Book Three - True Love
Chapter One - What Is True Love?
Section 2. Love Is Boundless Giving

Love requires one hundred percent devotion. When God was creating the universe, He invested Himself one hundred percent through His love. That is why true love begins with living for the sake of others. (189-202, 1989.4.6)

God is not a dictator. God gave everything for human beings. The reason God is close to us is because He wants to live for us. That is why we want to follow Him eternally. To live for the sake of others is the natural law, and so to maintain our state of existence in the world we must live that way. Only through living for the sake of others can the connection be made between East and West, and between past ages and the present. (187-89, 1989.1.6)

Giving and giving again for the sake of others puts you in the same position as God giving of Himself at the time of the creation. By putting everything you have into something, you are creating a second self, and it is the same as God investing everything He had at the time of the creation. The history of re-creation is the course of restoration through indemnity. Indemnity is offered through the history of re-creation, and so only when one invests everything one has, can recreation take place. (82-239, 1976.1.31)

The logic of eternal life operates solely through investing oneself again and again. You will never come to ruin if you live for the sake of others. From giving small things, you will move on to giving bigger things. Then where does this lead? It comes back to you. (204-106, 1990.7.1)

Love does not satisfy us even after we have given it; instead, when you give you want to give more and you feel ashamed when you are unable to. Those who feel ashamed even after giving are truly the owners of love. In love, the more we give, the more we receive in return. The more we carry that out, the more the power of what is given is exceeded by the power that comes back. In that way, you will never perish; rather, you will prosper. There is no way to be prosperous without love. (38-326, 1971.1.8)

Love can never be exhausted. The more it is set in motion, the greater it gets. According to the laws of mechanics, something in constant motion becomes exhausted in time. In the case of true love, however, the more it is in motion, rather than being used up, the greater it becomes. (219-18, 1991.8.25)

The essence of love is such that when you live for the sake of others, your love becomes greater, but when you want people to live for you, your love diminishes little by little. (129-264, 1983.11.13)

What is true love? It is giving, and then forgetting about it; it is giving and giving and then giving some more. (240-298, 1992.12.13)

Even though you may give and give and give, the world of love lasts forever. (121-173, 1982.10.24)

The word "love" is truly mighty. There is a Korean saying that "One well-spoken word can clear away a large debt." What that means is that with just one word you can indemnify something. Even if you have a debt of billions of dollars, one word of love can more than indemnify the debt. (227-253, 1992.2.14)

There is no other than the house of true love that has the authority to govern this universe of infinite magnitude. Love comes from living for the sake of others. Even God, the great almighty Creator, has to bow His head to love. (162-287, 1987.4.17)

Love is something that even God cannot fulfill alone. Love can only be attained on the basis of a relationship with another. Where does love begin? It does not begin from oneself; it grows and develops through having a partner. (Blessed Family - 342)

Where is the root of true love kept? Even though God is all-knowing and all-powerful, the root of love is not kept within Him. Although the omniscient and omnipotent God is the central figure of true love, He does not want to keep the root of love within Himself. God wants love to take root in the person who is to be the object of love. (177-269, 1988.5.20)

The more love you give, the more love you have. It never ends. You will have the reserves to give out on a larger scale. However, everything else comes to an end; money, knowledge and authority all come to an end. Everything that has to do with human circumstances and sentiment in the world comes to an end. Yet eternal true love never comes to an end, no matter how much you continue to give. Love is amazing in that it continues into eternity. (121-243, 1982.10.27)

Love is something you cannot fulfill if you are centered on yourself. Love does not begin from oneself; it begins and is later fulfilled through one's partner in love. Therefore love cannot be fulfilled without a counterpart. (145-215, 1986.5.11)

You cannot attain love by yourself. Even the greatest person in the world cannot achieve love if he is alone. This is because love is formed only in the relationship between a subject partner and an object partner. Accordingly, even the omniscient and omnipotent God cannot feel any stimulation or impetus if He attempts to attain love for His own sake. That is why we need a partner. (219-14, 1991.8.25)

The core of the universe is human beings, and the core of human beings is life. The root of life is love, and the root of love is God, but this love cannot be realized by someone all alone. You need a relationship with a partner to realize love. As God is the origin of love, the only beings qualified to be partners in that love are human beings. (48-205, 1971.9.19)

The word "love," and even the word "hope," cannot be used in reference to someone who is alone. Even life cannot come from being on one's own; life can only come through the bonds of relationship. (69-59, 1973.9.10)

Now, let me ask you a question. The two things that last for eternity are life and love. Then which comes first, life or love? Which is it? For God, love did not exist before He did; love came to exist after God existed. That is why, for God, life comes first and love comes second, but for human beings love comes first and life comes second. (105-75, 1979.9.23)

What kind of beings did God create us to be? We were created to be the object partners of God's love, to have His absolute and unique value. He created man and woman to enter with Him into a partnership of love, thereby endowing them with greater value than that of even the whole universe. Human beings are born from love and raised with love, and they live in love until they die in love. But it is not as if they just disappear. Since the subject of love, God, is eternal, unchanging and unique, when we stand in front of such a God, as the object partner of His love, we have eternal life. (142-143, 1986.3.8)

