The Words of Sun Myung Moon from 1977

The Greatest of All Is Love

Sun Myung Moon
March 20, 1977
Belvedere, New York
Translator - Bo Hi Pak

Do you like love? What is love? Describe the shape of love; is it long or very thin or round? It is a very difficult task, but if we ever tried to describe love in one word, the nearest thing might be "fullness." The ultimate question for man is this: Is life or love more precious? You say love is more precious, but can you explain why love is greater than life?

In history, poetry and literature we commonly hear that love is greater than life, but no one has precisely described why. Which began first, love or life? Indeed the beginning point of life is love, and no matter how much life you have, it alone could not bring new life into this world. Only love can do that. The love of your father and mother together brought new life upon this earth. No matter how great a life a single person may live, alone he does not have the power to give life to another.

Let us look into the origin of the universe. What is the fundamental cause which brought the universe into being, energy, life or love? Have you ever thought about what motivation was involved? Some scientists claim that the universe began with a huge explosion of energy. While existence certainly begins with energy, what is the origin of the energy? Is energy self-creating? Energy results from the interaction of plus and minus; it can only exist in a circuit of reciprocal give and take action between a subject and an object.

Here in this room there is also give and take action between you as the audience and me as the speaker. If there were no one in this room to listen as I gave an energetic and powerful sermon then I would look very foolish. Without give and take there is no re-creation of energy, and if I were speaking to an empty room, would I gain more energy or lose power instead? But since you are here, very excited and energetic, our mutual give and take becomes increasingly intense and stimulating.

The most fundamental energy for the existence of this universe was created by energetic give and take action. Universal truth can be described as the substantial interaction between two entities in this visible universe. The entire invisible world as well, functions according to this same principle. We can conclude that nothing can come into being or remain in existence unless it is in a subject-object relationship with the action of give and take maintained between them. This is true in the mineral and plant worlds. Do insects sing for their own enjoyment or to get the attention of another? Why do animals call each other? For their objects.

Without your object you are very poor

How much do you like your object? It is interesting to discover that we have more intense feelings toward our objects than toward ourselves. Do you sing or dance for your own satisfaction? Even though you may sometimes dance alone, in your own mind you envision some object watching you.

Would you like to live in laughter and joy, or in tears and sorrow? When you are alone do you normally feel like laughing out loud? If you went around smiling and laughing without an object, you would be considered a crazy man. Laughter, singing and dancing are all human expressions of joy and happiness, but when you do these without an object or audience they make no sense. Clearly our way of life requires a partner with whom we can interact. When two loving partners share laughter, song and dance, their joy will become ever deeper without limit. When love is inspiring you then your singing and laughing and dancing becomes so wonderful.

In every field of art the greatest masterpieces are the works which describe the most beautiful, limitless love of men. When you experience those masterpieces you are stimulated in your feeling of love and the joy of that masterpiece comes alive. If we removed everything about love from the masterpieces then would any life remain?

Which do you prefer, laughing or crying? In reality the muscles involved in both are quite similar. When you look at the faces of someone laughing and someone crying, both their mouths are open and their eyes are squinting and tears are rolling down their cheeks. What may cause you to cry? You may feel sorrowful after some great loss, or when your expectations have not been fulfilled, but the deepest sadness arises when you become separated from your object, your partner. At the bottom of all sorrow is losing your connection to your object so that you can neither give out nor receive.

The definition of great unhappiness is the loss of anyone to whom you can give and from whom you can receive. You are most unhappy when you have no one to love and be loved by. Isn't that true? If you lose a great deal of money or valuable property you may be unhappy, or having no one to teach or learn from you may feel sad, but is that the worst kind of unhappiness? The most unhappy person is the one who has lost the person he loved and who loved him, so that he has no one to share his love with.

You would prefer to live your life in laughter and joy instead of sorrow and tears, wouldn't you? In order to have that laughter and joy you would have to get power and earn money, right? No? Did you know that already? Maybe you vaguely knew, somehow, but after hearing this you truly know that love is the most important and fundamental aspect of life. Do you just think, "It sounds reasonable," or do you deeply know that this is true?

Which is superior, man or woman? Even if you are a giant superman, a tall man with big muscles and very handsome, without your object you are a very poor man. Suppose you had a choice between being a superman but remaining all by yourself, or being pint-sized but having an object, someone with whom you could have give and take. Which would YOU prefer? Are you sure you would want to be pint-sized? There are some people who are not answering; however, their eyes say yes! That is the simple truth.

If your love is only a joke, your life will be only a joke

How much do you need your mates? You absolutely need each other so that you might discover and experience love. In saying that you absolutely need your object, you could never mean, "Well, love is nice to have but it's not essential." When you went on dates before you came to this church, was your motivation to find absolute love? If you answer no, that means you were not really serious about love and your actions were closer to an animal's. Would an absolutely happy person go after such love? That kind of carnal, unprincipled love should be wiped out. Can you say, "Yes, I have experience of love, but with deepest seriousness I am now searching to discover love that is even greater than my own life."

