Belvedere
Translator - Sang Kil Han
The idea of tradition has various meanings for different people; for instance, the British are said to have honored a long tradition; an organization cherishes its tradition and a church honors its tradition. A family also thinks highly of its tradition. Tradition is important in religions; the Jews especially feel very deeply about their tradition. As Unification Church members, we need a tradition also.
All men need tradition, but what about God? He also needs a tradition. We know that traditions seem to change as history changes. Can tradition which changes with the course of history be different from the direction of heaven? Where does tradition begin, and where will it go?
One symbol in the title of this speech means "inherit", or transfer from one to another. One other symbol means to connect, in the sense of centering around the subject; thus, the meaning is that of inheriting something from someone, connecting with the leadership. What do you bring under your control? Everything has to be included and coordinated under someone's control. We know that the fortune and trend of heaven has a connection with our individual everyday life. We are not merely moving about as individuals.
There is a law and order which guides history, and we move accordingly. We don't act at random by ourselves, but in accordance with tradition. The tradition of eyes dictates that they be found in a certain place on the face, forming a pair. The nose is situated in relationship to the eyes. That is the order, but what about the law of the eyes? It dictates that the eyes must blink in order to remain moist and be able to watch objects in the world. The mouth has to smell, and the mouth speak and eat.
Could the nose say, "I'm tired of my job. Let's change roles"? The nose protrudes and is always in a position to be hit, whereas the mouth is safe in its flatness, so why not have them trade places? The eyes might feel they have to be working constantly when they are awake, while the mouth can rest, so they want more time to rest. The hands and feet and arms all have their own law and order; all life continues under natural law.
Following what steps does tradition come into being in this big universe? According to Oriental philosophy, heaven comes first, then earth, and then men. Thus, in a family heaven is represented by father, earth by mother, and mankind by children. Can you agree with that?
Where does your body come from? Of course it comes from the earth. The mind and spirit come from heaven. Where does your conscience come from? That comes from your physical parents. So when we examine ourselves we know we must be from heaven and earth and mankind. Everyone has hair on their head and on their body in the same way that the earth has trees, grass or moss covering its surface. When you come to the West for the first time and see people with blue eyes, you feel you are looking into a lake. A person's nose reminds you of mountain ranges, and his mouth reminds you of the flatlands.
You take after your parents, don't you? You have hair and skin, a fat layer and muscle just like the composition of the layers of the earth. Your skeleton of bones, with bone marrow deep within, is exactly like the composition of the earth, with its molten core and rock layers. The earth can be compared to muscle, and the body fluids which promote easy movement are similar to the water on earth. In overall structure you resemble the earth, and in specific characteristics you resemble your parents.
Your eyes and nose come from your father or mother, and so forth. Maybe it would be ideal for one eye to come from your mother, the other from your father; one nostril from each parent, and so forth. You may think it is ideal to inherit exactly half and half from each parent, but it doesn't work that way. The ideal must conform to order and law. Why does tradition dictate that we walk in a certain way? Why don't we walk like cats? Nothing comes into being in a random way, but only in an orderly way.
Although our body resembles earth, we take after our parents in specific type and shape. In addition, we take after a higher being, God. Have you ever seen your conscience or felt it with your hands? Is it smooth and round? What color is it? What shape would you like it to be? If it were round, it would just roll around quite easily, but when it wanted to sit down it would be very unstable; so maybe you wouldn't want it to be round. If it were square then it could easily sit down. Then maybe you would think it should have every shape so it could be comfortable in every situation. You might say you want to take after the good in everything. There must be some original shape which we want our conscience to take after. There are certain things the world needs, so perhaps your conscience could be a shape needed by the world.
Is the food you eat good or bad? You think it is good because you take it inside of you. You are actually eating part of the earth. All the mineral elements of earth are found in the food you eat. Since you take after God and you are made of elements from the earth, what would you like your conscience to look like? Your mind might want your conscience to take after your parents. The fact that the individual self contains aspects of its three parents means it controls these three big elements. When we see elements of these three parents in ourselves, we are conscious of being connected to them. You might think you don't care about heaven, earth and your parents, but without them there is no you. You are the one who has custody and responsibility to see that everything works smoothly and happily. That's who "I" am the one who manages it all.