God's purpose in creating Adam and Eve was to feel joy. This was not the joy of looking at them, or speaking with them, or touching them, but a joy based on love. He created us for the attainment of joy. (114-I I, 1981.5.19)

God is the Absolute Being, but He needs another being to be His partner in love. That partner is none other than a human being. Once human beings, who are His partners in love, appear in front of God with perfected love, He can then become the God of happiness, and the God who has found His ideal of joy. (145-267, 1986.5.15)

God had only one dream, which is to realize the ideal of love. However, God cannot accomplish this dream on His own. Neither love, nor happiness, nor joy can be achieved by one entity. They can never be realized without partnership. (Blessed Family - 302)

Where does love come from? It manifests from your partner. If your partner is ugly and you dislike him or her, you want to withdraw your love. And if the partner is beautiful and good, the dynamics of love are set off that much quicker. In other words, the workings of love are determined by the qualities of those in partnership, such as their words, beauty, fragrance, and flavor. (Blessed Family - 342)

Where does love come from? It does not come from us, but from our partner. Since it comes from our partner, we should bow to and live for that person. That is why the law of nature instructs us to, "Live for the sake of others." Since something so precious and valuable is coming to us, to receive it we should practice the philosophy of living for the sake of others. This means we must revere and live for our partner. (143-277, 1986. 3. 20)

It is not without meaning that I am vibrant and active in many fields; I do so because I have a purpose. That purpose is none other than to realize the world of love. Human beings exist with the aim of realizing and attaining love. Since the purpose of human life lies in the realization of true love, the value of human existence is also decided by this true love. How wonderful this is! (Blessed Family - 1062)

All people hope that their partner in love will have thousands of times the value, or infinitely more value, than they have. In the same way, God wishes for human beings, His partners in love, to be beings of infinite value. When someone is perfected, they achieve a divine nature, thus becoming as flawless as the Heavenly Father and attaining the same value. (277-196, 1996.4.16)

What is true love? It is a love that moves you to want to stay with your partner for a thousand years, and that makes you want to love that person forever. With such a love, there can be no hell and Satan cannot get at you. (Blessed Family - 380)

If God is seeking an absolute partner in love, whom will He place in that position? It is none other than human beings. It follows that a partner in love who has become one with the eternal love of the Creator must also live forever. An important issue for religion is how to establish a logical understanding of eternal life based on relationships of love. Eternal life does not lie in a man or a woman. It does not lie in God. You must clearly understand that eternal life is in the love of God. (218-210, 1991.7.29)

If one has no subject partner in love, you feel empty and alone. But if there is a subject partner of love, then everything feels full. Only when something is filled to the brim with love can everything else be filled up as well. You can then give out love infinitely and truly. The reason you exchange love with others is in order to achieve an ideal and to multiply that ideal. The world of love transcends distance. Love is so fast that even light cannot follow it. Love is the fastest thing in the world. It is also the brightest and the most perfect. Love is the only thing that fills things up completely. (95-39, 1977.9.11)

Who is closer to the center: someone who is willing to sacrifice love to sustain life, or someone who is willing to sacrifice life for the sake of love? Who is closer to the truth? One who sacrifices his life to attain love is close to the center and close to what is true. This is because the one willing to sacrifice love for life is self-centered, whereas the one willing to sacrifice life for love is not. (174-15, 1988.2.23)

As I wandered through the five oceans and the six continents, I preached earnestly about the path of love. I have sought to shine the light of love on all people, who, living without love, are like a desert. If the path people are ultimately to follow will lead them to that other world of love, the most important thing for humanity must be the "love beacon." Only that beacon of love can lead humanity to the original homeland. (Blessed Family - 404)

Once you become one with God, circular motion manifests in all kinds of forms and figures. That is why the older sibling must love the younger, following the example of their parents in loving them. In such a family that is united into loving oneness, the love within the family blossoms. Then that love becomes the love within a society, and then the love within a nation. In this way, it later becomes the love of the whole world. (28-168, 1970.1.11)

Lost in the rapture of love, God created man to live forever. Therefore, aging is not the enemy. People are born from love, they live with love, and finally they are harvested as the fruits of love. When you die, you are harvested as a fruit of love. We have lived receiving the love of our parents and our children and after having experienced love as a couple, we have loved our children as their parents. Therefore the love of God and everything we have sown in the inner world of love is to be brought to fruition over the course of our lives. When we pass on to the next world we reap the fruits of our lives and take them with us. (83-198, 1976.2.8)

God maintains life on the foundation of true love; His omniscience and omnipotence should be based on true love. Only then can He stand as the ideal subject partner for humankind, a subject partner who has transcended history. If He seeks to assume the position of the subject partner with only the power of life, then all things of creation will not want to unite together. Even microscopic animals and plants wish for a master of love to tend them and take care of them. They like to feel the touch of loving hands. You should not say, "I'm stronger than anyone else, so you have to do as I say!" Only when love is involved is life set in motion. The root of life begins in love. The basis for God's continued existence is not life, but love. (173-84, 1988.2.7)