Which world did you belong to in the past, heaven or hell? Without exaggeration fallen man has been destined to death and hell. If you do not know that your search for true love and life is not a joke, your life will not be anything more than a joke. Love is greater than your life, so love is not a joke. The most divine and holy world is the world of love.

After acquiring that absolute love a person really knows the value of that most mysterious and holy world. When you know that divine and mysterious world your laughter will be divine and mysterious and the expression of joy in your singing and dancing shall also be very divine and mysterious. Anyone who dirties this most valuable love with cheap, carnal things is the worst kind of criminal in the universe. Regardless of whether you are a man or a woman, anyone who seeks to contaminate your love in an impure way is your worst enemy. Because love is greater than life, that person would be committing a crime worse than that of taking your life.

The American way of life, including many of your lives before you joined the Church, is just a quest for very shallow, instant, animalistic love. If you were that way then you have never truly experienced that divine and holy love of God. Your shallow fun could only become progressively more shallow, soon becoming boring and tiring. When you stamp on that most precious pure love you become just a worthless person; you can kill such love.

Is American society advancing toward heavenly prosperity, or declining into secular hell? Shall we leave America alone or shall we do something about it? Will the President of the United States or America's economic power be able to change it? How about almighty science? Who will do it? If we truly know that Americans are going in the wrong direction then we have a responsibility to inform and educate them.

In less than one hour I have explained the true meaning of love, and now you are convinced that the way of life you had been pursuing was the wrong one. You must search for the true way. If your father and mother or teachers were encouraging you to pursue cheap love, should you follow their instructions or not? Suppose the American government followed a policy of encouraging Americans to enjoy their fun and follow their animal instincts. If that were written into the Constitution would you blindly obey or not? "I would be different," you say, but with everyone else going in the opposite direction how could you change? Would you have the energy and drive to go all by yourself? Whatever the circumstances, you are now determined to go because you have hope for the rest of the world, even though the entire world may come against you. That world is wrong because it does not know the truth, but you have truth so you have hope. That is why you should go on even all by yourself.

If someone came forward to proclaim such love would you follow him regardless of whether he were black or yellow or white? Why do all you white members come and give me a hard time? Because of you, the American government, American families and churches are opposing me. What makes you so sure you should follow me if I am teaching about such a committed love for God? You trust the ideal and you have hope in the future. We cut ourselves out of this world because the world is in despair, and we choose to strive for the ideal, to gain true love, hope, and a constructive future.

Today's topic is "The Greatest of All is Love." Do you want to know why love is the greatest? How much of a fee would you pay for me to give you a very important lecture today? The only reason I would ask you to pay is that when things come free nobody takes them seriously. But if you pay $10 million for this one hour lecture then your whole body would strain to reap $10 million worth from it! If you paid $10 million for this one lecture would you waste that time dozing? If I said, "Go ahead and sleep," it would just wake you up more!

If love is taken away, will anything remain?

I will explain why love is so precious. The answer is rather simple: you are the product of love. The most logical and important principle of the universe is also the product of love. God created this world because He needed to have His own object for the give and take of love. Love is God's fundamental motivation for creating the universe.

Man was supposed to be born in love, grow up in love and live in love for eternity. That is man's destiny, Is there anything further you could wish to receive? This is the ideal way of life. Where could that love originate? That could only originate between a subject and object who have become so completely one in harmony and unity that eternally nothing could break them apart. The greatest love emerges from such as this.

Men and women marry to consummate love. At what point do Mother's life and my life become one? When we eat a good meal together? When we exchange money? Only when we become one united in love, right? Life begins when love brings unity and harmony between the two of us, and when life emerges then our ideal blossoms. When you are completely satisfied in love then your ideal is already fulfilled because there is no greater ideal than the fulfillment of love. This is the sequence: love brings unification, life and ideal. When our love brings harmony between us and new life emerges, then the fulfillment of our ideal also comes.

When two lives are welded into one, love will become more powerful and intense. When two lives become united into one, greater life, energy and power come and a greater ideal can blossom. If love is taken away will anything remain? Will there be any way to unite? Without love it is impossible for people to come together and give their lives to each other and say, "For you I could die." That kind of deep sacrificial feeling cannot be demonstrated without love. Without love nothing can bring you into fullness.

In contrast, the communist ideology centers on struggle; that is the key word in communism. If one class is struggling with another, is there any way to unite? Dialectical materialism analyzes progress as one entity dividing into two contradictory entities, which then clash with each other; out of that clash something greater will emerge. That ideology is striving for unification but because it eliminates love it can never bring true unification. Communists talk about a life that is not true life, and about an ideal that is not the true ideal. The ideal is impossible under communism.

