Chastity is to control one’s sexual desire: to refrain from premarital sex and to have sexual relations only with one’s spouse. Chastity requires the institution of marriage for its most joyful fulfillment.
The extreme asceticism of a celibate monk or nun is a vocation only for the few, those who are willing to sacrifice continually the God-given desire to love and be loved.
God created us to love, form families and raise children to propagate the human race. In this regard, sexuality within marriage is a wonderful gift, a joyful experience and a blessing of God.
However, as fallen human beings we do not naturally discipline our sexual desires to be employed in a faithful marriage bond. That requires training, and religions have traditionally served this purpose.
Religions teach that adultery is among the most serious sins. They train the mind to subdue the desires of the flesh, and set boundaries on behavior to avoid temptation to sin.
They lift up marriage as a holy institution. However, in today’s secular society, people have forgotten the discipline of desire. Promiscuity and “free sex” are everywhere, promising instant happiness but yielding disappointment, heartbreak, and broken homes.
Marriage is under attack, and many young people are cohabiting rather than marrying, largely because they no longer believe that they can make a lasting marriage.
As the original standard of faithful marriage is forgotten, homosexuality and lesbianism are gaining acceptance as alternative lifestyles. Father Moon speaks passionately and directly about this topic.
Based upon his teaching that the Human Fall was an act of illicit love, he sees the misuse of love as the root of all sins, crimes, unhappiness and suffering in human life. (See Chapter 6) The Fall caused people to devalue love and use it wrongly.
Therefore, he calls us to elevate love to its original, heavenly purpose as the linking point between human beings and God. Sex in marriage should be a holy act, what he calls ‘absolute sex.’
Love between husband and wife should have the same absoluteness as God’s love for us. Anything less creates separation from God.
Sun Myung Moon
Refrain from Adultery, the Most Serious Sin
Neither fornicate, for whosoever does that shall meet the price of sin— doubled shall be the chastisement for him on the Resurrection Day. Qur’an 25.68-69
Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled; for God will judge the immoral and the adulterous. Hebrews 13.4
Whoever has illicit affairs with the wives of his relatives or friends, either by force or by mutual consent, he is to be known as an outcast. Sutta Nipata 123 (Buddhism)
But fornication and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as if fitting among saints. Let there be no filthiness, nor silly talk, nor levity,23 which are not fitting; but instead let there be thanksgiving. Be sure of this, that no fornicator or impure man… has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Ephesians 5.3-6
Approach not adultery: for it is a shameful deed and an evil, opening the road to other evils. Qur’an 17.32
He who commits adultery is punished both here and hereafter; for his days in this world are cut short, and when dead he falls into hell. Vishnu Purana 3.11 (Hinduism)
Now Joseph was handsome and good-looking. And after a time his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph, and said, “Lie with me.” But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Lo, having me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my hand; he is not greater in this house than I am; nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his wife; how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” Genesis 39.6-9
Four misfortunes befall a careless man who commits adultery: acquisition of demerit, disturbed sleep, third, blame; and fourth, a state of woe. There is an acquisition of demerits as well as evil destiny.
Brief is the joy of the frightened man and woman. The king imposes a heavy punishment. Hence no man should frequent another man’s wife. Dhammapada 309-10 (Buddhism)
Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you.
Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely hind, a graceful doe. Let her affection fill you at all times with delight, be infatuated always by her love. Why should you be infatuated, my son, with a loose woman and embrace the bosom of an adventures?
For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he watches all his paths. The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is caught in the toils of his sin. He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is lost. Proverbs 5.15-23
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from unchastity; that each one of you know how to take a wife for himself in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like heathen who do not know God. 1 Thessalonians 4.3-5
The body is not meant for immorality, but for the Lord… Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!
Do you not know that he who joins himself a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two shall become one flesh.” But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Shun immorality.
Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body; but the immoral man sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God?
You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. 1 Corinthians 6.13-20
Sun Myung Moon
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
Violating and misusing love is the gravest of all sins. Men and women who have been victimized by love often want to commit suicide and throw away their lives. Hence, we should know that committing a sin against love is worse than murder. (92:79, March 20, 1977)
The critical point in life where Adam and Eve and innumerable heroes and spiritual masters throughout history have failed is the matter of the purity of their sexual love.
It is a problem that no one today can solve, not the family, nor the school, the church or the government. I teach the best plan to keep purity: ‘absolute sex.’
What is absolute sex?
Once joined in marriage, your relationship with your spouse is eternal. You form an absolute love relationship that will never change under any circumstances. How can that be? It is because as husband and wife you love each other within God’s eternal and absolute love.
