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1We are to raise our children to be people who are like God. This is the standard for education. What does it mean for a person to be like God? It is not defined by the shape of one's face, how much energy one has, or the extent of one's abilities. Being like God means loving as God loves. It requires perfecting oneself as a person and learning to love as God loves. Then what is God's love all about? If we analyze it, there are three kinds - parental love, conjugal love and filial love. That is all it is. His love is nothing other than these three kinds of love.
2In order for human beings to be saved, they need education. The human ancestors fell while they were in a state of ignorance. Adam and Eve, who should have moved from the realm of indirect dominion to the realm of direct dominion, did not fully know God's Will. Hence not one of the many great people and religious leaders who came to the earth throughout history was able to prepare the foundation according to God's original standard. No one fully figured out the course that our first ancestors failed to complete, and hence left unknown. No religion, no philosopher or great individual has been able to clarify this. Human history has not flowed in accordance with God's original standard. Rather, it has flowed based on our ignorance, following the tradition inherited from our ignorant ancestors. This is the point on which humankind needs education.
3For us to be a mother or a father, it is not enough just to give birth to our children. We have to raise them and educate them. What is the purpose for which we raise them? It is so they can enter the kingdom of heaven. Even if we cannot give them education on other matters, we should at least educate them so they can enter the heavenly kingdom. We should not leave them unable to go to the place where all their family members and relatives reside. That is why we need to educate them. By this, I mean to teach them about heavenly law. That education is of foremost importance.
4The way of filial children is to love their family, which channels the life force of love. The way of patriots is to love in conjunction with the life force of the nation. The way of saints is to connect their love to the life force of the world. People have taught morals and ethics in light of this progression; we need to understand that this way is correct. Loving the world is the way of saints. This is the standard for the moral education of humanity.
5Everyone has to take the path of learning, the path of education, but what is its purpose? It is to advance toward a world of greater good and thereby increase one's value. Thus we strive onward toward a higher dimension in order to become one with a center of greater value. Although it may be indirectly, we are all in pursuit of something based on this purpose.
6Of all education, which is the greatest? The family is the base, the origin of the kingdom of heaven; therefore the best education is teaching the way of a son or daughter in the family. This teaching of the way should be from God. God is our Father and at the same time our Teacher and King. In God's royal family, princes and princesses would have been taught: "You represent all the men and women who live in the kingdom, even though they number in the hundreds of millions." However, no one has received such education in the position of sons and daughters representing His royal family. Further, no one was ever taught, "When you two unite as the older and younger siblings, you can bring peace to the world. Further, since all the men and women in the country are like your brothers and sisters, and you are in the position of older siblings, you should love your people as your younger brothers and sisters." Even though families are small, each one represents the whole nation, which in turn represents the world and all of heaven and earth. Therefore, with your family as an exemplary model, you should teach your children the principle that applies to all levels in the whole world. That is, loving your brothers and sisters is the same as loving all of humanity. At the same time, teach them that when they live for the sake of something greater, that which is of lesser value is absorbed by that of greater value. This are heavenly principles.
7Education does not take place only through a teacher standing at a podium with books, but also through the teacher's words and deeds. The way a person dresses is an education; you can tell a good deal about a person's character by the way he or she dresses. Just as the body reflects the mind, a person's clothes reflect his or her character. In this light, our daily life offers constant opportunities to educate, stimulate and influence everyone around us. If we continually strengthen our effectiveness in educating people in our daily life, society surely will develop. That is where new hope for our world unfolds.
8Schools are places where people are educated from the age of a toddler through young adulthood. Universities provide courses leading to a bachelor's, master's or doctoral degree. Once they are adults living in society, the media provide their education. However, these days, most media are not performing that role properly, but are misleading society and even contributing to its destruction. Media organizations put their own interests first and focus on making money. I am proud that I stand firmly for moral standards and promote them throughout the world.