Do you have the one quality of always thinking of yourself first and putting everything else second? Do you always want to make yourself the last of these three elements? Do you want to be the most or least important person on earth? There is no such thing as an important servant! There has to be a master before there is such a thing as a servant. Let me ask again, would you want to be president, or just an average citizen? Would you like to be president of the world, or just the United States? President of the universe, or just the world?
Why do we think big like that? We do so in spite of ourselves. It is because we are the end product of the three realms-heaven, earth, and man. We must know clearly why we want to be the best and the highest of everything. It is because man is the product of three parents and he wants to be the subject controlling all these three elements inside himself. Due to your ancestry you are born to want to be the subject of the entire world.
Who bequeaths that tradition, heaven, earth or man? How can we tell? It is because man is the center of heaven and earth that he wants to assume the central role. Which time do you have the feeling of wanting to be most important-when you are trying to be high or low? Would you want to walk at treetop level, or on the lowest flatland? Both high and low are good and they derive from each other; without the ideal of high there is no such thing as low. The standard of creation will become upside down if a person tries to maintain that the standard of high is low. This is why order is very important. First things must come first, not second.
We might be justified in thinking that we have high so that we can come down low, and that a narrow place exists so that we can go to a wide place. A narrow place would like to go to a broad place, and a high place to a low place, and also vice versa. If you experience this in yourself then you conclude that both places are good. You cannot think that the high is good and the low is not good at all; for example, you cannot just inhale or exhale. You take fresh air in and then let it out so you can take more in. In another instance, you need a philosophy of why things are the way they are so that you will not despise lower people.
With this point of view, every place you may find yourself is good. You can only feel this way if you have an overall philosophy; otherwise, you feel there are low and high people and dislike one or the other. That will lead you to an inharmonious attitude in life, and you will tend to look only at isolated circumstances. Low and high are actually the same.
We observe various phenomena on earth, such as low and high pressure areas; these contrasts always exist, but they are essentially one. Jesus taught that if a person would become high that he should become low. It is easiest to become low, but then you discover you cannot help but go up. If a person really tries to go down low, he will suddenly find himself up high. The Western way of thinking does not reason this way, but you will probably need this kind of thought all the rest of your life.
In the motion of climbing, your leg has to step up and then come down, not in a straight line, but in a round motion. When you move, your whole body has to follow, but ultimately it comes into unity down at your foot, not higher up; your foot is the most stable place. We can carry this analogy farther and deduce that the point of unity on earth is not in the high places but in the low places. We conclude that unity on earth should take place in the low places. When a country comes into being, unity begins with the common sense and philosophy held by the laborers, not just by the people in government. Since we are trying to bring the world into unity, I drive you out to the lowest place.
Maybe you think this is oversimplified. There is no such thing as being too simple; the world is simple; order is simple. We are the most important people, but the conclusion is that we can go in the wrong direction if we don't know why this is so. Your whole body will go wherever your feet go. Your spirit does not go in a separate direction from your body; wherever you go your whole being goes with you, and you are the harmonizing center. When you are pursuing God, your body and spirit will come along. When you are pursuing your body, your mind and conscience will come too. Do you understand this relationship?
You want your conscience, spirit and body to like you, not just one or two of these. If you are like that then you are in subject position to earth, heaven and mankind. Such a subject is very important. Is this strange content to speak about? Sometimes people just pursue their consciences or their bodies and leave everything else behind; it is important to bring everything into unity.
Whenever you find yourself divided, you must remind yourself you are a very important being. Why? You have this tradition into which you are born; it is just that until now you have not known about it.
There are three elements in spirit world- heaven, paradise and hell. Even eyes are composed of three elements-the pupil, which denotes the spirit and God, the center of all being; then there is the iris, which represents conscience, and the white, representing earth. Maybe you don't care about others, but just care about your body. Then you are like a person who has only white eyes, with no iris or pupil. You would look like a monster. Some people think only spirit is important; they would have no iris or white-only black pupil. All three are necessary.
When you say "I", you can think about your "eye" and what I have taught you this morning. If you feel this way then everything will support you. Now you know how the heaven, earth and man philosophy came into being.