The ideal is what can bring the highest and the lowest together into harmonious joy. If we confront each other in struggle can we have the ideal? That ideology of struggle is now creeping across the face of the earth, affecting millions of lives every day. The evil ideology of communism lures people into becoming ruthless and cold-blooded; murder and extermination is the daily diet in communist countries. In his lifetime Chairman Mao exterminated over 150 million people, and in North Korea alone 3 million people were murdered. The New York Times recently published the fact that over 600,000 people were exterminated in South Vietnam immediately following the war there. Is this the ideology in which we can find unification? Communism is truly the enemy of humanity and enemy of the ideal; needless to say, it is the enemy of God.

The fundamental problem of humanity is how to restore love

The key word nowadays in the Carter administration is human tights, and that is good; however, there is something greater than human rights which is life rights, life itself. Communism is not just violating human rights, but violating the very life rights of millions of people. In such an extreme situation talking about human rights does not make any sense; if this administration were really serious about human rights then it would speak out about the millions of people who have been deprived of the right to live. America must stand up to declare that communism is mankind's worst enemy.

We must preserve and safeguard the right to live. There are so many millions who have been deprived of such rights already. They are silent people, the prey of communism. When they stood in front of the firing squad did they praise the name of Stalin, Mao Tse Tung or Kim 11 Sung? Or in their inmost hearts did they desperately call upon the name of God, that somehow He could exercise His power so that the communists could no longer continue with such cruelty?

Without including love, you cannot even speak about unification and the ideal. The fundamental problem of humanity today is how to restore love. If we cannot restore love, do you think we can establish true peace or one world of brotherhood? Can we actualize the ideal without love?

You are actually the result of this wonderful principle, for you were a part of the uniting force of love of your father and mother, and your life came into being at that point. You participated in their lives and the blossoming of their ideal was the beginning point of your life. You participated in the love of your parents which had created unification and brought life; you participated in the love of parents which brought the ideal. If any one of these three are removed then the entire ideal will become crippled. You cannot remove the ideal; you cannot remove life and you cannot remove harmony and unification.

Parents and children will become eternally one even if the mother is a hunchback and the father the most ugly cripple under the sun; no one can separate them from their destined relationship as parents and children. Could you exchange your parents for someone more attractive? You are a part of them and cannot separate yourself from them. You are the result of their harmony, their life and their ideal. Don't you feel some built-in human instinct to defend them from criticism? Why do you feel so strongly about them? You are connected to them, and when something is harmful to them it is automatically harmful to you. Instinctively the loving relationship between parents and child creates the impulse to protect because in this universe there is an automatic protective force that preserves the entity of love. Now you can understand logically what you may have only felt in the past.

Are you going to stay connected with your parents for eternity, or at a certain moment should you separate yourself from them? Speaking particularly to women, when you get married and have a home, would you welcome your father and mother as well as your in-laws into your home? Prior to joining our movement were you thinking the same way that you do now? You might have preferred having a husband but no id-laws. Be honest. They are a burden. Is that kind of thinking selfish or unselfish? If you happen to marry someone who does not have his own father or mother, then in order to accomplish this ideal you even have to bring his godfather and godmother to live with you so that you have someone to serve and be united with. If you can think this way now it is only because you have come to understand the truth about how men and women should live.

Whose natural parents are divorced? You probably did not say anything at the time, but when your father and mother were separated, did you approve deep in your hearts? Was your disapproval just temporary, or will it stay with you forever?

Possessing love before you, your parents are greater than you

You have a built-in instinct that rejects being separated from this loving unity because it should remain for eternity. There is no such adjective as "temporal" when you talk about love; love is for eternity. All of you want to be in a loving relationship with your parents for eternity, and if this eternal circuit of love is broken for some reason, in the depths of your heart you can never accept it. That disapproval is not a crime or a sin, but the instinct of self-preservation. Until we have the logic and principle that will explain human behavior and human nature then we will never have a true vision of the future but remain in darkness.

Who is greater, your parents or you? Parents are supreme because they possessed love prior to your existence, and they will always be ahead of you in the possession of love. You emerged out of their love, and for that reason you will always be in a position to follow after them. No matter how miserable your mother and father may be, as long as you have a loving relationship you will never want to be separated from them, even after the termination of your lives here on earth. Is that right?

This morning I have presented the clear principle of love, so I do not need to say anything further, You can claim before your own father and mother, "Without me you have no true love because I was there and I participated. I was a very important element of your loving relationship." As a child you can say to your own parents, "I cannot be a part of you or one with you until there is unity and true love between you two. Your unity, your true understanding, and your true ideal is what will enable me to become one with you." A son or daughter can force his parents together in a way.

