Love Is Something Very Natural
When I was young, I once caught many birds and tried to make them kiss each other. To do this, I observed them preparing a nest and fed them, because even as a small boy, I wanted to see the birds love each other and sing songs of joy. I did this from curiosity about the laws of nature, as a child's experiment. When I think back now, I wonder how I continued those mean things. I became aware after a long while that love occurs as a very natural phenomenon.
True love occurs within a natural, free atmosphere. I came to know about love clearly because I went through long years of experiments.
When I was young, I grew up in the countryside where migrating birds came and different flowers blossomed as seasons changed. Wherever I went in Korea, I could clearly see the four seasons change, and the beautiful scenery of each season. In Seoul today, it is difficult to see nature even if one walks the whole day. I feel sad that Seoul is becoming such a barren city in which all the environment is man-made.
People who grow up in a city environment will lack emotion and have no chance to feel the mystery and beauty of nature. We must know that the urban environment easily creates a rough and individualistic personality. The interaction that occurs when we contact nature allows people to learn and gain awareness of many things.
I was able to learn and master many things from nature. I became aware of what true love and happiness are through nature. It was from the natural world that I could learn the most basic things, more than from education in school.
When the seasons changed and I saw a beautiful bird flying, I followed the bird and watched to see how it built its nest and lived. There were times when I walked around for more than ten days to see a bird lay eggs and hatch them. I became deeply convinced of God's mystery and love by looking at the cute and beautiful baby birds, just as their mother. The baby birds did not appear from evolution. Would a baby bird hatch if you warmed an egg? Birds are only made to be hatched through the warmth of their parent's body and their parental love.
I once picked up a baby bird and decided to raise it sincerely. Although I took the baby bird secretly, the mother bird cried whenever she saw me. I understood that it was crying, pleading to have her baby back. Mother's love in the bird's world is also very strong. When someone comes and tries to take away the baby bird, the parents try to protect it, even risking their own lives.
To a person who has lost the value of love, what difference would it make even if we gave him a university level education? The education would only give knowledge and create an individualistic, materialistic person.
Korean soybean stew (denjan chige) can only be delicious when served in a unglazed earthenware bowl (tokpegi). Similarly, training of personality can be accomplished fully only when it is done based on love.
World civilization must flower based on an artistic harmony. This is similar to burnt kalbi being most delicious when served on a plate with soybean paste served in a tokpegi If you know the real taste of soybean soup you will never be able to forget it wherever you go.
Similarly, if man once tastes the real taste of love, he will never be able to change. As we easily get tired of eating instant food made tasty by being very sweet, we cannot say that love found easily, like instant food, is true love.
Recently, we see people here and there making love as if they were making instant food. This is a problem. This is like trying to deepen love by taking a perfume bath. I would say that love is deepened, purified and lasts longer when a couple living in the countryside take a cold bath and sleep together.
If a couple brushes their teeth in order to kiss each other, it is not true love. This is because the smell of the toothpaste would stop them from enjoying the taste of the other's individual body odor. When I look at people kissing each other after brushing their teeth, it makes me wonder whether they are kissing in order to taste love or in order to taste the toothpaste. When we look at recent generations, we can say that calculating, artificial and deceitful love is so widespread that it confuses our concept of what human happiness is. We can say that this kind of love is the main criminal leading this world to destruction.
When you meet the person whom you like or love, it is a natural instinct between the two opposite sexes to want to hug and kiss each other. The reason I am trying to be in contact with the natural environment is to love this universe. This is a natural act of human beings in order to find a reciprocal partner.
If all humankind meets man to woman or woman to man based on the theory of reciprocal partnership, no accidents or acts violating the order of love can occur. The order of true love will be formed when man and woman meet based on the theory of reciprocal partnership.
However, if you stand in a position violating the order, ignoring and denying the environment, the ideal order of love cannot be set up.