Does God want to stand behind or in front of you? Can we say that God is inside you, and the rest of you is outside? When you are moving, which is inside and which outside? If God dwells in a space inside you somewhere then you are outside and God is inside following you. The outside is an enclosure to protect the inside, to receive the impact of a foreign object. We have to know we are the outside enclosure to protect God.
Can we say God created man to protect Himself? Do you build a house so that you can watch over it, or so that it can protect you? Also, everything is around man to protect him, since he is thinking and moving all the time. Now you know you are very valuable. You must also know you are the fruit of a growing plant. The only reason a farmer nurtures the trees in his orchard, expecting them to grow abundantly, is so he can harvest their fruit. The farmer doesn't harvest the branches or leaves, but the fruits of the tree. If God is a farmer then all men are the fruits of His labor. This is exactly what you are, the fantastic result for which God created all the universe. The fruit has all the elements of the tree.
If someone pulls you by the hair it hurts. Not only your body but your spirit and conscience will say Ouch! When all three shout out, the whole world will hear and even God will ask what happened. When God sees that the body is alive but the spirit is sick and the conscience is sleeping or dead, how heartbroken He will be as Master of that creation.
It is good to like something, but every being must like it along with you. If you like something then usually your parents like it too. In the same way, if you like something, all things and God will like it too. When you are sad, they will share your sadness. In other words, that being inherits all the elements of creation, including the ideal. "I" is such a center of the whole creation.
If you take a big magnifying glass and look at individualism, who is it centered around? If it is centered around money and free sex then is it valuable? Certainly not. Previously you have strongly advocated the American style of individualism, but compare it to what I have just introduced to you. Even if this is false, you would like to follow it, but it so happens that this is the truth, which makes it all the more valuable. Now you can forget your past philosophy, if you had one. Again, "I" inherits the tradition and process of history, of the creation, and of the ideal of creation. If you live with a firm understanding of this then you really are the center of the universe.
You have to have a sound philosophy. This is important knowledge in the spirit world, but it is not taught to any students on earth except this bunch of humble people. Heaven allowed you to find this important truth because you persisted in following a man who is persecuted and vilified by the world.
Are you still happy, no matter what the world does to you? When you are really happy all kinds of body fluids run down your face-from your eyes, nose and mouth-and you don't even notice it. Can I trust that you are that happy today?
Now do you know that your eyes are really precious? Will that kind of precious person visit prostitutes and look at women's behinds? Will you follow a strange girl who beckons to you in the street? If you do, then all things will cry, feeling that they are perishing; all mankind will cry behind you. Where can you be forgiven and receive sympathy? Nowhere, and soon you will be unprotected by the universal power. But if you really know your value and live accordingly then the whole universe will protect you. Now you know how important you are.
So what tradition have you inherited? Now you know the steps of creation and ideal of creation. If you really know that then you have inherited something of great value. After that, what would your conscience like to resemble? You have inherited God and the earth, so you would like to take after them; you also take after your parents. Which would you like your conscience to take after? If you are the center of everything good, your conscience would want to take after you. That means your mind takes after you, and then your spirit will also take after you. Then your body, spirit and conscience will not disagree with you.
Since you are ideal, your conscience will take after you. That is your tradition; what others are there? First man comes into being, then woman; this is also tradition. Is it traditional for man to fight woman? What do they do instead? What does loving each other mean? You might say man's tradition and woman's tradition must be equal, but actually one must be subject and the other object.
If you study women in this world, you see that they control men. What should they do if they are not supposed to do that? If ten women fought one man, who would win? The man, of course! He would knock everyone out, and then maybe sit down for a smoke. A woman will never be stable all by herself; even if a small bird flies by, she will be distracted. Imagine a world where woman was subject; you can imagine the world would be unstable, never knowing what would happen next.
According to a certain Chinese character, when women get together they are very noisy. In Chinese philosophy the worst concept is expressed by a symbol for three women. Women's eyes never look straight ahead but are always wandering, which indicates they are not firmly situated.
No matter how able a woman may be, it is inconceivable that she could become subject of all mankind. If women were subject, do you think science in America would have advanced this far? I see frequently that Mother is scared whenever one of our children rides on a motorbike; sometimes they just fly along and leap over bumps, and when they land on the ground Mother's heart does also. If the Wright sisters had invented the airplane do you think it would have flown?
I think the only kind of people who would say I am not being fair are the women who put on men's clothes and act like men.
