4) The Changes of Adolescence and the Right Time of Marriage
During our childhood, we desire only to grow up healthy. But when we reach adolescence, changes occur physically and mentally; our interest in the opposite sex grows and we're attracted to good looks. Externally, we try to dress up fashionably and concentrate on making our faces look more beautiful. We can tell if a girl has reached adolescence or not by the look of her lips.
Girls will begin menstruating and their physical body will start to look different. Their hips grow bigger, breasts develop, lips grow red and their eyes begin to have a mysterious glow. For what and whom do you think these physical changes occur?
These physical changes occur to make a straight road go around in circles, to start a circular movement. Going straight cannot bring any harmony. When we go back and forth on a straight road, it will not bring any harmony, but only will destroy the environment. Everything must go around in order to preserve and bring harmony to the environment. Everything must go around for this reason. But we cannot go around by ourselves. We need to go around centering on our reciprocal partner (spouse).
Coming together with our partner will start a circular movement automatically. This is the principle of heaven and earth. Therefore, physical changes occur in girls to enable them to meet their partner and to go around. When two people are attracted to each other, there develops a power to make them go around. Therefore, the reason women dress up and wear make-up is not for their own sake, but for their partners.
When is a person in full bloom? It is during young adulthood. This age is the seven-year period from age of eighteen to twenty-five. This period of seven years is the time when the flower of love blossoms the most. How precious is this once-in-a- lifetime period when one is fully blooming!
You all know the peony (magnolia), don't you? The bud of this flower has a different-colored yellow flower inside. How many layers of petals does it have? The petals are all tightly wound together on the flower. Can you push them open? They are tightly coiled so that it cannot be easily opened up. Men and women are similar to this. When is your bud of love going to blossom? That time is when beauty is manifested to the greatest degree: in the midst of harmony in the universe. This is the best time for people, also. It is the masterpiece of God, and it is the period which shines as the very center and the best. Isn't it so?
During the growth period, adolescence is when one becomes most beautiful. A person in adolescence is like the bud of the most beautiful flower. The person who can love adolescents the most can receive God's grace and can be invited to God's room. Do you understand what I am talking about? Can you understand this kind of love? Then, are you able to be like that now? If you have understood and you are a man, you should start preparing what is needed.
Adolescence is when you feel as though you have become a prince of the whole country. Isn't it so? It is a period when you turn everything upside down centered on yourself. Adolescence is a time when you talk back. So if you push yourself, you can easily go in a different direction. This is why juvenile delinquency has become a worldwide problem today. During adolescence, you cannot be happy unless everything you do is self-centered. You feel so proud when even a small thing gets involved centered on you.
I saw a girl around twenty years old laugh without any reason. She would laugh, "ha, ha, ha, ha, ha...," even when she saw a ripe persimmon drop from a tree during the autumn season after all the leaves had fallen. Young adults can understand and feel things without knowing what it is they are feeling. Because everything happens in relationship with her, she gets to have the best feeling. Therefore, adolescence is a point of conversion when one can be in touch with everything and form a relationship.
Why is this? This is because of the original nature of creation which seeks to unite man and woman one hundred percent completely, centered on God's love. However, because of a mistake, this nature was dented, stepped on, broken, like a crack in a beautiful bowl.
Originally, man and woman have the nature to unite centered on God's love. God's love is unlimited. God's love powers all life on earth. If this love were inside all people, the world would be filled with holy people.
Even to the most beautiful girl, adolescence only comes once. During that time, she is the most beautiful flower of all, and it is the most precious time for her in her entire lifetime. So would a girl think, "I want to live alone"? Such a person is not a woman. Does such an animal exist? [Laughter.] Also, among men who look very good at the age around sixteen, would any of them say he wants to live alone? At this time they all start to look for a reciprocal partner. Whom do they resemble that makes them this way? They are this way because they resemble God. If God is not like this, how can His children be like this? It is because God is like that. During adolescence, which is the most precious time in one's life, the desire to seek a partner is the same in man and woman. Is it so, or not? If you think it's not, go ahead and age and die alone.
Try saying to a beautiful woman, "Beautiful women are said to be unfortunate. A beautiful person like you should age and die alone." Even a quiet beautiful woman would really get mad. Nothing worse can be said to a person. This beautiful woman will have value only when there is a man who appreciates her completely and connects her to heavenly love. Therefore, is a person with an unstable emotion happy or unhappy? Grandmothers, please answer. They say she is unhappy. It is true.
