give to the opposite-sex individuals in their lives.



Unification through Marriage



The ultimate unification of masculine and feminine takes place in marriage and in making a family.


When a husband and wife hold each other, their children will understand and appreciate the opposite sex.

To the woman, her husband and sons represent masculinity in all phases of development.

Similarly, the man embraces all femininity through his love for his wife and daughters. Thus marriage and family life provide the fascinating ongoing adventure of bonding and integration between masculinity and femininity.

Marriage and family life thus makes men and women into a better mirror of the divine. 

“In the image of God he created him; male and female he created them,” the Bible reminds us; man and woman together echoes the Creator’s own “wedded” nature (Genesis
1.27).




Hindu scripture speaks of the original Self, the Creator, splitting in two to make man and woman. Thus each is “like half of a split pea” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.3).

Such a couple is a full mirror of the Godhead. Indeed, Reverend Moon characterizes the married couple as the smallest unit of humanity, in the sense of fulfilling the purpose of human creation as God’s complete reflection and love partner.

The love between a man and woman can be uniquely edifying because they are complementary in physique and psyche.  They can feel ‘as one’.  They can feel knit together in mind, heart and body the same way same-sex friends never can.

When man and woman give into marriage in heart and body, their “humanity is rejoined and fulfilled,” in the words of philosopher Michael Novak.


The result is a certain “distinctive honesty, realism, and wisdom taught by each sex to the other.”19 A man and woman learn through their union things about themselves, humanity and the Creator that can be known no other way.

“Man is born to meet woman and woman is born to meet man,” says Reverend Moon. “And man and woman together are born to combine with a higher level of love, God’s love.

Neither man nor woman can touch God’s higher love by themselves.

In this sense, a man’s wedded woman is a kind of savior in countless ways, just as a woman’s husband is like her personal messiah. This is the basis of the inexpressible gratitude spouses often feel towards each other.


Potential for oneness

Because men and women are indeed made for each other, given sufficient time and effort, the unity of heart between a man and woman is to be expected. The magnetism between masculinity and femininity can overcome differences. Since their Origin is an integrated whole, they too can integrate into wholeness.

Even though such an idea is hard to reconcile with popular notions of romance, it is the ordinary experience of the millions of couples over countless generations who were strangers when married and who grew to deeply love each other.

This is captured in the memorable lyrics of the song from “Fiddler on the Roof,” when Tevye reminisces about his arranged marriage to Golde, his wife, and says to her,

But my father and my mother said we’d learn to love each other

And now I’m asking, Golde, ‘Do you love me?’

After protesting that for “Twenty-five years my bed is his; If that’s not love, what is?,” she concedes that indeed she does.

And so between two people who may not have been attracted to each other at first.

Recalls Ann Meara, half of the long-married comedy team, Stiller and Meara, “Was it love at first sight? It wasn’t then—but it sure is now.”23 This may not be the self-conscious and passionate ardor of young lovers, but it is a deeply rooted, comfortable kind of caring and unity not unlike the attachment a person has to his or her own arm.


Continual Devotion

For this reason, a sixth principle for true love is Investing towards Oneness.

Ultimately the Creator represents the highest and original purpose. Those who center their relationship upon God invite Him to manifest Himself and His beauty, truth and goodness in the partnership and its fruits.

Examples are endless, since this is the dynamic behind all productive
relationships, even in the inanimate world.

Protons and electrons have opposite charges that attract each other. They interact
as subject and object partners, driven by atomic law that contains a higher purpose, and create a new existence, a hydrogen atom.

A professor as the subject partner engages in give and take with her students as object partners, based on the curriculum as their shared purpose, resulting in an enriching learning experience for all.

A band comes together to express their common vision of music, and the members interact with one another in lead and backup roles.

Their degree of unity is directly reflected in their music. A coffee shop manager in the leader position hires counter help in the supportive role.

The manager treats the workers well and the counter servers are diligent and loyal, resulting in a productive business that realizes the shared goal of profits and service to the community.

A pastor prays with his youth ministry staff as his helpers and together they craft a marriage preparation ministry that leads many young people through purity into matrimony and a deeper commitment to God.