Jesus had to love himself and then he could love women. That is the tradition of creation. There have been many wars in history, in which people fought to protect the righteous side and what it stands for; can you conceive of women generals fighting these fierce wars? Women represent the earth. A country where women are dominant will not prosper, and will eventually perish. There is no question that women have the dominant role in America today; ask the citizen of any other country. American men are not as influenced by any other element as they are by women. We know that the American family structure is in jeopardy.
The department stores devote most of their floor area to women's things, and allot only a small space for men. This shows you that women's minds are not so stable, that they go in for variety all the time. For every season, and even every time of day they want different clothing.
Whoever is subject must assume responsibility for all things around him and for the entire group. This responsibility is a very important part of being subject. Women do not like to assume responsibility as much as men do. Even though women want to be responsible, their total strength and power has to be invested also. Do women prefer to protect their husbands, or be protected by them? Is the subject the one who protects or who needs protection? Whoever rebels without listening to reason cannot be listened to. Certainly you would rather not hear some of the things I tell you Sunday after Sunday because they are painful, but it is good to hear them because that is the only way you can change.
Through the Principle we know that the problem of chastity and morality began with woman. If you carefully observe society today you will see that women are the changeable element, not men. They are certainly important, but what will the outcome be if men just follow women? Today we see confusion and uncertainty. If this continues twenty more years, what will happen to this country?
Once tradition is set, who is better in observing it, men or women? When a situation becomes very difficult, who is better able to endure year after year? The way men are built shows they are better able to shoulder responsibility. So, are women subject or object? Not by your choice, but by the tradition of creation they are object. Even the Bible says that God made woman by taking a rib from Adam, not the other way around. First God made man, and then made woman after that pattern and shape.
Subjectivity is even reflected in man's broad shoulders; while women have broad hips, representing earth, men's shoulders represent heaven. When put together there is balance. When they achieve complete harmony then they are equal. When they are isolated they certainly cannot be equal.
Why is this topic so important that I risk hurting your feelings to say this? It seems simple enough, but a simple misunderstanding can divert the world into a wrong direction. This is actually very important. At one glance one might ask what difference it makes, but if the order of the universe is just slightly diverted then the whole world will be chaotic. Due to a lack of understanding of fundamental orderliness Western civilization has been thrown into turmoil. We can generalize that everything lives on only when subject and object are in harmony. If they are not, they cannot prosper over a long period of time.
We see men and women who find nothing wrong with living with several different people for various lengths of time, at their whim. Basically, people today would prefer to live by themselves, but since they cannot do away with the law of creation they try to do the minimum possible by living together and perhaps having children; there is no solid unity between them, however. They feel independent from each other, and live alone as they please. This kind of life can never prosper and be everlasting. Children of such relationships cannot inherit the tradition of creation.
Subject and object must always go up and down together. Otherwise, there is no continuity. Once tradition is confirmed we have to keep confirming it by passing it along. A civilization that does not do so is not following the order of the universe. If it is not continued then the power of the universe will not continue to protect it.
What would women like to take hold of? Do we see and hear for ourselves or someone else? It is for the other element, the other object that we see and hear. When you speak you are not talking to yourself but to your object, just as you smell something more for the sake of others than yourself. An object that is rightly situated in front of its subject is good to taste. To the object, the subject is good t° taste, and so forth. For women, men are like that, and for men, women are like that, once they are ideally situated.
Your eyes are made for you to love your subject or object, not to draw the love of others to yourself. Thinking more deeply, all our senses are meant to enhance the standard of love for everyone, including God, not to draw their love to ourselves. It is clearly wrong to think that your senses are meant to draw others to you. The beginning must be straight, because it will affect the outcome. It must be understood once and for all that all these faculties are for the purpose of loving your counterpart, rather than drawing their love to you.
So far most women envision the ideal as being married and going to their husband's house to be loved. Eventually that may happen, but not immediately. We must drastically change this concept of the ideal, and this job rests on you. Your thinking in the past did not rest on solid ground; while you may not understand what I am teaching you now, it will last, while your thinking from the past will be temporary. My thinking is more reasonable than any other because it is based on the tradition of creation.