Absolute sex is not an obligation only for women; it also applies to men. It is Heaven’s principle that all men and women must keep. On the other hand, free sex is a wicked trend that should be completely eradicated from the planet Earth.
The things associated with free sex—drugs, violence, homosexuality, and HIV/AIDS—only drive humanity down the path to destruction. (288:283-84, November 30, 1997)
Free sex is like a poisonous snake. Its head is like a man’s sexual organ and its open mouth is like a woman’s sexual organ. One bite from this poisonous snake can spread HIV/AIDS. One bite forever cuts down the ideal world…
How can people conquer this snake, employing only their conscience?
Coming to their aid, the religions of the world have always taught how to subdue the flesh. They have always commanded, “Do not drink, smoke or engage in free sex!” Only love that is absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal can eradicate free sex. The feeling you get from drugs or alcohol or free sex cannot compare to the absolute joy and stimulation of absolute sex.
In absolute sex, all the cells in the body and mind activate and connect to the one center. It is supreme ecstasy, far beyond the intoxication of alcohol or drugs. Within its essence lie absolute freedom, absolute happiness, absolute hope, and the absolute fulfillment of all one’s dreams. This is true love…
Where is the place where all the cells want to unite? It is [the partner’s] sexual organ. All creatures desire to arrive at their partner’s sexual organ as their final destination.
The sexual organs are the connecting point for love, life, lineage and conscience. [Depending on how they are used,] they are the beginning point of heaven or hell. (279:174-75, August 4, 1996)
Why do we say that one man must love only one woman? What’s wrong with the American lifestyle of one-night stands? Why should we have only one love? Why should there be only one man for one woman?
What’s wrong with a man loving several different women and a woman loving several different men?
It is wrong because it lacks true love. What is true love? A man’s true love and a woman’s true love is the same. True love does not belong to the man or the woman, but it is the one love that unites both.
That is why every man asks his sweetheart, “Do you love me?” and every woman asks her man the same question. Everyone asks their partner, “How much do you love me?” and they answer each other, “I love you more than the universe.” (118:291, June 20, 1982)
Some married men, when they see a pretty woman, think how nice it would be if she were their wife. Such a person has two minds. We call him a man with the mind of a thief. Satan started from two minds; thus it is right to call such a man with two minds “Satan.” He is no different from Satan. (Blessing and Ideal Family 1.2.6)
The sexual organ is the most fearful of the senses because love was the cause of the Human Fall. That is why religions treat adultery as the most serious sin.
The free sex that we see in the modern world today is an extension of hell. It is hell on earth and hell in the spirit world. It will entirely perish. (261:303-04, July 24, 1994)
Love, life, and lineage want to attach themselves to the sexual organs of men and women. They are the place to connect with God. They are the place where the Original Parent of all human beings comes and visits us.
The sexual organs are the palace of love, palace of life, palace of lineage, and the palace of conscience. They are the starting point. Without them, we cannot find love; without them, we cannot find life. Without them, there would be no way for the life in a man and the life in a woman to meet as one.
They are where a man and a woman meet and where a lineage comes into being. Your conscience, too, must be in accord with your sexual organ or it cannot manifest correctly.
Each of us has love; each of us has life, and each of us has a lineage. Inquiring where they come from, we learn that they are linked to our parents’ sexual organs.
They are linked to the love that is in our parents’ sexual organs. That is how precious these organs are. The core of all the ideal traditions of the universe flows through their gates.
The living water of eternal life flows from them. To become eternal living water, there must be love. So love is the most important. That is how precious these organs are. In nature, precious things, treasures, do not lie in plain view. Instead, they are hidden. Is this not true of gold?
It is hidden and distributed in layers of feldspar or other rocks. However, as a result of the human fall, all this was turned upside down. Each woman now thinks that her sexual organ is her own, but it is not hers. A man can never perfect his love without his wife’s sexual organ.
Likewise, a woman cannot maintain her love forever unless she has her husband’s sexual organ to bring love to her. As long as men and women regard their sexual organs as their own, they cannot realize eternal love. Rather, they must exchange their sexual organs.