With true love between your father and mother you will begin to see true harmony and the ideal emerging in your home and you will certainly want to stay there. So many American homes today are just the opposite, which is why there is such a gap between parents and children. As long as there is a warm and loving atmosphere in a home the children would never want to leave. But even if the children may go away to the hippie life, if there is a loving atmosphere in the home they will feel pulled back and repentant.

I want to reorganize American homes under the principle of love. I want to see a revolutionary change come about in the American home so that the impersonal, functional unity there is transformed into true loving unity. That is the job I am undertaking. Thank you for your applause; do you mean it though? There are many people today who just do not want to look at reality, and when they hear about something like this they do not want to deal with it. They would rather point at me and snap, "You go home and do not bother me. Live your own life; why should you bother America?" When you read between the lines in the New York Times and Washington Post you will see, "Why do you bother America?"

If the networks all gave me two hours of time and 220 million American people could hear about the true meaning of the family, the true meaning of love and true relationships between parents and children, then we could influence America. The great revival of America's prosperity would hinge upon a couple of hours of listening. But there is so much negativity about me that such a broadcast will never happen.

Do you feel heavenly anger and wrath over this? Do you have determination in your heart to crusade and break down the negativity, that we might create the opportunity to change 220 million people? This negativity toward me is not just harming you and our way of life, but blocking the entire future of America and the world. It is a very serious thing.

Communism and Satan will always take a position in opposition to me; the free world, however, should seize its chance to hear the truth. Day and night we are striving toward the fulfillment of that goal. We must become substantial and respected in order to become influential for God. Do we need to succeed in such ventures as the newspaper company, the print shop and the university?

The emergency is upon us, and before the fuse runs out on this time bomb we must achieve our goal. I am anxious to get this done right away, and day in and day out we must push ourselves. This providence to restore the true love of God is now in motion and the efforts of all heaven and earth are focused on the restoration of this love in humanity. Love alone can bring fulfillment and perfection. Love alone can bring the true fullness of life.

True love will never be revolutionized

Can love speak to the past, the present and the future? We come to another principle. The value of love never changes. The value and principle of love for our ancestors a thousand years ago was just the same. Their love was supposed to bring unity, life and the ideal; a thousand years does not change that. A thousand years from now science may have improved our way of life, but the content of love will not have changed. Tens of thousands of years in the future this value of love will not have changed. God built the entire universe according to the reciprocal relationship between the two entities of subject and object, and as long as the existence of subject and object continues, the principle and the energy of love will not change.

According to dialectical materialism, matter is the origin of the universe. Does that make sense to you or not? If love forms the formal, central truth of the universe, how could anything else create the same result? Unless people are talking about love they are not really talking about unification.

Can you really believe that love is only sweet today because science has advanced? Maybe a thousand years ago love was sweet while today it has many artificial elements in it and has become sour and impure. However, as far as true love is concerned there has been no revolution or advancement; love has one origin and that one origin has never changed. Therefore, the contents of love will always remain the same. As long as there is harmony of love, life, and the ideal related to the original source, they will not change.

That world of true love is the world of unification we are talking about: the world of unity, true life and true ideal. If you have one life to live, where would you like to live? Would you prefer living in this artificial carnal world of love, or would you prefer to live in the world of true love and a God-centered life? Your answer is proof that there is hope for unity. If all of you think like that then there is a chance for true unification to come about, and then the ideal can be built upon His love.

Is God's original ambition and desire that the world and humanity taste unity and true life and true ideal, or could He care less about the way the world drifts? God's desire is the same as man's, and can only be fulfilled by the response of men. In the same way, man's desires can only be fulfilled when we receive response from God. Our ideal lies in God and God's ideal lies in man.

If you want to possess God's universal love you must become a personality of universal caliber. I want all of you to have universal personalities, but where shall we begin? With the Unification Church, or on the level of the country or the world? We cannot begin with just the individual because as I have already explained this morning a single person cannot impart love. There must be a circuit and the basic unit of that circuit is your home, your family. That is the building block.

You may conquer the world yet still not have harmony in your own home. Then you are not the person who will accomplish the ideal. President Carter may be a truly great statesman and have power to influence the entire world, but if in his own family there is constant fighting, is he a happy person? The ideal world begins in your home. Heaven begins in your home.

When Jesus came to proclaim the truth did he say that only a single people could be elevated into heaven? Jesus' blueprint of heaven included bridegroom and bride. When you read the Scriptures you can see that Jesus with his bride was to have been the foundation of the Kingdom of God. Describing the return of Christ, the book of Revelation clearly speaks of the marriage supper of the Lamb, where he will appear in his victory as a groom with his bride. One model home is needed to become the center of the universe, and the purpose of Jesus' coming was to build that model family.