Implicit in this observation is that whenever any relationship is unfruitful—or destructive, as is possible in the case of human relations—certainly there is a problem with the nature of the urpose or the interaction or both.

“My high school football team was undefeated in our state,” one young man recalls. “But sorry to say, the victories went to our heads.

We lost our focus on doing our best and got complacent.

At the same time, a lot of us starting worrying about showing off for the college scouts and we forgot about the team.

When we got to the regionals, we blew every game.”

In other words, the team lost its vertical purpose and the horizontal interactions also deteriorated.



Return for Tomorrow's Post:

This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook “Educating for True Love” written by a team of writers to explain the philosophy of Reverend Sun Myung Moon.

Seven Principles for Loving Relationships Part II

We continue part two of the seven principles for loving relationships:

6. Investing Towards Oneness

In order to realize love, we need to trust in the potential for unity between complementary partners. 

Everything that is complementary to one another first begin as separate beings in the world, but are drawn into oneness.

Despite the complementary nature of men and women, they do not easily get along. Sometimes they can seem like adversaries.

Any group of men or women's conversation at one point turn toward the complaints about the opposite gender.

Men may say that 'women talk too much,' women may say that 'men are so insensitive'. This is the long history of misunderstanding that happens between the sexes. There is also mistrust, abuse, and exploitation.

The ultimate unification of masculine and feminine takes place in marriage and in making a family.

Through a husband and wife embracing one another and through having many experiences with their children throughout the years, a man and woman can come to understand and appreciate the opposite sex.

The husbands and sons represent masculinity in all phases of development as also a man embraces all femininity trough his love for his wife and daughters.

Therefore, married life provides a fascinating, ongoing adventure of bonding of masculinity and femininity.

Through marriage, men and women become better mirrors of the divine.

“In the image of God He created him; male and female he created them,” the Bible reminds us; man and

woman together echoes the Creator’s own “wedded” nature Genesis 1.27.

A Hindu scripture speaks of the original Self or Creator as splitting in two to make man and woman. Thus making each 'like half of a split pea'. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.3

A couple that is an example of this is a full mirror of the Godhead.

Reverend Moon shows the married couple as a smallest unit of humanity. This is in the sense of fulfilling the purpose of human creation as God's complete reflection and love partner.

This is why the love between man and woman can be uniquely edifying.

7. Unity Around a Higher Purpose

People who unify based on a higher purpose, this is a basic context for true love. Every being in creation tends toward unity, based upon shared purposes.

Unity is the beginning point of love, the point where love can come to abide . . . . When both come closer and closer they can meet at one point between them. In other words, by both of them denying themselves for a greater purpose, they can unite with each other. That is the standard of true love.

—Sun Myung Moon

American President Richard Nixon spoke about how one extraordinary moment in time united people of all lands when Neil Armstrong, landed successfully on the surface of the moon:

“For one priceless moment, in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one. One in their pride in what you have done. One in our prayers that you will return safely to Earth.”

People united in celebration of what he had done and all were passengers in a spaceship alone in black, cold space. This moment was profoundly moving and gratifying where all inhabitants of the earth united in oneness.

Unity, the sense of belonging to something greater than ourselves, is something we deeply desire.

To bring unity, it also helps to keep problems that are small and tensions in perspective.

“I wanted as little to do with my supervisor as possible,” recallsa medical technician. “But when I saw how hard she worked to throw a Christmas party for the kids in the critical care ward, I just had to give up my grudge and help her.”

When we give ourselves to the greater good, it feeds us self-respect. This supports our ability to love and invest further in the relationship.

Therefore, when people unify centered upon a greater purpose, this is the best context for lasting love

We will discuss more on this principle in the next post..

Return for Tomorrow's Post: Centering on Higher Purpose for Unity

This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook, Educating for True Love, written by a team of writers to explain Reverend Sun Myung Moon's philosophy.

How to Strengthen the Power of the Mind

When the sinful body is led by the godly mind, true love comes into being.

The essence of strengthening the mind is to toughen your moral will. What if everyone in the world lived by God's moral code. We would immediately see peace in the world. All conflicts would be resolved through God's point of view.

We must start with the basics. To strengthen the mind, it must be built up daily like a muscle through daily habits.