The owner of a man’s organ is his wife, and the owner of a woman’s organ is her husband… Will a new key fit two different locks? These days, some knuckleheaded professors talk about free sex, and say this represents the liberation of love, or the emancipation of sex. They are thieves, and this world has become hell on earth because of such thinking. (300:320-21, April 15, 1999)
Sun Myung Moon
Young People Should Be Abstinent before Marriage
How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to thy word. Psalm 119.9
So shun youthful passions and aim at righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call upon the Lord from a pure heart. 2 Timothy 2.22
Those who abstain from sex, Except with those joined to them in the marriage bond… These will be the heirs who will inherit Paradise. Qur’an 23.5-11
Let those who cannot find the wherewithal for marriage keep themselves chaste until God gives them means out of His grace… Do not force your slave-girls into prostitution when they desire chastity, for your profit in worldly goods. Qur’an 24.33
If any man takes a wife, and goes in to her, and then spurns her, and charges her with shameful conduct, and brings an evil name upon her, saying, “I took this woman, and when I came near her, I did not find in her the tokens of virginity,” then the father of the young woman and her mother shall take and bring out the tokens of her virginity to the elders of the city in the gate… But if the thing is true, that the tokens of virginity were not found in the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones because she has wrought folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father’s house; so you shall purge the evil from the midst of you. Deuteronomy 22.13-21
The Buddha said, “Of all longings and desires, there is none stronger than sex. Sex as a desire has no equal. Rely on the Oneness. No one under heaven is able to become a follower of the Way if he accepts dualism.”24 Sutra of Forty-two Sections 25 (Buddhism)
Sun Myung Moon
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
When a girl grows up and becomes a young woman, she looks for a young man.
But will she really find true love in him? Can a young man be confident that he can trust his girlfriend?
Without true love, men and woman cannot trust each other. Why? They do not understand that a man and a woman exist for the sake of each other. Instead, they are accustomed to using their partners to serve themselves.
People use the opposite sex as servants or slaves because they do not know the value of true love. One’s first love should last eternally. (297:145, November 19, 1998)
When you are a young person nearing twenty, where do you take your clean and unstained purity, all wrapped up? You take it to the altar where God will be most happy to receive it. Then you join with your spouse, who has also guarded his or her purity.
Then when God binds you together at the holy place [your sexual organs], you become a holy husband and wife. Your purity should be your pride. Nevertheless, if you think that you can use your sexual organ freely in the manner of dogs or pigs, it would be better to cut it off or dig it out. (64:85, October 24, 1972)
You should not sully your innocence during adolescence. It is the precious period when you can overcome and indemnify the sorrow of Adam and Eve, who lost their innocence during their youth.
You should preserve your innocence, precious and clean. You should have the integrity and resolution to say, “Even if I have to live alone for a thousand years, I will not allow anyone to violate my love.”
My tradition and teaching is that you cannot hold your partner of love unless you have loved your people and your nation. You cannot hold your partner of love unless you have loved the world.
You cannot hold your partner of love unless you have loved God. Once you have loved God, loved the world and loved the nation, then you can love your spouse. This is a fundamental rule. (37:108, December 22, 1970)
The time has come when men as well as women should keep their chastity. If a man takes a wrong step and loses his chastity, it is as if his entire clan committed a serious offense against God’s Will.
The time has come when it is no longer acceptable for an elderly man to have a secret affair. A man’s philandering will ruin his entire clan. Once you understand the Unification teaching, you cannot do that. (Blessing and Ideal Family 1.2.6)
I am thinking that your children should be married at an early age, because I want them to be certain of marrying their first love. If each of you had met your spouse during adolescence with your first love intact, you would be so happy.
First love is so pure! You would approach your spouse like a pure child loving its mother and father. Such a loving man and woman create an ideal couple and give birth to wonderful children. (118:310, June 20, 1982)
Sun Myung Moon
Is Touching or Even Looking Permitted?
You shall not eat of the fruit… neither shall you touch it, lest you die. Genesis 3.3
Offering presents to a woman, romping with her, touching her ornaments and dress, sitting with her on a bed, all these are considered adulterous acts. Laws of Manu 8.357 (Hinduism)
You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Matthew 5.27-28
The adultery of the eye is the lustful look, and the adultery of the tongue is the licentious speech, and the heart desires and yearns, which the parts may or may not put into effect. Hadith of Muslim (Islam)
It is true that you commit no actual crimes, but when you meet a beautiful woman in another’s home and cannot banish her from your thoughts, you have committed adultery with her in your heart. Consider a moment! Would you have sufficient control over yourself to imitate the sage Lu Nan-tze if you were placed in a similar position? When he once found himself obliged to pass the night in a house whose only other occupant was a woman, he lighted a lamp and read aloud until morning to avoid exposing her to unjust suspicions. Treatise on Response and Retribution, Appended Tales (Taoism)
The Buddha said, “Be careful not to look at women and do not talk with them. If you must speak with them, be properly mindful and think, ‘I am a shramana living in a turbid world.25 I should be like the lotus flower and not be defiled by the mud.’ Regard old women the way you regard your mother. Regard those who are older than you the way you regard your elder sisters; regard those who are younger than you as your younger sisters, and regard children as your own. Bring forth thoughts to rescue them, and put an end to bad thoughts.” Sutra of Forty-two Sections 29 (Buddhism)
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
In the Western world, men and women shake hands, hold hands and hug each other so casually that they do not feel any special sensation. In the East, however, men and women rarely have physical contact with each other. So if they happen to merely brush against each other, they feel an electric spark.