If you give everything away again and again, there will be a well at the bottom of your container, constantly filling you up. You can believe this; since it conforms to the law of the universe, that law will help you, encouraging you to act according to the law. Though you may seem to lose at first, gradually you will gain and gain, for according to order and tradition your neighbors as well as the power of the universe will come to assist you.
Many people approve of it because the universe itself is that way. Don't feel that love starts somewhere else; you must feel that it begins with yourself. You must have a straight start, not a crooked, up and down beginning. If both men and women make a straight start, when they meet their two forces will turn together instead of colliding destructively. This is why first love becomes so valuable; all five senses are directed at that point and you think of nothing else. It is no good if your senses are focused in different directions, even if one of them likes orderliness.
There are five physical senses, plus the so-called "sixth sense", but I am now talking about a seventh sense, the sense of heart; all seven senses should come to one focal point. The senses of a person are all poured out on that focal point of first love. Americans are proud of being Americans, yet they throw their first love away on just anyone, and only scars remain later. No one can be proud of or make sense of that.
But from this very moment if you begin everything from the focal point of love then you are being revived. From whom must your love start? From yourself. This doesn't mean that first you receive and then give, but first you give and then receive. After that it doesn't matter who gives love first, because love is in motion, but giving is the first step. That's how the universe is. You may say this is so simple that it is not worth mentioning, but nevertheless it is easy to misconstrue or mix up.
This is not something I devised. The universe happens to be this way and I am merely telling you that it is important. Once something has a plus or minus electrical charge, it will repel a like charge, but until it is polarized it will not reject anything. This is the law of the universe. American men and women aren't like that, however; regardless of what approaches, they will accept everything. Perhaps deep inside they feel it is wrong to be that way, but they are not strong enough to reject it because they see everyone else doing it. But that is not from their original nature. The true way is to reject anything else once you have made strong unity with another person. If a couple is happily married, the woman will fiercely reject any other woman trying to join her marriage, and the man will fiercely reject another man. That reaction does not stem from jealousy but from the protective force of the universe. Once two people are united, what could cut their union in half? Nothing.
When two are united, this aspect of plus and minus is found in every aspect of themselves. Then their eyes become plus and minus, for instance. What has come into being is the power of love. I illustrated this polarization through the simple example of a magnet, and our relationships should also be that consistent and strong. What about a plus that has not yet taken a minus? At that time a plus and plus do not repel each other. Modern science does not view things in this way. I know that this important point is overlooked in the academic world. If science would take this simple explanation into consideration then it could have a much clearer direction, and science would be much easier to understand.
Once enough polarized electrical force is gathered in the sky, lightning is created when the positive charge meets its negative counterpart. But until the force is great enough to be discharged, it can coexist with another like charge. Before marriage a man enjoys spending all his time with his male friends, but after marriage that friendship cannot continue the same way. Is it this way in America, just as in Korea? Are you sure?
If you cut a magnet into tiny, tiny pieces, each portion will have the same properties, with the poles repelling like charges. In the same way, once the force of love is established, its magnetic property will never change. If a manmade force tries to work in the opposite direction, the greater force of the universe will try to eliminate that unlawful situation. The universe will do everything to assist this plus-minus situation to materialize, and once that happens it will help disperse any contrary force. Once the universal power finds a resting place, it doesn't change. Whatever fails to harmonize with this power will drift and become spent.
You might still be confused and doubt whether this definitely works. Why does the sick part of your body hurt? That is the place where subject and object are not really in harmony and that relationship is what the universal power tries to chase away. If you cut yourself, harmony is destroyed and immediately the universal power opposes that unprincipled situation, continuing to facilitate mending. When healing is complete, the pain is relieved. Pain, even heartache, is always present where the give and take relationship is not harmonious. When men and women have a good love relationship they feel whole and happy, but when it is cut off they feel pain because the universe wants them to mend the situation right away.
You know that the most painful thing in the universe is not a physical pain, but the pain resulting from the sickness of love. If there are many irregular situations in a country, it is destined to perish and a new nation will appear in its place. That is the situation we find in this country. Americans want happiness, but they must know that it begins with orderliness; only harmony with the universal tradition will heal sickness and pain and add prosperity and happiness. Happiness must be based on love, which is nothing else but having the subject and object knowingly situated correctly in every area.