Through the small choices to do the right thing everyday, despite any fear, distress or fatigue, we can make our godly mind stronger than our flesh. Therefore, to strengthen this mind, we need challenges which allows us to encounter adversity and develop inner strength and will.

Here are five ways to harvest these skills:

1. Determining and realizing your goals

The most basic way to strengthen your will is to make a determination to God and yourself and achieve your goals.

For example, this could be talking to a relative that you know is distressed over a situation instead of enjoying a book. Or choosing a career that serves humanity such as social work.

To challenge yourself more, you can set goals that rely only on your spiritual power, deep prayers, studying the truth, and your acts of true love.

“Twelve years ago when I first came to Mountainview High,” recalls a physics teacher in a rural school

in the American Midwest, “I swore that I would bring the white and Native American students and faculty together in a tangible way. I prayed about it every day, stuck my neck out more than a few times, got misunderstood a lot and once almost lost my job. But now in the faculty there are cross-cultural friendships developing and this year the president of the student council is a Native American boy.”

To make promises to God and fulfill them is significant to reverse humanity's betrayal of the Creator.

This is the most powerful way to get divine support, also through building your self-respect and faith in yourself.

Heaven and other people notice the one who can always be counted on to fulfill their promises and carry out their responsibilities.

2. True Love as a Motivator

To have motivation will give you the power to go beyond any discomfort when it depends upon meaningful purposes that make the sacrifices you encounter worthwhile.

The strongest motivator is true love.

Love is the key to unification of mind and body.

Reverend Sun Myung Moon

This kind of love is familiar to parents.

A father son team was the first team ever to finish the Ironman Triathlon World Championship in 1999. Dick Hoyt, was 62 and still raced every Boston Marathon for over 20 years while pushing his paralyzed adult son, Rick in his wheelchair.

His son excitedly declared that, “It was as if I wasn't even handicapped!” This was enough motivation for his father to challenge his every physical limitation and give his son such an awesome experience year after year.

The power of love is behind the heroic sacrifices of religious and national lore.

Many of the first Pilgrim settlers to North America starved to death instead of eating their grain that was later to be planted. They endured such hardships out of love for the next generation and the hope to build a community that could worship freely unlike their previous community.

Christians recount how St. Peter faced a painful execution upside-down on the cross gratefully out of love for God and his Savior Jesus Christ.

Whether if such acts are done on legendary proportions or just a small act of unselfishness found daily, true love is the strongest means to subdue your fallen body.

3. Acting on Faith

We can mobilize a tremendous power of self-control when we can sustain a great vision of the future despite any obstacles we face right now.

Debi Faris is a woman who is familiar with heeding the call of her heart and conscience in faith. As a wife and mother of three teenagers, she heard this call when she heard news of an abandoned baby found dead. She arranged to give the child a proper burial, and soon, one child led to three.

Her middle-class family committed to ultimately $27, 000 in expenses despite other pressing expenses her family had. She recalls, “I remember praying, “i don't think I can do this, God. I don't think I have the courage.

“I stayed quiet for a while until I sensed that what we were doing was right. It was an act of love, and at that moment I made a commitment to offer it to any child who needed it.”

She has since raised funds and organized volunteers to found a cemetery for abandoned babies called, “Garden of Angels. She fights for legislation to help prevent further tragedies.

Such people who believe in their own gifts or that truth and goodness will ultimately win, those who cultivate the power of faith and hope and demonstrate “sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not curently see” (Hebrew 11.1) have a priceless advantage that enables them to harvest their strongest resources to unite mind and body.

4. Service

Serving others physically such as massaging an elderly person's back, preparing food for homeless shelters, picking up bags of trash for the community, these practices are especially helpful for training our moral will through demonstrating humility.

A man and his comrades of a service club recalls how they were ready to do whatever work was necessary for his community without any fanfare.

“The staff at the rehab center were surprised to see middle-aged men willing to just set up the party, serve the boys soda and food and take down and mop up afterwards. And it didn’t do this CEO big shot any harm either to do grunt work for a bunch of not-too-grateful teenagers. I think I learned a few things.”

5. Connection with God

Ultimately all of these methods used to strengthen the moral fiber support the greatest remedy for the mind and sinful body to unite: only through the connection to the divine Source.