Which is better, for men and women to have frequent physical contact or to refrain from touching until they are fully mature? When the electricity sparks, would you rather it be 50 volts or 100 volts? Therefore, you should wait.
What do you think? Should young men and women go on dates, hold hands and kiss each other before marriage? You should wait and refrain from touching until you are fully ripe, like an apple that has turned totally red. Then even at the touch of your partner’s hand you will feel an exciting electrical spark.
Yet most American women never experience the full sensation of first love, because having dissipated their electricity, the remaining charge is only at 50 volts or even 30 volts. Now what do you think of American-style love? Satan uses this and many other methods to invade the realm of high-intensity love.
To a pure teenage boy, a girl is like a palace of mysteries. Likewise, to a pure teenage girl, a boy is like a palace of mysteries. But these days, where is the mystery? Boys and girls behave like animals. They love each other like cats and dogs, without any vertical love. (125:103, March 13, 1983)
The religious life is one in which your conscience tortures your body until it surrenders. Once the flesh is completely dead, your conscience should occupy it so it can never come back to life again. Thus, the mind must dominate the flesh.
Therefore, you should turn your habitual way of seeing inside out and see straight. Your eyes, which have been looking at things 180 degrees opposite the way they ought to, should now turn 180 degrees opposite their former way of seeing.
Whereas, before, when you were on the satanic side you looked through the left eye, now you should look through the right eye. In other words, your eyes, which could not see properly because they were 180 degrees off, should be united with your conscience and return to their original place, coming back to the right side after having rotated 360 degrees.
From that time on, your eyes are welcome to view anything because you see with the eyes of the original mind. (261:303-04, July 24, 1994)
Homosexuality—the Extreme of Free Sex
You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. Leviticus 18.22
The bodhisattva does not approach the five kinds of unmanly men in order to be friendly with or close to them.26 Lotus Sutra 14 (Buddhism)
And Lot said to his people, “You commit lewdness, such as no people in creation ever committed before you. Do you indeed come in unto males?”27 Qur’an 29.28-29
God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error. Romans 1.26-27
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
Free sex, homosexuality, the lesbian movement and the like destroy human rights and dignity. (Way of Unification 5.2.4.2)
Free sex is what Satan likes most. God is the opposite. God wants ‘absolute sex.’ Archangels do not have partners—that is why homosexuality and lesbianism has emerged. With God, on the other hand, there is absolute partnership.
Now is the Last Days, when we are harvesting the seeds of free sex that Adam and Eve sowed in the Garden of Eden.
That is why free sex is rampant throughout the whole world, especially in America.
That is why families are breaking down. These are the satanic fruits of the Last Days. In this world full of free sex, people say, “It’s okay for men to marry each other” because they do not have an absolute partner of love. (282:27, February 16, 1997)
Satan has worked to break down the basis for lasting love; hence free sex, homosexuality and lesbianism are rampant. Homosexuality and lesbianism grew from the seeds of the archangel; that is why they do not have eternal love partners.
Satan is making people around the world expose their bodies more and pulling them in the direction of death. Humanity is experiencing its ultimate fate as descendants of the archangel, who instigates death to all. (279:121, August 1, 1996)
Could homosexuality exist in a world that abides by Heaven’s principles?
Lesbianism, alcoholism and such exist because people suffer from emotional misalignment. They suffer in this world, which is hell on earth. We, on the other hand, strive to live in God’s Kingdom, so our way of life is 180 degrees different from them. (243:191, January 10, 1993)
If you practiced homosexuality before joining the Unification Church and you have still not ended such relationships, you will go straight to hell. Once the truth deeply moves you, everything of that old lifestyle should flee away. You have been born again.
Now, no matter how much you formerly enjoyed it, your heart says no. Therefore, you have nothing to do with it. If you cannot suppress those feelings, you should repent, pray, and weep with tears. (219:233, September 8, 1991)28
Sun Myung Moon