9When we go to school, we must study not only for our personal purpose, but rather to deepen our understanding of nature as God created it, and to grasp God's heart. Knowledge of God leads us to a deeper and higher love. Please understand that the training I am giving you, although strict, is to enable you to learn to love heaven and to love nature, and to prepare you to become a central figure. That is, it is to make you a master of love. When you go out and work in society, although you face bitter winds, think that the challenges you are facing help you share God's love and manifest its true value.
10You cannot gain competence in a short time. To become competent at something, you have to go through various types of training and gain experience. The purpose of studying in a school is to inherit what others have learned through experience and practice. At school you inherit what others have learned; you benefit from their effort. But to make that knowledge your own, you have to apply it; you have to put it into practice. In short, by both knowing something and practicing it, it becomes yours.
11A true leader will say, "When you die, you should die for the sake of true love." The greatest education of all is that which teaches us how to end our lives in true love. This education is ten times better than studying at Harvard University. The Unification Church is saying, "Let us give our lives for the sake of the highest love, for God, humankind and the world." The highest teaching is that all action, direction and purpose started from love. Men and women, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, the universe and everything in it, started from love. Those who go to the spirit world after living this way surely will not be ashamed to stand before God.
12To raise your own children just as I raise you as church members, you have to study Divine Principle day and night. To educate your children well, you have to go out into Satan's world and train yourself in order to learn more. That is not all. To become owners of the world, you need to learn the heart of the parent, the heart of the teacher and the heart of God, and inherit the right of ownership from Him. After joining the church you are reborn. You then need to be educated and perfected. When you are fully mature, you will come to know God's Will. Then you can say, "I am ready to stand in the position of an owner." When you stand in the position of an owner, you will inherit everything.
13God intended to bestow His love through Adam and Eve, but because they did not reach the standard of perfection and establish a partnership with God in love, God was put in a miserable state. That is why He could not stand in the position of the True Parent. The first ancestors should have given birth to true sons and daughters, nurtured them and provided for them. Giving birth to children is the role of parents; nurturing them is the role of teachers, and providing for them is the role of owners. I am not talking about the world; I am talking about a family. A mother and father are parents, but at the same time they are teachers and owners.
14To resolve God's sorrow over His inability to educate Adam and Eve, due to their Fall, we have to inherit and teach the "three great subject partners principle." This is the practical way of life based on the principle of true love. If we teach and practice the three great subject partners principle, we can reclaim the right of the eldest son, right of the parents and right of the king. Since Adam and Eve were not properly educated, they could not create the ideal family, which was God's Will. Therefore we have to form families, the foundation for the unity of the whole, by educating children, siblings, couples and parents, in true love. In this way, we can realize the ideal nation and ideal world. Had Adam and Eve received proper education, they would have naturally created a world of oneness.
15The teacher is an extension of the parents. The king, the leader of a nation, is an extension of the teacher and the parents. The king is in the place of the parent, the teacher and the owner of the nation. This is the three great subject partners principle that we speak of in the Unification Church. We cannot disregard the Three Subject Partners Principle. We should teach it in the family, in the school and in the nation. Regretfully, no country in the world includes this in its education system. Each nation has a different system. Further, parents have one way, teachers have another way, and the nation has yet another way. Likewise, nations are all disconnected.
16What is it that we most need to know? First, we should know God well and know clearly that He is at the center. Second, we should know with certainty that human beings are the center of the world. Third, we should know the ideal nation that God and human beings are striving together to realize. In conclusion, love is the key to connect these great purposes. That is why my motto for education is "Love Heaven, Love Humankind and Love Your Nation." I have been teaching that true education is to enable people to realize these purposes.
17What does it mean to "love Heaven"? We are not worshipping Heaven based on a vague concept of God. The idea of "love the nation" is not vague; it is concrete. A nation has its sovereignty, land and people, and if there were a heavenly nation, it would have sovereignty, land and people. So expressions such as "the heavenly nation" and "the earthly nation" make perfect sense. Yet God Himself does not create the heavenly nation and earthly nation. Neither does a king make them. It is their citizens who make them. This means that between heaven and earth, there are people in the middle. Thus they can form the heavenly nation and the earthly nation. All of this is interwoven by love. God needs love, the nation needs love, and the people also need love.