The first necessary step is to center your mind on God.

Then your body will automatically become one with your mind.

Through prayer, worship, study of God's words, supporting the spiritual community, acting on faith, fulfilling goals, being humble and offering service, all of these time-honored ways accesses the Heavenly Parent and tremendous resources of strength.

“Live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature,” promises St.

Paul (Galatians 5.16).

The stronger the bond with God, the more readily your mind can conquer the fallen body.

Corrie Ten Boom was a watchmaker who was sent to Hitler's concentration camp because he rescued many Jews. After the war, he gave lectures about God's love and forgiveness and healing of wonds caused by the war. After one of her lectures, a former S.S. guard of her concentration camp waited at the back of the room

She instantly flashed back to the time she and her sister were forced to walk naked in front of the male guards on the way to the showers. They were ill, cold, hungry, elderly and in deep pain. They were also mocked sexually by the guards.

She remembered at that moment, her sister's pained face as she had to bear the humiliation in front of the very guard who attended her lecture.

Unfortunately, her sister died at the concentration camp. This former guard now came up to Corrie and acknowledged God's forgiveness of his past and he now asked for hers. He held out his hands to her.

She remembers, “I tried to smile. I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing. Not the slightest spark of warmth or charity.”

Yet her strong religious beliefs told her she must forgive him. She breathed a silent prayer to give her the strength to do the right thing. She resolutely took his hand in to her own matching her deds to her highest ideals and loftiest words.

Then, “As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.”

She then cried out to this soldier that he was her brother and assured him her forgiveness. Through her willingness to act upon the beliefs she always lectured upon, she unleashed a flow of true love which liberated both persecutor and persecuted.

To love another at the most difficult time requires the capability of the mind to assert itself over the demands of the satanic body.

Such efforts reduce the unnecessary pull of the flesh and at the same time enhances our moral and spiritual strength. Thus, the mind and body can unite centered on God's ideals.

Then, the heart is also liberated to give of itself freely and unselfishly, and reap the rich rewards therof.

Such a world of experiences would be the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.



Return for Tomorrow's Post: Seven Principles for Loving Relationships



This post was rewritten and derived from the Religious Textbook Educating for True Love, written by a team of writers to explain Reverend Sun Myung Moon's philosophy.

The Way to World Peace

If fallen man understood that humanity went in the wrong direction causing a constant war going on within each of us, the restoration of the world would be faster.  

As a consequence of the Fall of Man, there is a continuous struggle and conflict within ourselvess between mind and the body.  Between the desire for good and the desire for evil.

 

Originally, our mind and body were to be operate as one in unity, not struggle.

 

Our mind represents God's mind.

The human body is a container to accommodate the mind.  Separation came between these two when the fall occurred.

Thus the body dominated the good mind based on Satan or selfishness.  Thus, tragically, the human body has become the servant of Satan.

On the other hand, the human conscience is the agent of God in the individual person.  Our conscience was not created to benefit oneself.

It is planted by God for the sake of righteousness.

Yet the body rebels against this conscience.

The body only seeks after comforts and tends to act selfishly, going after carnal desires.  The conscience in turn is trying to chastise the body and direct it toward the godly mind's desires.

This is why there is always inevitable conflict and struggle within one's self.

This is the reason why the traditional religions of the world all teach the principle of chastising the body through fasting, prayer, and other disciplines.

By doing the opposite of what the body desires to do that is wrong, discipline brings the body to the will of the mind.  For this reason, religion which is the training ground where the desire of the body is suppressed, has been the instrument of God to bring men back to God's original ideal.

In order for us to dominate the body, we must unite with God within Himself.

The only power that enables the mind to dominate the body is the same power which generates unity of the mind's wth God's truth and love.

 Mind is subject and body is object. 

God's love and truth has the power to bring the mind and body into harmonious person.  Religion would define such a person as a man of perfection or a holy man.

Men and women that center their whole life on God are called men and women of goodness.

These good men and women may receive God's blessing of marriage and be united into a couple of husband and wife.

This will be the beginning of one ideal family of men on the face of the earth.

This model family is what God wanted to have as a building block of the good society, nation and world.

The Family is the Foundation of Peace

The Orient has a saying that "Once peace dwells int he family, everything goes right."