If in your teen years you start on this orderly and harmonious level, then you will continue to go up as you mature, never sinking down. If you begin a business on these principles then it will prosper and be admired by others. How happy will the family be whose husband and wife cherish this, each wanting to be the best husband or wife in the world. Such a wife would want to enter into her husband's cells and stay there for the rest of her life. The man would feel the same way.
When such a wife goes to spirit world she is no longer simply a woman, for by becoming one with her husband she has inherited the qualities of a man as well, and so she can go anywhere in spirit world. Once you as a minus become one with a plus, you can love even your own body. You can love your hand because it is the hand your husband loves so much. You might not have loved your foot, but because your husband loves it, you can love it. Then your foot will feel it has arrived in the ideal, thinking it is the happiest being in the whole body. You feel happy just hearing me speak of love.
All your five senses want to go to the place of true love. Your ears badly want to hear something 24 hours a day which they never tire of. Your eyes want to see something for eternity and feel it still is not enough. That thing they want to see and hear is true love. What is it that the ear doesn't want to hear? Untrue love. That means that your ears most hate to hear that the person you love is gone away. If your eyes and ears miss that person then the rest of your body loses power because it misses that love so much.
Your sparkling eyes most want to see your first true love. First love is so concentrated and intense an experience that even God cannot cut it in half. This is the power of your first love. When we know the truth, we know what a crime American parents are committing toward their children by being an example of destroying the first love that should be cherished eternally.
If you have a certain standard for first love, your standard is likely to be very high for the rest of your life. Nothing else can match the standard of first love for you. How beautiful are the sons and daughters born from the tradition of that first love. Even if you taste the waste of your child, it won't offend you; if you have attained complete unity then it is not dirty feeling. When you have a bowel movement, does its smell]1 offend you? Is it torture to stay in the bathroom, or is it like smelling perfume? If you are so valuable that the universe protects you, that smell should not offend you.
Once you attain perfect unity in your marriage, the odors that once offended you, like smelly feet, will not seem as bad. You won't mind anything that your spouse says to you, except, "I don't love you." That's the one thing you can't stand to hear. When I first came to America I heard that couples say, before they leave for the office, "I love you," and then again when they come home, and I wondered whether they really meant it. If the man really means it he should show it in other ways, like cherishing something of his wife's because it is part of her.
Love is not revealed where your gestures are, but where your mind and heart are. It is not possible to show your mind to others; your love will show in your actions without your saying anything. I just noticed that three hours have passed. Is this topic interesting to you? The tradition and course are there, and you have to realize the rest.
Your hands have many beautiful ways of touching your best friend, your loving parents, and so forth, but the most beautiful of all is the touch you have for your love. When you grasp your love's hands and ask your hand if it is happy, it will answer, "Yes, yes, yes." Your mouth will keep saying it is happy, and even your feet will tingle. That's the kind of husband-wife love everyone dreams about.
In America women wear the bare minimum of clothing and reveal their bodies, but in Korea you would never see part of a woman's breast. Deep inside a woman may think that when she meets her first love she will take everything off, so her marriage day is a day of liberation. For the first time she will open her door the widest and the sunshine will flood in. Oriental people would never criticize such a couple for overdoing their first expression of love; they understand it is the most beautiful thing that can take place on earth.
What a contrast this is to love American style! That love is like the pebbles and stones found everywhere on the beach, with nothing new about it, but Oriental love is like precious gold, wrapped in fine cloth and put deep in a safe. Which love would you choose?
When we talk about love everyone is happy. You miss your love far more than your breakfast. You have discriminating tastes. I could go on and on talking about tradition in all areas, but I have focused in particular on men and women. Why is love most precious? What's so good about bringing everything together? It is good because in love the life of a man and woman will be grafted together, forming the beginning of a new life point. The very tradition of life is passed on from this point, to children who perfectly resemble their parents. The children's life starts at the point where their mother and father are grafted together.
Plus and minus in God are separated in the creation, and then joined together at the point of their love. Why are children born? The life of parents meets horizontally with love, but God's vertical love will enter there as well. At that point the greatness of creation will take place automatically. When that happens, life will just burst forth, and another God is to be born. The parents are participants in the work of God's creation, at the point where God's love meets their love.