18What does it mean to love Heaven? The greatness and power of Heaven, by itself, is only external, and love is internal. Love has the power to move God and to call Him to come to you. The force that attracts God is not that of knowledge, power or money. It is love. I have the motto, "Love Heaven." If we have the power to move Heaven, Heaven will follow us. Another motto is "Love People." I am not referring to loving individuals; I mean loving all humanity. Humanity has to follow love. The third one is "Love Your Nation." A nation follows the one who loves it the most.
1The family is a textbook for how to build an ideal land and an ideal nation. The nation is a textbook for how to build an ideal world. There are four textbooks - the family, the nation, the world and the universe. Yet you have to teach about these textbooks at home. This basic education should begin in the family.
2The family is a textbook to connect us to the kingdom of heaven. It is the educational textbook. When you apply it to the nation, you will become a patriot; when you apply it to the world, you will become a saint, and when you practice it in the context of heaven and earth, you will become God's child, His divine son or daughter. All people have that desire.
3Parents should be the center of the family, and teachers should be the center of the educational institutions of society. Parents rear children by nourishing them, supporting their physical development as well as their emotional development. The school prepares people for their future life in society. If the family is the emotional training ground, the school is the social training ground, like a laboratory. The family is the training ground of heart. Thus, at school we must interact with love and affection as brothers and sisters, and do so in the nation as well. Parents' education at home is to prepare the children to love their school, their society and their nation. Parents should pass on everything in the realm of heart to their children, who are their heirs. They should lay the foundation of heart for their children by teaching them to follow their way of life in the family, society and nation.
4Do we ever need to be taught how to go the way of evil? People do not need education to go the way of evil. Even without any education, they naturally go that way. This is because history started from evil. People were born with an evil inclination. That is why they need education to act according to the standard of conscience based on morals and ethics. What is the center of that education? It is goodness, based on following the conscience. Although people are educated about goodness, how many live up to the standards they are taught? People will still tend to do evil things. In doing evil, anyone can get a perfect score.
5Parents who stay awake at night out of love for their children are close to Heaven. You need to establish an absolute foundation in your family, and say, "This family is like a factory, a production base for the kingdom of heaven." That is why I am telling you to educate and protect your sons and daughters in order to make a happy family.
6The family is the model, the foothold on earth for the kingdom of heaven. It has been God's sorrow that He has been unable to prepare a textbook with which to educate human beings to become His true sons and daughters. Why? It is due to the Fall. When will God be able to raise us up to be His true sons and daughters? This has been His hope throughout history. His further sorrow is that He could not prepare a textbook to guide human beings to build a world of love. Among siblings there are brothers and sisters, not necessarily only two; there could be ten or even twenty. But God could not teach brothers and sisters how to live. After Adam and Eve were born as God's son and daughter, they grew as brother and sister. Through them God wanted to produce the textbook for all brothers and sisters. He then wanted to produce one for husband and wife. But He had no chance to do either, and to this day we have no such books. After becoming a couple, Adam and Eve soon became a father and mother. Yet again, God could not produce the textbook to clarify the tradition of parents.
7The system in the ideal world is based on the family unit. The family is the foundation for the kingdom of heaven; it is the cornerstone, the foundation on which to build that kingdom. It does not matter how many people there are; if you love them as your family you are welcome everywhere in the kingdom of heaven. That is why you should base your life on the education you receive in your family. In the family are grandfathers and grandmothers, father and mother, husband and wife, and sons and daughters. These represent four generations. We can apply this wherever we go throughout the world. We will meet people the age of our grandparents, the age of our parents, the age of our spouse, and the age of our children. Therefore, those who have experienced love according to the textbook in their family will have no problem wherever they go. Since their way of life accords with the book, they will pass every test. The time will come when everyone will provide food and lodging to those who are living like this. All that matters is this education in the family. That is why I am saying the family is absolutely the most fundamental textbook. If you live according to the way you were taught in the family, no matter where you go, you will not face any barriers and no one will oppose you.