No matter how much you tear the whole universe apart looking for the short-cut to unification, you will not find any better solution than this one. If there is God then this has to be His royal way. Suppose that up to now God has been dozing, truly unconcerned about having His kingdom here on earth, and then all of a sudden He hears me preaching this message here on earth; I am convinced that He would exclaim, "Well, my son, you have something better than I have. Let me borrow that!"

You have studied philosophy and science at universities and done library research, but did you ever hear about this? Have you been hearing a very expensive lecture or not? Are you newcomers here being forced by regimentation to believe certain things, or are you just joyfully responding to truth? You are experiencing the greatest of all extraordinary revolutions, a change of heart.

Our greatest inheritance will be the tradition of love

Are heaven and our homes two entirely different things or are they one and the same? Who is dwelling in our homes? Children. Who else? You should be there, husband and wife. Who else? You are indeed notorious Americans because you mention grandmother and grandfather last. Will all these components of your home be united by rules and regimentation? God's true love will unite them. The love of grandparents, parents, husband and wife, and children will all melt together into one unchanging love.

There is the action of life in that unchanging love, where they talk about the ideal and their hopes for the future. Anyone who has deep respect for the love between grandparents, husband and wife, and between parents and children is qualified to be a citizen of the Kingdom of God. The greatest inheritance grandparents give is the tradition of love to our parents, who then leave it to us. You are becoming husbands and wives, and your duty is to leave the inheritance of love for your own children. The sequence of inheritance is the same, and you cannot neglect any of those loves in a process of being selective. The same principle applies to each relationship.

The application of the truth means that as much as you love each other as husband and wife, with that same intensity you must be able to love your parents and grandparents. That same love will bring one heart in your home, which is the building block of the Kingdom of God on earth. You and your family will become a nucleus or brick of the Kingdom of God on earth, and when many families come together they will make up a society, nation and kingdom on earth. Can you see that all those relationships are equally precious?

In comparing American homes to this standard, do they live up to this particular principle? Are grandparents in America generally happy people? With whom do they want to live? It is a most logical conclusion that grandparents want to live with their children because that harmonizes with universal truth. God wants to live with His own children, and grandparents inherit that tradition.

When you become old would you want to live in a senior citizen's home and have only fellowship with nurses? Why not? Some day every one of you will be a grandparent; it is your common destiny. Senior citizen's homes may be more convenient, having medical facilities to handle emergency situations, but even though they may suffer some inconveniences, old people really want to have fellowship with their own children, laughing with them and looking at their grandchildren. When you become old will you not think the same way? Should we change the American way of life in terms of family structure?

The entire universe will listen when you meet in love

When will the universe become one? You never thought about that before. The center of the world is humanity, which means men and women, Men and women are the center of the universe, to inhabit and represent the entire universe. The unity of the entire universe results when men and women become one in love. That is the point at which the universe can become one.

If two men came together would the universe be joined together? Man represents heaven and woman represents earth, and because a man is in the subject or aggressive position he will take the initiative. Are you that kind of man or not? You are stubborn and instead of listening to anybody you want to be your own boss. You only listen when the truth convinces you and then reluctantly you have to yield. A man goes straight forward to where love is; nothing can conquer a man except truth and love. Men are that stubborn.

How about women? Do women want to take the initiative or be the recipients of love? Do you women want to receive a proposal from a man or do you want to do the proposition? Women are built to receive and men are built to initiate action. God has also given men and women particular roles in loving, with men taking the initiative and women the more passive role.

Heaven and earth become one when men and women become one, with man representing heaven and woman representing earth. But husband and wife are each greater than the universe: Your wife is not merely one woman or your husband merely one man. Each represents the entire universe. Because love is the moving force to conquer the universe, the entire universe will listen when you face each other with love. What kind of husband do you want? Do you want a husband who only drives you like a slave, or do you want a husband who looks at you as being even greater than the universe? Which kind of wife do you want? You each want to have that kind of preciousness.

It is natural that young men and women in their teens become very romantic, talking about the universe, losing themselves in music and reading romantic poems. They come to realize they can communicate with the universe, that the universe is a representative of themselves. When older teenagers think Of becoming men or women they view their lives with the highest ideals and most beautiful dreams in their hearts, dreaming in terms of the universe, and equating their lover to the universe.

When you have the urge to unite with such love, will you want to live in slow motion? This is the age of passion, and you want to be like a fireball, blazing into oneness with your love, and concentrating your entire self into your love. The Japanese expression "kamikaze" conveys that spirit. You want to express your ideal in the most dramatic, beautiful, extraordinary fashion, and you also love to exaggerate. "Boy, the entire world is mine."