A happy and harmonious family is a family of peace and the foundation for the heavenly kingdom on earth.  The dynamic of the family is true love.

You must love God first, then love your husband or wife and your children with pure and sacrificial love.  This is the manifestation of true love.

God created love as the supreme force in the universe.

There is nothing greater in the universe than true love which is supreme.

True love, of course, originates from God.

God invested everything, every ounce of Himself in order to bring about the creation of all things and mankind.

 

Love is the only is the only thing in the world when invested fully, returns fully.  

When you invests true love, it will multiply and prosper.

Investing 100 percent of true love will yield 120 percent.  One might think that those who practice true love would become poor and miserable, yet the end result is to the contrary.

Through practicing true love, you will acquire prosperity and eternal life.

This kind of family of true love becomes the foundation for creating a society, nation and world centered on God's love.

That world would become ideal and peaceful.

There you will find understanding and peace and not misunderstanding and confusion.

You will find unity instead of division.

You would find selflessness instead of selfishness.  It would be the world where sacrifices and good service are a dominant virtue which everyone would strive to achieve.

The realization of God's ideal is the way to bring about true peace in the world.



 

The Ideal of True Parents for True World Peace

The Bible states that God sought to create human beings from "His own image" and character.

This means that the invisible God wanted to manifest Himself substantially into a visible, physical form.

In other words, men and women would become the personification of God through their perfection in pure love.

If the first man and woman had realized the ideal of God, they would have become the first visible form of God and created the first family of man of God-centered children, grandchildren who would expand to form an ideal society, nation and world.

In this case the invisible God would thus become the vertical True Parent of man centering upon true love.  Humankind would have centered upon good Adam and Eve who became True Parents by becoming one family eternally fulfilling a true brotherhood.

The Fall of Adam and Eve brought about the lost of not only God's ideal world, but the True Parents of humanity.

We became like orphans whose true parents abandoned them.

Therefore, brothers and sistersturned into enemies.

As a result, nation became antagonistic relationship rather than friendly ones. Accusations, and distrust abound on every level of society.

In the final fulfillment of human history, therefore, God's work of restoration is the restoration of True Parents first, liberating humanity from its orphan status.

Today this is the central dispensation of God - to bring True Parents to earth to guide mankind and create the true family of man centering on God and true love.

Ladies and gentlemen, today's creation of the Federation for World Peace must be different from that of the League of Nations and the United Nations. Most important is that we must found this organization upon the true ideal and philosophy of lasting peace as well as the ideal of True Parents. In the final analysis, peace in God and with God is the newest level of awakening. 


Once humanity reaches this level, it will be a refreshing new beginning toward attainment of peace.  The exclusion of God from human efforts to bring about peaceful solutions, is the core reason why there is constant failure in these endeavors.

Therefore, we should make God the center of this movement.

Historical Gathering

For men and women who are fervently longing for world peace, today's gathering is an historic gathering. There are many presidents and former presidents here today, as well as prominent religious leaders and leaders from every walk of life. This is truly a rare and extraordinary assembly. Furthermore, there are leaders from the East bloc and the West bloc. Until recently, those leaders were mired in the Cold War and locked in a chilling confrontation. In this auditorium, however, there is no East or West. Everyone is gathered together in one spirit of cooperation and reconciliation.

On November 9, 1989 the Berlin Wall finally came tumbling down.

Ever since that historical event which was felt around the world, we have been living in a different world.

The world is quickly moving forward to reformation, mutual understanding and friendship.  Everyone today feels that the world is opening up, a new way, to blossoming opportunity of peace.

If you agree that the principles I have expounded are the fundamental criteria for peace, then true peace is reachable and achievable. The industrialized North must reach out to help liberate the South from pervasive impoverishment. The developed nations must reach out with a helping hand toward the developing countries and the new democracies.

During this time of transition and restoration, each nation must change from a selfish one to an unselfish one.

That in itself is a revolution.  Nations can do this when leaders themselves are able to see from the position of parents.

 

The most unselfish and sacrificial love of all is the love of parents. 

 

 

 

From this perspective, we can see that on a worldwide level that all of the nations are brothers and sister nations.  

