The Characteristics of True Love
1 In love there is no end. A love that has expired and come to an end is not love. If you asked your beloved spouse, “Dear, do you love me? How much do you love me?” and your husband or wife replied, “I love you just this much,” you would feel bad. This is because in love there should be no limit. Self-centered love cannot last even one day. Why do a husband and wife fight? It is because each of them wants to receive love from the other. A relationship between those who try to receive love from the other cannot last long. A family in which everyone tries to receive love breaks apart, but a family in which everyone tries to give love to the others will never break apart, even if someone prays that it will. The love in which each tries to give to the other is eternal (36-076, 1970.11.15)
Absolute, unique, eternal, unchanging true love 2 The Creator’s purpose for making man and woman was love. True love is eternal and unchanging. No matter how much the era and the environment change with time, true love will remain unchanged. Men and women were created to fulfill the ideal of true love, which is unique, eternal and unchanging. Human beings were not created with themselves at the center. Creation was initiated with God as the root, at the center. Therefore it can be said that all things were created because of love. (213-156, 1991.01.20)
3 Original love is not human love; it is God’s eternal, unchanging love. At the moment we encounter God’s love and attend Him as our Master, we become one with Him. When we enter the place of joy where we can interact with God, we can conquer the world. Sharing joy with God is more rapturous and intoxicating than owning all of heaven and earth. No stimulation of the five physical senses can compare with the experience of sharing happiness with God. (7-248, 1959.09.20)
4 Everyone wants true love. No one would tire of true love even if it lasted for ten thousand years. No group would launch a revolution against it. Then what is true love? It is not the momentary love between young men and women of this world. Since true love involves God, it has an eternal, unique and unchanging nature. When you look at the solar system, you can see that the planets continuously move around the sun as their center, and this does not change. The earth orbits the sun once a year. In hundreds of millions of years it has not deviated from this cycle. It is amazing to consider this big earth circling around for hundreds of millions of years in this orbit. If the orbit were even slightly different, it would cause serious obstacles to the development of life. Likewise, true love is absolute, eternal, unique and unchanging. (299-153, 1999.02.10)
5 We are born because of the love of our father and mother. There can be no result without a cause; accordingly, no life in heaven or on earth belongs to itself. God has a greater purpose, with us at the center. Love is eternal, but it cannot exist contrary to divine law. Therefore, no one is born outside the principle of love. Also, complete love does not originate from one individual alone. A mother’s love is God’s love. An elder sister and younger brother may be fighting, but when their mother and father come in, they stop. In the same way, our human world needs a mother of love. But in the love of our human world, in the love of the whole universe, there is no mother of love. Humankind lost the original Mother. What we lost was nothing other than God’s love. (20-021, 1968.03.31)
6 True love lasts forever. It is the same love in the spring, summer, autumn and winter. It is the same when you are in your teens, your adulthood and your old age, and even when you go to the eternal spirit world. True love does not change. (194-303, 1989.10.30)
7 Love has an absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal nature. It has the elements of these inner qualities. The foundation of all the inner qualities, the foundation that desires to form common relationships, across the board, cannot be anything but true love. No matter how absolute and unique God may be, He does not reject a relationship of true love. He willingly makes such a relationship. (226-063, 1992.02.01) |