8The family is the center of education. In it you pass the test that qualifies you to enter the kingdom in the other world. Who is the head of the family? The head is the one who most loves the whole family. Who is the head of this world? If you view the heavenly nation as one huge family, the one who most loves the people on earth is the head. Each race may think they are the best, but that is not the case. Although both the East and the West exist, each thinks it is best. Yet neither can exist without the other. The two are bound in a partner relationship.
9Earthly families are like production plants that create citizens destined for the heavenly nation. We act as the owners of these plants until we enter the spirit world. The path of life we set up will naturally educate our children. We will not need to intervene; they will naturally learn to walk the right path. Everyone has God within; we do not need education to put Him there. But we are where we are now because of the Fall. As a result of the Fall, humanity has been ignorant of the fundamentals.
10The family is the standard of perfection for the individual and the standard of perfection for the church. No matter how well you do as an individual in pursuing the Will of God, if you do not succeed with your family, it is a problem. That is why the family is the issue. In the family there is not only one side, there are two. There are man and woman, and on the foundation of one man and one woman, there are parents and children. Therefore, four directions appear. Looking at this four-directional pattern, we see that it is not human will that creates the family. The family is the place God designed for the perfection of the individual, as well as the starting point of the church. If a problem occurs in the family, you should find the solution in the family, not in the church. If anything goes wrong, you should seek the solution in the family itself, not the church. If you cannot resolve this at home, neither can the church provide a fundamental solution. The kingdom of heaven appears not centered on the individual, but on the family, where four directions and three dimensions meet.
11If not for the Fall, men and women would have received perfect love from God as His true sons and daughters in the family. Then we would have been completely one with God. In fact, such men and women would have united totally in love. Such couples would not exist only for their own sake but to educate their children, because they would want to complete all four directions.
12The family is the most important school of love in our life. The education of the emotions that only parents can provide equips children with depth and breadth of heart. This is the cornerstone upon which children's character is built. The family is also the school in which virtues and principles are taught. Children should receive intellectual, physical and technical education upon this foundation of emotional and principled education. This is the heavenly way.
13You should not be happy merely with having given birth to a son, even if you waited a long time for him. As much as you are happy with your son, your concern should be how to rear that son to become a valuable person. Parents who know the principle of Heaven are concerned about this and balance their affection toward their child. Those who are just pleased with giving birth to their child are making a mistake from the outset. Our concern should be how we can raise a son who can add value to the nation. If you desire to have a son for this purpose, you set a condition to serve the nation from the outset. This is an important matter.
14Where does the vibration of love come from? It comes from the mother's womb. Your mother's love is the first thing you receive. She is the first one to create a loving relationship with you. Although your father also loves you, while you are in your mother's womb she pays you a great deal of attention, caring more for you than she cares for herself. To protect you from harm, she is careful of what she says and she does things with a loving heart. Love begins from a mother.
15Reflect on yourself and ask, where does my life begin? It starts from your parents. Our life begins in our mother's womb. When a fetus is in its mother's womb, it absorbs elements from the mother in order to grow. If there is anything a baby wants while in the womb, it is that his mother be joyful, happy, and singing all the time. That might be the most important wish of the fetus. That is why prenatal education consists of the pregnant woman listening to beautiful music, looking at beautiful scenes and thinking beautiful thoughts. That is good for the baby as well.
16When a woman is pregnant, she gives prenatal education. The hopes a mother has for her baby will be realized as she does this with her child's future in mind. The mind has great power; this is connected to the power of God's mind when He created all things. That is why even now He continues investing again and again, never calculating what He has invested. He invests infinitely, forgetting about His investment. Investing like this does not diminish the amount that remains for Him to give. The more true love is invested, the greater becomes the reservoir.
17We need to attend God in our heart. We should educate our children with Him in our heart. A teacher should never allow children to take the easy way out and submit incomplete work. They should be like a parent. No parents teach their children to do wrong. Some teachers might let their students do wrong. The teacher could become the enemy and subvert them, to their ruin. There can be two kinds of teachers and two kinds of siblings, but there is only one kind of parent. No matter how evil people are, they teach their children to do what is right.