 

Then a fresh new vision emerges and a new opportunity will open up in front of us to a new dawn.

What should be the priority of those countries that are part of the UN in the days to come?

We have reached the age where colonialism is over.  

 

Where the powerful nations exploited the weakest ones in the past is over.  The law of "survival of the fittest" does not apply in our new world.  

 

The age of the superpower arms race which drove the world and humanity into fear and uncertainty has also passed.  

 

 

 

 

 

Humanity ought to be liberated from the devestating threat of nuclear arms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What time is it on God's timetable of restorating the world?

This is the time that the Holy Scriptures refer to "beating our swords into plowshares."  Do you see it is such a time of human revolution going toward a better world centered on God?

This is the time for developing mutual trust which is based on a high moral standard.

It is a time when all of the members of the United Nations in a relationship of mutual respect and love, should jointly declare one final war against our common enemies.  

 

That would be hunger, ignorance, disease and crime.

This is God's plan.  Even though everyone has a concept of their home country where family lives, in larger sense, the world now becomes "my country" because it is where God, my Father and my brothers and sisters live.  

 

From this point of view, all the advanced nations should seek to share their knowleddge of high technology with developing countries and new democracies.

To do otherwise would be a moral crime.  Things which are good and beneficial must be shared among all nations.  When a new discovery is made, it should benefit all nations.  If something is good for humanity and the world, it should be fulfilled, transcendent of national boundaries.

For a long time, I have been fighting for equal opportunity in the use of high technology by all developing nations.

A Century of Peace

Ladies and gentlemen, your coming to this place is not an accident. Nothing happens by accident. I feel you are ordained to be here. You are chosen by God as champions of peace.  A new era is unfolding. With the cooperation of God and man together the twenty-first century will be a century of peace. 


If we are to see a world of peace happen, we should work tirelesly together for the next nine years.

If we do, we will be able to eliminate all obstacles which might hinder the attainment of peace.

If we are able to push forward, centered on God, we should be able to eliminate all obstacles which would hinder the attainment of peace.

This twenty-first century should be a righteous century full of hope.
Wealth will not be the dominating factor in this era.

Instead, the human spirit and soul will prevail.  The twenty-first centry is the era of unity between God and man.

It should be the era where a new awakening will come to every man.

They will realize that there is more benefit for himself when he serves others and lives for the sake of others.

In this century, selfishness will decline.  Life honor and glory based on unselfishness shall be triumphant.

These are the characteristics of the era for peace is approaching.

Now we have the opportunity for the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.  This century shall be hopeful and glorious.

To make this happen, the Federation for World Peace will provide the ideal and philosophy to educate the world's population. The Federation will assist spiritually, mentally and financially in the development of needy nations. The Federation will set a high moral standard and take a dynamic role in building a world of peace.


As you walk this path of restoration, you are the apostles of peace.  The bright new hope as well as a exciting new future awaits you.  We should fervently feel the desire to fulfill this great mission that has been bestowed upon us by God.

In order to achieve this sacred duty and historic responsibility of building everlasting peace on earth, we should dedicate our lives, fortunes and sacred honor with total commitment to this dispensation.

The first item on our agenda is to invite God into our individual hearts and those of our family, society, nation and world.

When God is with us, who shall be against us?

Respected friends, my beloved brothers and sisters, we are called to this sacred mission: to build a world of peace.

Our noble march shall begin today toward that glorious future.  Let us build a true world of peace together with God.

Thank you very much.




Return for Tomorrow's Post: The Homeland the True God Desires


This post was rewritten from the Textbook for World Peace Chapter 2

Unity Arises Through Love

It is nice just to think about love, to see it and to taste it. That is how love is.

Love is the coming together of East and West, it is the coming together of heaven and earth.

Therefore, love assumes the form of a sphere through these relations.  True love is at the center connecting the vertical and the horizontal.

How enraptured a person's lips would be when they smile as they give themselves over in true love?

How beautiful will the five senses appear when they are enraptured in true love and move toward God?

But God does not experience joy through beauty all by Himself.  He can only experience beauty when He has someone to whom He can relate.

This is why God created humankind.

God's desire is to travel the world of the human heart, with all its infinite beauty, more than He desired to create the heavens and the earth.