Men and women actually start out from different extremes, but when they bring themselves together they feel the entire universe resounding with each step they take, and all of nature responding. That is young passion. When young men and women become serious, God also becomes serious. When they are very dramatic and romantic, God becomes romantic. When a young man and woman just engulf each other in a heavenly collision of love, the explosion is greater than thunder. When young passions collide even God will be shook up! When God is a part of young passion, that love is an eternal one, not a cheap thrill but something serious and precious.

Should the love between husband and wife be stabilized in one solid central point, or should it be blown around by the wind? The love of husband and wife should become a stabilizing force, like the bubble in a horizontal level. Diamonds also have a certain stable structure that will not change. When this universal force of passionate love brings husband and wife together to be completely melted into one, then are they poor, oppressed prisoners, or can they really feel freedom and joy in their love? That is the kind of adults you must become, not just foolhardy and superficial. You must concretely anchor yourselves as a stabilizing force of the universe.

The breadth of your love determines your eternal value

When you get married you will eventually all get divorced, right? Why not? Once you know this truth you must live the truth, and if you even tried to separate you would be completely upset by the pain of it. You could not survive. If your love does not change then will your joyous singing and dancing change or not? As time goes by you may change your format, but your motivation for singing and dancing would have no reason to change because they are the expression of joy.

Men and women as husband and wife become the stabilizing central pole of the universe, bringing together heaven and earth. In both the physical world and the spirit world, the value of a couple is the same, and the more territory they conquer and embrace with their love here on earth, the more territory they can deal with in spirit world. The scope of that area will determine their depth of understanding in spiritual life and their value in spirit world. Ultimately how much you practice this principle here one earth shall become a measure of how much territory you deserve in heaven.

When you move your position away from the vertical line then you can no longer even talk about territory or about the Principle. Only once you have become stabilized in the central point and move along the vertical line will you have territory. Without doing this, your existence will be like dust or like the morning dew, which comes and goes. Only that one vertical line of love will link you with the universe.

If a circle represents the universe, the area below the central horizontal line represents the physical world and above, the spirit world. You can draw thousands of vertical lines within the circle, but there is only one longest vertical line that passes directly through the center. That is the line of love that I have been speaking about. In this bisected circle, the right side represents man, and the left side represents woman, each being equally distant from the center. When this man and woman come together in perfect unity in the center, a vertical line automatically comes into being.

It is a universal principle that where there is a perfect plus a perfect minus automatically comes into being. When a perfect minus exists then a perfect plus automatically comes into being; we can see that in the principle of electricity. Thus, when the completed, perfected husband and wife come together heaven and earth automatically come together, and the parents can appear. In our human relationships as individuals, when God and the individual become completely one in vertical unity, horizontal brotherly unity is automatically there. Before that could take place, however, the fall of man destroyed the entire universal foundation.

The point where men and women join together is the very point where God wants to dwell. This central line is the line of love. God is dwelling in the center of love, this line of husband and wife. Once there is true love uniting husband and wife their home becomes the dwelling place of God Himself. The family is directly connected to the eternal love of God, and God-centered unity, a God-centered life and a God-centered ideal come into being. Once you grab hold of that love you have hold of everything.

The maturing process of love

My subject today is, "The Greatest of All is Love." This has been Part I. In Part II, I want to speak about how we should live and apply the Principle here on earth. If I start on this it will take all morning, but shall we do it now?

After you are born you grow intimately in the love of your parents, but as you grow toward adulthood you gradually become more independent. Toward what are you moving? You are looking for your own mate, aren't you? Will your parents say, "You rascal! You loved us this far and now you are giving us up!" Or will they say, "My son, my daughter, this is your day; I understood you. Go ahead, look for your ideal mate."

Are parents despairing and despondent at such a time, or are they joyful? Where men and women become one the atmosphere is enriched. Children are born in the love of their parents, and grow in their love. At that time their love is in the formation stage. When children grow up they move gradually toward their own love, and in a marriage their love enters the growth stage. Are husband and wife content to just love each other or do they want to have something else? When they have a loving relationship with their own children their love is fulfilled on the perfection level.

God created man's life here on earth to encompass three full cycles of love. In the formation stage we experience receiving the love of parents. Love in the growth stage is the conjugal love of marriage. Love in its perfection is love of parents toward their children. Will your parents be jealous when they see how much you love their own grandchild, or will they be happy to see that you and your own children are so completely in love? The maturing of love is a natural process, and everyone will welcome it. Parents and children have an eternal relationship. That formation stage of love remains eternally; conjugal love is an eternal love, and the love of parents toward their children is also eternal. That is the common ground of love in which there is no change.