God's joy at creating Adam and Eve is experienced by the parents in a horizontal way when they have a child. You have to know the joy of giving birth to both sons and daughters to fully experience the joy of God. This is why the four position foundation is so important. You cannot physically encompass the entire world, but by embracing your children you can embrace the entire world and God. That is the ideal of God's creation.
This very point where God's love joins man's love and life begins is the most solemn and meaningful of all ceremonies. This tradition has continued from the time of God's creation of the first ancestors until this moment. How can you make light of it? We can say that this love is a nest where God's life and love settles, where your most beloved children's life and love begin. What ceremony could be more precious than this? You could bow down a thousand times in adoration and still it would not be enough. There is no room for any disruptive force or unhappiness to enter here, only true life and love.
Again, this is why love is of the utmost importance; nothing else has nearly as much meaning, or lasts without end. If you actually live in this love on earth, when you die your spirit will fly straight like a rocket into heaven. You won't have to go through some process, but you will be skin to skin with God. We have to have some way of becoming one with God, and this connecting point is the meeting point of life and love.
In this perspective, American men and women, more so than any other, are like gangsters of love, like Hells Angels. How different is this pure love from the rapes and prostitution we hear about every day! If you are really true Moonies then when you hear about such things you tremble with anger. If you brothers found the most beautiful woman in the world stark naked in your bed, what would you do? You would have to be like a eunuch, feeling completely neutral. Our standard of conduct and of love is not one inch less than that. You might ask why I didn't say these things a long time ago, but that was not the right time.
I often hear about your concern for your fiancés, and after awhile I cannot help laughing. When people ask when the wedding will take place I laugh again. Do you understand what I am trying to say? You are talking about marriage, but how far along are you in preparation? First you must investigate the tradition which you and your spouse come from, and whether you are charged with ambition to strike forward for true love.
Lightning makes a great noise. If you could measure the electricity of first love, how much voltage would you find there, and how much noise would it make? The noise would be so big it would wake God up. Love is the string which attaches you to God. You will not contact God personally, but reach out to Him through your husband or wife. A plus must go through minus, and minus through plus. A man cannot go to the plus part of God directly but must go through the minus; a minus must go through the plus to reach the minus part of God.
You don't dance holding your hand in one position all the time, but move it up and down and around in conjunction with your other hand. You need the circuit of energy that flows between men and women before you can reach the highest Being. Love does not happen in isolation; plus and minus must come into unity as part of the whole, bursting into happiness. The power of all this is strong enough to move the universe.
Now that I have explained this to you, are you going to remember it for the rest of your life and put it all into practice? This is where we begin to create the ideal world. Everybody wants to create everything with love. The first time, I have to create with love; next time I have to create the family with love. Then everything-family, tribe, nation-with love. "I" am the center of all creation. In other words, without you, nothing can be done; you are indispensable. This is how the ideal world will be realized. This is logical reasoning.
You are actually making God a perfect creator. That's why you are important. The self which is changing is not the right kind. The self which is unchanging and consistent is what is needed. Since man needs that kind of world and universe, he must create himself, and so he needs this way of life of love. Without the self, or "I", it cannot be achieved. That's why we set out to create ourselves and our families, tribes and world like that, making the whole creation of God the same way.
You never get tired of this work because each step brings you closer to love, and your surroundings become a little richer with love. This is how we can go on and on. Our tradition is to create the tradition of love and life of the universe. There are no other ideals except that. When we think of the ideal we should think that "I" am the center of the ideal, making it all possible. That ideal will be realized when out effort reaches God Himself.
The world and God will be realized in that ideal. Once this relationship becomes real, how strongly will God be involved with us? The love we are pursuing is not just for a few days or years, but for eternity, and we must take it to spirit world. We can never be tired creating love. Once you get rid of your wrong ideas and bad conditioning you can realize all the fundamentals and start creating the new world on God's side.
Through your family you will see God and the universe. The Unification Church is launching the foundation of the ideal family and of God on earth, based on this very precise understanding. It is more logical than any scientist has ever described. If your physical family discovers that this is what you are achieving in the Church, will they reject you or bow down? Only on this basis can you cherish your husband or wife. Since you are responsible for the recreation of the universe with love, you become important and God will feel you are indispensable.
Those who are determined they will make themselves like that, becoming the masters of love and creating their families in love on earth and in heaven, raise your hands. God bless you.