Even God breathes. He breathes true love. 

God keeps in rhythm with the universe that continues forever, centering on true love.  Therefore, only when  you are able to reach that level of heart, then you enter the realm of breathing God's love and live forever.

The universe and the sun are both round.  What do round things center upon?

They can only become rounded in a relationship with something else.

The world is a substantial entity that integrates such a relationship.  What is the original source that can form such circular relationships?

The motion of love is the original source of this harmony

Love is like a nerve. 

When one of the hairs are pulled on your head, the whole body moves toward that pulling force.

It is the same way with love.  When you pull on love, the whole universe is pulled towards the pulling force.

When you move love, the whole universe moves in accordance with it.

People must live life enraptured with something. 

A person who is enraptured by something is truly happy.

If you have noticed that artists are enraptured by art.  Those who enjoy literature, are enraptured by the books they write or the great masterpieces they read.  Such people are happy people.

This is why people should live enraptured with the love of God and follow only Him.

Then what is the most precious thing both men and women seek?

It is true love.

Love is something both people and God like forever.  Love is what the whole universe likes most of all and forever.

Although love is invisible, it is the most precious treasure on earth.  This is because love is unchanging in nature the same as diamonds and pearls.

We value gold as precious because it is unchanging in color in any condition.  A diamond is precious because of its unchanging hardness.  A pearl is seen as precious because of the unchanging quality of colors.

Although these are precious treasures, they do not have life in them.  But, true love on the other hand is a treasure that also has and gives life.  Therefore, it is more precious than all of them.

Everyone likes love. Ultimately, through love we come to love more and more. 

Love flows into the heart of individuals.

Love flows into the heart of a family, and of a people.  It flows everywhere.  Wherever love flows, everyone welcomes it.

There is no way to block  love.

Doesn't everyone want something higher than themselves?

God created people to relate with one another through the power of love.

A person connected to the ties of love who lives and breathes along with the universe does not need formalities when they arrive at the palace of God.  A person that lives in love can go to the inner sanctuary where God resides.

He can call out, "Heavenly Father!" And Father would answer, "Come here my child."

What is the only problem of the human world?

The problem is love; whether love burns brightly.  For the light of love to burn bright, that light has to burn internally and externally.

What will make it burn?  It should burn with the desire or want to love.

Then we realize that our life which we deal with in ordinary affairs of the world is just a stopping point on our journey.  Where is God?

To say He is omnipresent means He is not just in one specific place.

God is wherever love is.

We, too can be omnipresent when our central focus is love.  This is a privilege we can enjoy when we possess love.

When we speak about equality, the word is meaningless without love.  True equality is only possible when people live for others centering on love.

Women's equality is based on cutting everything down the middle whether it is possible or fair or not.  Women will say that they are just as strong as men and will assert themselves to enjoy the exact same jobs and privileges as men.

On the other hand, men and women can find equal footing and a mother can be on equal footing with her son  who is president through love.  All things that possess love can have equal status.  We must realize this.

Humankind is at the center at all things of creation.  What then do human beings center upon?

We center upon true love.  God's love forms one vertical line.

To set up the center of heaven and earth, there also has to be lines of love from both man and woman.  The woman's line goes to the man and the man's goes to the woman.

These lines of love thus create a circle.

A man and woman who has true love, it is perfected love with a negative charge. When this perfected love and true negatively-charged love is formed, the positively charged vertical love of God is automatically present.

That is how the principles of the universe work.

You can only form a reciprocal relationship with the universe when you have love.

The reason Love has the quality of gentleness and humbleness is because with those qualities it can be fully put in motion without resistance.

When something is humble and sacrificial, it can relate with anyone and can go anywhere without resistance.

Then in essence, this type of person does not really sacrifice because they can anywhere here and in spirit world.  The key to living without resistance is through living for the sake of others while sacrificing for others and serving others.

Why should we sacrifice and serve others?  

We should live in this way in order to perfect the respiratory organs for our second life in the next world where the atmosphere is love.

All beings that reproduce come together in twos in order to multiply.  Love brings harmony in reproduction. 

This is true for the multiplication of all living things in the natural world.  Even in water.  There is female water and male water where fish do well in areas where these waters mix.

