Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: Episode 168
Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: A Selection of True Parents’ Speeches
Book 4: The True Family Movement
Speech 9: True Love and True Marriage, pg 591-593
Marriage is training in love
Ladies and gentlemen, why do we marry? In a word, it is so that we may resemble God. God is a united being who has dual characteristics that dwell in union. Men and women are projections of God’s divine characteristics. Therefore, the destiny of every couple, as husband and wife, is to form a union as one body, become as one seed, and return to oneness with God’s original nature.
Let us offer our highest praise for the sanctity of marriage. Married life is the way for a man and a woman to love each other. Whom do we resemble when we become one through married life? Our goal is to resemble God. It is only when a man and a woman become one through true love that they truly resemble God, who created them in His image. It is then, and only then, that God resides in them. A man symbolizes heaven and a woman symbolizes earth. So a man and woman need to come together in harmony to achieve peace.
The phrase, “the union of virtue between heaven and earth,” refers to a state in which a husband and wife have accomplished perfect unity, with Heaven’s true love at the center. When a husband and wife embrace each other in true love, it is the equivalent of the cosmos becoming one body. This is the original image of creation brought into substantial reality in the context of God’s ideal.
Another reason we marry is so that we can be trained to love the world and its people. The wedding ceremony vows speak of the substantiation of love and bestow the authority to procreate as well as the authority to exercise dominion. So the purpose of marriage is to bring into oneness the realm of heart of one man, representing the men of the world, and one woman, representing the women of the world, so that they may perfect the love between man and woman.
When a couple has accomplished the perfection of love and the perfection of their hearts, we can say that they have accomplished the family ideal. If you die on this foundation, you will certainly enter the kingdom of heaven.
Why is marriage important? It is important because it is the path by which we seek true love, the path for creating life, and the path on which the lineages of a man and a woman are commingled. Through marriage, history is made, and on that foundation, nations are born and the ideal world can begin.
When we marry, it should be with the conviction that we do so not for ourselves, but for our partners. It is wrong for a person to try to gain a spouse on the basis of social status, wealth or beauty. Once we realize that we are born to live for the sake of others, we understand that marriage, too, is for the sake of our spouse. In our view of marriage, the ideal partner is not one who looks like a model; it is someone we can love with our whole heart, far more than if he or she were on the cover of a fashion magazine.
As human beings, we have to determine to love our spouse as we would love God, and as we would love humankind. We have to love our spouse more than anyone else in the world. Otherwise we cannot be restored to the kingdom of heaven as a husband and wife. If a man cannot truly love a woman, how can he expect to be able to love God or humankind?
A wedding is a ceremony by which we open the gates and enter the palace of happiness. This is why marriage is a major occasion of moral significance. Because love exists and functions transcendent of time and space, it is the most important dimension of human life, and a wedding is the ceremony by which this love is brought forth and confirmed.
Respected guests, this evening I have conveyed to you one portion of Heaven’s teaching regarding true love and true marriage. Whether you participated in yesterday’s event as newlyweds or as a previously married couple, you have now been granted Heaven’s command to walk the path of a true husband and wife with Heaven’s seal. By your bond with the True Parents, you have received the seed of true love, so I ask that you become true husbands and wives who produce true fruit through a true married life. Become true parents, build true families and establish true nations. Heavenly fortune will assist you.
In closing, I sincerely ask that you lead lives in which, by practicing true love, you do everything you can to prepare for your eternal life.
Thank you.
FFWPU, USA