The basic building block of the Kingdom of God is the home; however, God's goal is not to have one home alone, but to expand into a society, nation, world, and universe. God's goal also includes the spirit world. You have to reach all the way out to the world and then return all the way back to the beginning point, your home. Don't you want to embrace the universe with your own arms? Do you want to grab it so you can extract some benefit, or do you want to embrace it in love? If the universe you embrace all of a sudden discovers you are the worst kind of criminal or dictator, it will revolt against you. However, if you love the universe it will want to remain in your embrace. How much do you want to love the world? Your standard is to love the world more than you love yourself and more than you love your own things.

What criteria determines if someone is an American patriot? If someone loves America more than his own wife and family, then he is a true patriot. The universe hopes to be loved by someone who can give more love to the universe than to his own life. Anyone who can be truly sacrificial, loving the nation more than his own family and things, is indeed the supreme patriot.

Great men and holy men

Going deeper, we could classify great people into two categories; one category is great people and the other includes saints or holy men. What is the difference? Every country can name its great people or powerful figures like heroes and patriots. From that nation's point of view a person may be great, but he may still not be a saint or holy man. A holy man or saint is the one who loves the entire world more than he loves himself, his own things, or even his own country. An American who loves the world enough to sacrifice himself, his family and his nation is indeed in the category of holy man or saint, for that is precisely what God has done.

God is the cause, and the person who can perfectly reflect God in his deeds is a saint. Let us examine God's pattern of work in restoration history. In order to save the world God gave His only begotten son and even allowed him to be killed. God has been sacrificing His own faithful people time after time, allowing those closest to Him to become martyrs in order to save the world. God does not punish His enemies or destroy evil people; instead He continually sacrifices His own people, His own sons and daughters, sustaining His hope for the salvation of the world. Therefore, throughout history the holy people are those who demonstrated the utmost quality of God's sacrificial spirit. To which category do you want to belong, the great men, or the saints?

When parents see their children mature and become adults beginning their own families, will they be heartbroken? Do parents grieve to see their sons and daughters becoming independent from the old family ties? Of course if that meant eternal separation they would be sad, but their children are actually just maturing into another stage of life, and when children become parents themselves they can appreciate their own parents much more.

When husband and wife experience conjugal love they feel, "This is the very love our parents experienced before we came." And when they become new parents and love their own child they deeply feel, "This is the very love we received from our own parents. This is the joy they felt." When you become mature you will be in a position to more deeply appreciate your relationship with your parents. It may seem like the birth of your own children could create more distance between you and your parents, but in actuality, through your experience of loving your own children you will certainly experience a new depth of the love of your parents.

God's law is such that you mature in love and advance from one stage to another: from parental love to conjugal love to the love of parents for children. That same development occurs in a horizontal way. Your love for your family expands into your love for your society. That expansion will not diminish your love for your family but will expand it into deeper maturity Your love of society will grow into love of the nation and the world, and each time your love will progress into a deeper maturity. If President Carter were to demonstrate such sacrificial spirit in the service of this country, literally sacrificing everything including his family, then the people of America would praise him, and make efforts to help his family. When a sacrificial spirit is shown in that way then the bond between the government and the people becomes deeper, and more sympathy can be shown by both.

If you demonstrate extraordinary sacrificial spirit in order to achieve some higher cause, then once you achieve that goal people will praise not only you but also those whom you had to sacrifice along the way. If a family was sacrificed for the purpose of the society then it would become a heroic example for others, receiving recognition and praise, and also serve in creating greater unity within the society. Why am I telling you this? Suppose that instead of pursuing only its own selfish benefit Americans were to demonstrate a sacrificial spirit for the sake of the world. After achieving that goal of world salvation, America would not be left destitute, but would be in a position to receive glory and gratitude.

Were one saint to give up everything-his own life, his own family and surroundings-in order to relieve mankind from sin and liberate God from His sorrow, then everything that he used as an instrument of his effort, everything he sacrificed for that purpose, would be immortalized and praised in the end. Everything that he sacrificed would join with him as part of his ultimate fulfillment.

Anyone living God's way of life can never be accused by Satan

The Unification Church is pursuing that goal of liberation, gathering together such beautiful young people from all races and all the six continents. We want to become a sacrifice for the sake of world salvation and the fulfillment of God's will, and once we achieve that goal we shall never be forgotten. Once the day of victory comes, not only will you participate in that achievement, but your life shall bring all mankind into glory.

Why will you never be forgotten? Those who participate in the fulfillment of God's ideal will have lived God's own way of life, which has been to sacrifice His own family for the salvation of His tribe, His tribe for the society, and His society for the nation and world. Because that is the way God lives, anyone who also follows this principle shall never be destroyed of diminished. God is taking that route because once the highest possible Kingdom of Heaven is built here on earth, Satan will no longer have any way to accuse.