When is love linked? When does the power of love push us out? When man and woman reach adolescence and all their physical functions reach one hundred percent perfection, everything comes to a halt. Everything becomes saturated. Movements always go through a saturation point. They come to a halt once and then they start moving again. Everything reaches a point of saturation and stops.
The stage prior to becoming saturated is the period of adolescence. Adolescence is the period when all physical functions reach the stage of maturity. For example, it is similar to a balloon which is filled with air up to the point of bursting. It would burst if a little more air is put in. How wonderful would it be to burst after the completion of love! Similarly, when a person reaches the age of eighteen, he or she becomes stretched out to the point just before bursting. Then they are able to start rotating so beautifully for eternity.
When our spiritual and physical bodies completely unite, original love comes within us. Even in the fallen world, during the time of adolescence, man and woman can stand on a parallel line where our spiritual and physical cells harmonize. During adolescence, the cells of our spiritual and physical bodies joyfully greet everything with open doors.
The human world during God-centered adolescence would be filled with joy and happiness.
When you unmarried men and women during adolescence meet and talk, your hearts bounce, don't they? You become excited and a change starts occurring in your mind. However, if your mind does not center on God and comes to stand on the opposite side, it becomes evil. Your mind should be centered on whom? God. It is true love that can bring you up to a place where your God-centered heart and Shimjung can unite. Can you understand? Because human beings should live their whole life like this, men and women are to have ideals and hopes that are centered on love.
What makes you shine at the final stage is love. Love which is not conscientious is not love. You may not understand what I am talking about now, but you will be able to understand once you get married.
I am sure that very often male students want to look at the faces of female students and female students want to look at the faces of male students without any reason. Isn't that so? That time has come. This is because you are still young. When you are fifteen or sixteen and become high school students, your thoughts turn toward your partners. Your eyes go around in circles. Don't you think so, high school students? Please be honest. How are your minds? Do you dislike being with male students or is it nice? Tell me at once!
Well! It's O.K. for female students not to answer because they are women. Men, it's not bad to have female students around, is it? Now is the age of adolescence. This is why even Hyo Jin, when he sees a female student . . . I'm telling a true story. When you are frank, everything will be understood, anywhere. This is why I am being frank. If you think it's a lie, you are wrong. I am talking very frankly.
Male students think only about how female students are looking at them, and female students are the same. You think, "Oh, I should comb my hair," or "I should take care of my dress," or you look into a mirror. You do this not thinking of how it looks to you, but only of how male students are looking at you. Isn't that so, female students! Then how about male students?
This is good and natural. It is not bad that you think that way. But I am telling you to think with a more artistic heart.
When you reach adolescence, you become more ambitious, going in and out, to and from many places. By the way, from now on, an unmarried man will need a bride and a bride will need an unmarried man. Isn't that so? Those who think it's wrong should quit.
A nicely-dressed woman's eyes shine even more brightly when she sees a man. In order to find a partner, it is very natural to dress up. Women walk around with their hearts burning to meet a handsome or ideal man.
When would God think is the time men and women feel the most happiness? Would God say, "I feel good looking at an aged couple laugh and dance, saying they love each other"? Or would God be happier watching a young man and woman, in love through both mind and body, sing and dance together?
What is happiness to human beings? Can we say we are happy when we have a lot of money and wear many diamonds? Can we say we feel happy by dressing up gorgeously with perfume and makeup, singing and dancing? Of course, each person would differ slightly. But true happiness can only be found when you become intoxicated in love with your spouse, laughing, singing and whispering. The person who can do this is a happy person.
A person who hears whispered words from his or her lover can be said to be a happy person. Whispered words of love in your ears make you feel so happy that you feel you are in a dream. The time when happiness is the most flowering and most meaningful is during young adulthood, when the power of love is overflowing. This is the time when you can grab love with all your might and become unified through love.
Omniscient and almighty God created a time during which man and woman can blossom beautifully. That time is young adulthood. To these newly matured men and women God gave the blessing of marriage as a gate to gain happiness. Everything in this world loses the value of its existence if it does not engage in an ideal reciprocal relationship. Therefore, it is a very natural development for man and woman to receive the Blessing and get married after growing and becoming mature.
You will be in trouble if you try to rush the experience of love. The feeling of being intoxicated by love and becoming happy is like a preview of what is to come when the time is right for the gate of love to open. But you should wait until the time the gate opens to enter. The gate should proudly open when you have become the master of love.
When do you think is the right age to get married? When your mind and body have the most perfected power is the precise time to get married. Your power weakens when this time passes, and then no matter how much you try to maintain your naivete, it becomes difficult to seek a partner.