Many fish live in the cold water and warm water mix.  This is ideal.  There must be harmony.

Birds from the north fly south to raise their young while birds that live in the south fly north to raise theirs.  This migrating back and forth follows a rhythm.

Then when they are mature, they return to the place of their birth to have their young.  Fish live in cold water and lay their eggs in warm water.  Fish living in warm water can only lay their eggs in cold water.

A harmonious unity of ying and yang must be established.  This is the process of migration.

Love will not be realized without finding a partner.

This is why God placed efforts to place an absolutely qualified partner in front of Him.  We human beings are the masterpiece of creation fashioned so that even God could find the love He also needs at the same time from us.

When you are intoxicated in the love of God, you would never be bored even if you were to stare at a grain of sand for thousands of years.  The creation has so many deep wonders that any masterpiece in any museum cannot surpass its beauty.  

True love is not something that can be forced.

Love must be willingly expressed.

When you love someone, do not do so with the intention to receive because ideal love is only realized through the action of giving and receiving.

If God created love where it could be seen, touched and its form was known by someone, then you would lose interest in such a love in less than one day.

Fortunately, that is not how love was created.  Love operates the same as a mysterious mirage in all shapes and forms.  Love is something that even if it is not there, it feels as if it is.  And even though it is there it feels sometimes that it is not.

True love perfects the ideal of unity in the universe.

Even though you find a grand masterpiece, if you do not find any flavor of true love in it, you will quickly spit it out.  This is the same with the true love between husband and wife. 

We like love the best because it has the quality to unite everything and make it our own.  People cannot fathom how good love is.

Just as parents who love their children, the more you love, the more your joy increases.

Love brings everything into oneness!

If a person is in oneness with God, noone will be able to separate him from God.  That is how wonderful love is!

 Have you ever observed a bee that concentrates intently on getting the nectar in the flowers?  As they retrieve the nectar their heads are thrust into the flower and their abdomens stick out of the flower into the air.

You would not be able to pull the bee out even if the abdomen breaks off.  Why does the nectar in the flower taste so good?

The nectar tastes good, then the taste of love should be much more powerful and better.  Which would be better.  The taste of honey or the taste of love?

Without love, we cannot obtain unity.  Words alone do not have the power to unite two different people into one.

If those who are united around material things, when the material things disappear, they will immediately separate.

What if a third person introduces them and they unite?  When the third party disappears, they will separate.  Then what is needed for two separate entities to be joined for eternity?

There must be love.

Love has the power to unite the five senses.

Love can make the smell of an old man, which is unpleasant to some, seem sweet and pleasant to a loving wife.  Even if the his face and hands are skin and bones she will like his face and hands.

Love can do this.

When the wind of love blows, the whole world seems beautiful. 

Everyone becomes a poet or a romantic when they fall deeply in love.

A flowing love should form a bond with us and never leave.  It should take place within the very core of our being.  Without love, we do not find anything of value in the world.

But when we are able to vividly feel and sense such a love inside of us, that love can compete with the universe.  A person that holds this kind of love deep in his heart can compete with the universe even though he is just an individual.

Even when we look at a tuft of grass, we must be able to look at it from the standpoint of God.

We should relate to a flower while embodying the heart of God.

We should feel the connection between our inner feelings and the heart of God when we appreciate the things in creation.

Those who live with the love of God within their hearts are the sons and daughters of God.

They are the central figures of the whole universe who can govern heaven and earth.

Love is the essential element needed to enable a person to attain the position.

Our minds infinitely expand through heart rather than knowledge.  A heart full of love is so big that it can embrace the universe.  Once we develop this original and mighty domain, even God will want to come and take naps there.

Since we do not embrace God through knowledge, we must understand how great a heart of love is.

Love transcends all national borders, because God's love know no boundaries.  It transcends two different races drawing no distinction between blacks, whites and yellow races.  This is why the love of God is great.

Despite the environment, the environment adapts to love's flow and develops.  God will be pleased once we have adopted the perspective that makes this happen.   This is why we must walk the path of love.

Return for Tomorrow's Post: Now All Sin Can Leave the Earth

This post was rewritten and derived from True Love Cheon Seong Gyeong Book 3, Chapter 1, section 3