The true religion must go the road of persecution, and the religion which can unite the world is going to receive unprecedented persecution. We do not offer any excuses or complaints since we know this as the truth and still choose this life. Instead we will just humbly obey God's mandate and go through this way silently. The Unification Church is destined to walk that path. For the sake of God's providence, can you sacrifice you own family and nation, and even sacrifice this world? How can you say yes? Deep in your heart you know that you are not going to lose anything; none of your sacrifice will ever be in vain, but shall reap the highest results. This is what you know in your heart.

Considered solely in commercial terms, this guaranteed return is really a fantastic deal. The Unification Church looks like a helpless lamb being clobbered by nation after nation, yet never attacking anyone in return. Don't we know how to fight? No, we know how to fight, but we have a reason and God has a reason to be patient. God has not yet allowed His anger to explode because His purpose is to save even one more soul. God can judge mankind at any time, but He is delaying judgment in order to save as many people as possible. That is the way He works.

God's strategy of sacrifice will bring greatest harmony

If we achieve world unification through this process then no one in the past, present, or future can criticize or discredit our accomplishment. Those who are now trying to destroy us shall soon be in a position to realize what kind of crime they are committing and then be overwhelmed in their repentance. They are judging themselves; they are not judging us.

If God is the king of wisdom then we must understand why God has taken this route. He adopted this strategy as the means to win the greatest of all victories. This strategy will readily expose those who have no faith in God. In Satan's world such sacrifice ends a relationship, but in God's way the sacrifice or separation will bring greater harmony; the greater the degree of separation the greater the resulting harmony. For a common purpose we all go in different directions, and though there is physical separation there is no such thing as spiritual loss because we are united in the same purpose. In God's world physical separation will bring greater harmony and greater accomplishment.

The selfish way of life is the satanic way of life, and the unselfish way of life is the God-centered way of life. But the unselfish way of life is the short-cut to reach the ideal world of God and is a life that will grow and expand. We must adopt this as our way of life. Will you live that way of life only until you get blessed, or even afterward? Will you further pursue it to the ultimate fulfillment of the victory of God?

This is my way of life. Mother and my own children have become a sacrifice, but I cannot give up the mission. Even if I were to die before winning the final victory, the purpose and course of the providence would not be ended. Once the dispensation for which I sacrificed myself and my family was fulfilled then God would be responsible to restore me and my family. God will be able to give me anything I desire, and I will ask, "First I want the salvation of the world; mankind must live. Next I want to see my family restored. "Then God will fulfill it. Therefore, sacrifice does not mean losing. This physical world is not our ultimate existence and sacrifice is the divine right to participate in the fulfillment of God's ultimate goal. Then beyond this world we have another, eternal home.

If I live and die solely for the sake of mankind, then where will mankind go? Someday we will all meet in the eternal spirit world. The pinnacle of our lives is not reached in the few short decades of our time here on earth. The measure of how much heaven you deserve in the eternal world is determined by how much you demonstrate a sacrificial spirit for the sake of the world while you are here on earth. I want you to remember that.

Your parents may not understand you at this time and your own nation of America does not understand you, but I want you to understand that this is temporary. You can tell them to wait a while and be patient, and you also should be patient. This separation is not ultimate and eternal at all, but instead you are going to reap blessing for them and embrace them, and they shall be grateful to you. That is the way I have lived. In Korea I gave up everything and underwent the most intolerable persecution, always being chased and accused. I never lived my life for myself or my own family, but solely for the fulfillment of God's will. In America I am walking that same path.

Such a rich nation as America should be ashamed by its treatment of me and this church, but let their accusations come regardless. No one in the media wants to admit that I owe nothing to America, but that in reality America is indebted to me, both spiritually and physically. Other nations send their representatives to this nation to somehow convince America to give them more money and more help, but I did exactly the opposite. I came to give my own life and everything I have for the sake of this nation's prosperity.

America has scornfully mistreated not only me but you so far. However, once they know the truth and realize what kind of relationship we have with God then they will surrender to us. We have that goal and that hope, and even though we are being hit we still move forward. Nothing can deter us. All of our sacrifice shall bear fruit so our everyday way of life is the sacrificial way of life. Every bit of it shall be reaped, even if I myself become a sacrifice because of America's misunderstanding. If that is not the case then what I am teaching is all lies.

How is this nation going to pay its debt? I must leave some opportunity for America to pay back its debt, even if it is done by the descendants of those who misunderstood me during my lifetime. One way I can do that is through continuous, unconditional forgiveness of this nation. That has been God's way of life. God's heart embraces even His own enemy, and will never denounce or cut him off. This law is the force governing and uniting you people.

What kind of power can break us and separate us from that love? The power of love alone can conquer everything. Love will bring eternal victory and eternal heaven. When you possess that particular love of God then you can climb as high as you desire and do anything you want! That love alone can give you complete liberation. That is my destination, what about you? God bless you. Let us pray.

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