How to practice True Love?

Practicing True Love involves fulfilling conditions of faith and substance, restoring what Adam and Eve lost through the Fall. This requires establishing a Foundation of Faith through central figures, conditional objects, and periods of indemnity, and a Foundation of Substance by resolving Cain-Abel dynamics through sacrificial love. True Love means living for the sake of others, embodying God's altruistic nature, and fulfilling the Three Great Blessings.

Practicing True Love is foundational to understanding God’s nature and humanity’s purpose. It is the ultimate path to individual fulfillment and the restoration of a world aligned with divine ideals. The Divine Principle systematically clarifies this path, revealing how humanity can establish conditions of indemnity to return to God's original dominion.

The Foundation of Faith and Substance

The Fall of Adam and Eve meant they lost faith in God's Word and their ability to love with God's original love. These are referred to as faith and substance. Therefore, to practice True Love and restore humanity's original position, we must fulfill conditions of faith and substance, centered on God, to remove them from Satan's dominion. This process involves establishing a Foundation of Faith and a Foundation of Substance.

The Foundation of Faith requires three conditions of indemnity: 1. Standing in the central figure's position: This means being God's chosen representative, such as Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, kings, or prophets (Luke 13:24, Matthew 7:13-14). In each age, God called a central figure to establish this foundation. 2. Establishing a conditional object: Adam lost faith by distrusting God's Word. Historically, conditional objects represented God's Word and allowed people to make offerings (e.g., Genesis 4:4). Later, these included the Law and the Temple in the Old Testament, and the Gospel and sacraments in the New Testament (John 1:1, Luke 16:16). Today, the True Parents embody God's Word and are the central conditional object for establishing faith. 3. A period of time: This condition represents Adam and Eve's lost growing period and is crucial for re-creation. Biblical examples include periods of 12, 21, or 40 units (e.g., 40 days of fasting, 40 years in the wilderness, 400 years of kingship – Exodus 16:35, Acts 13:21).

The Foundation of Substance is established through indemnity conditions based on Abel-type and Cain-type relationships. Human history is the providence of restoration, a process of separating from Satan's selfish love. This begins internally by dividing oneself into an Abel-type (heavenly, true love) and a Cain-type (satanic, false love). The purpose is for the Abel side to bring the Cain side to change through sacrificial love (Genesis 4:4-5). This struggle extends from the individual to the family, nation, and world, with the good (Abel) side ultimately winning over the evil (Cain) side through God's power and sacrificial love (Romans 12:21).

Divine Principle's Clarification: The Purpose of True Love

The Divine Principle defines True Love as the ultimate expression of God's unconditional and altruistic nature, the very impulse behind creation. God's joy originates from giving for the sake of His objects, desiring their happiness above His own. This principle is realized in the Four Position Foundation, where a subject and object engage in reciprocal give-and-take action to create a stable, harmonious unit. Humanity was meant to establish this foundation with God, becoming objects of His True Love and reciprocating it.

True Love, within this framework, is a principle of action: investing oneself completely for the benefit of others, giving repeatedly without expectation or remembrance of what has been given, emblematic of "living for the sake of others." This means embodying God's nature and aligning with His original purpose for creation. The Fall introduced self-centered love, necessitating God's providence of restoration to guide humanity back to True Love. God created humanity to fulfill the Three Great Blessings: to be fruitful, multiply, and have dominion over creation (Genesis 1:28). Fulfilling these blessings through true love brings joy to God and establishes Heaven on Earth, a world that is one great family under God, caring for all creation (Psalm 8:6-8).

Why These Practices Work

Practising true love is not a matter of trying to feel more warmly, and the reason is worth stating. Love is a capacity, and capacities grow only against resistance, exactly as muscles do. Giving when it costs nothing changes little; giving when it costs something enlarges the heart, which is why Jesus praised the widow who gave two mites above the wealthy who gave abundantly out of surplus (Mark 12:43-44). This is also why the hardest instructions turn out to be the most efficient ones: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you" (Matthew 5:44) is prescribed not because enemies deserve it but because nothing else stretches a heart so far so fast.

The family is the primary training ground for the same reason. Within it a person must love in four different ways — receiving as a child, sharing as a sibling, uniting as a husband or wife, and giving unconditionally as a parent — and each teaches something the others cannot. Someone who learns only one of them will have gaps in their ability to love that no amount of good intention closes, which is why the family is described as the foundation of everything rather than merely one good among many, and why honouring parents is the commandment attached to a promise (Ephesians 6:2-3).

Why Order and Cost Matter More Than Feeling

Two further reasons explain why practice must be concrete. First, love that stays in the emotions produces nothing, which is why John insists on deeds: "let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth" (1 John 3:18), and warns that a person who sees a brother in need and shuts up his compassion has no love in him at all (1 John 3:17). Second, the practice has a direction, moving outward from individual to family to community to nation and world, because a love that skips the near in favour of the distant is usually avoiding cost rather than seeking scope. Serving the person in front of us, especially when they cannot repay, is the test Jesus set when he said that what is done to the least is done to him (Matthew 25:40).

The result of such practice is not only a better character but a different destiny, since what a person becomes through giving is what they carry into the next world and the capacity by which they will live there. Every deliberate act of love is therefore building something that lasts.

Living the Principle

Practicing True Love means actively cultivating a heart that lives for the sake of others within all relationships, starting with the closest:

1. Embody the Three Blessings: Strive to perfect your character, establish a true family centered on God, and responsibly care for creation with a loving heart (Genesis 1:28). 2. Live for the Sake of Others: Consistently invest in the well-being of family, community, and humanity, giving without seeking return, understanding this is how we become God's children. 3. Resolve Cain-Abel Dynamics: Internally overcome selfishness and externally foster reconciliation and unity, allowing the Abel-type of true love to guide and transform the Cain-type of self-centeredness. 4. Stand as a Central Figure: Recognize your responsibility to set conditions of indemnity, aligning yourself with God's purpose to restore His dominion and establish True Love on earth.

These answers explain the Bible in the light of the Divine Principle, the teachings of Reverend Sun Myung Moon. .

Last reviewed:

More on True Love

Sources and further reading

All questions · About this site