18God has had dual purposes in seeking to find one man and woman. He wants to redeem not only Adam and Eve, but also wants to build the four-position foundation by redeeming their sons and daughters as well. Each one of you needs to build your own four-position foundation. That means you must do it yourself. You must become one with God and also make oneness with your sons and daughters. You have to find spiritual sons and daughters, educate them and give them such faith that they can even go the way of death on your behalf. Only then can you finally prepare the foundation for one place of perfect rest.
19Parents teach their children to become great people who can serve their country. However, as the world is unfolding before our eyes, the time for teaching children to be great figures for the nation has passed. Now we need to teach them, "Live for the sake of the world and live with the world." I know what you want in your hearts, so I am summing things up like this for you.
20How can we as parents bequeath to our children our thought, such that they will make it their tradition? For God, the issue has been how to bring His children out of Satan's world. For this He has been toiling during the six-thousand-year providence of restoration. For us, the issue is how to educate our children while living in Satan's world. We have to carry both crosses.
21The best public mission is to work for the cosmos. Our Unification Church is not promoting teachings about the heavens and the earth, but the teaching of cosmos-ism, or the way of thinking that centers on the cosmos, as expressed in the word cheonju (天宙) In these characters, which mean cosmos, ju (宙) means house. In the cosmos-centered way of thinking, ownership is not by individual human beings; rather, the family is the owner. Individuals do not build nations; families do. The world cannot be built except from families. When its families fail, a nation will fall into ruin. Therefore, family education determines the nation's fate and whether or not it will be blessed. The more families live by public principles, the more the nation will prosper. The more families focus only on their own interests, the more that nation will decline.
22If a nation were to begin from one individual, how much would we revere that individual? If that person were to form a family that represented the nation and the world, how much would we cherish and love that family? With our beloved sons and daughters at the center, we have to create new tribes that are separated from Satan. As parents, we have to create a family that endeavors to promote and cherish the bond with Heaven's heart. To do this we have to devote ourselves with all our heart and effort to educate our children in daily life. From the viewpoint of education, our life purpose is to show the way for our sons and daughters, to build a foundation for their happiness and for the well-being of our nation and people. Living in this way is how we become the origin of a new world; it is a solemn and noble path. We can begin to fulfill our responsibility as sons and daughters of God only when we put ourselves in this position, valuing it as greater than anything else in the cosmos.
23We can love different types of people only after we give birth to children and raise them in the family. If we could love people of all ages, from little children to the elderly - if as a man we knew how to love, purely, all the women in the world, or as a woman we knew how to love, purely, all the men in the world - would this not be an ideal world? What is the family about? It is the educational center to introduce us to the ideal world.
24The kingdom of heaven originates from the family, so we have to turn the family around, based on true love. For this, the second generation has an important role to perform. Satan is striving to destroy young people. He herds them into drug dens. Shot by the devil's arrows, they engage in free sex without thought to the consequences. Young people in every town should unite with the police to confront gangsters and expel them. Our families will bring hope to towns when our second-generation young people take responsibility to deal with gangsters and educate other young people, together with their parents. Beginning in the family and expanding to the world, we have to create the foundation for a palace of peace within our own families. Those who do this are wise. When there are many such families, they will receive blessings in the future as a people.
25Those whose heart is to serve the world just as they serve their own grandparents will face no obstacles on the way to the kingdom of heaven. We need a uniform foundation of education for people of all nations to build a world of unity. For example, as you are about to enter a restaurant, if you see an elderly couple looking worried because they have no money, you should take them into the restaurant with you and treat them well, as if they were your own grandparents. If you live for the sake of others you will be blessed. Such a legacy will never disappear. When you invest with love, nothing is lost.
26What is God's sorrow? It is that He has been unable to secure three generations on the horizontal level. God could never see Adam and Eve become a true couple or true parents, and thus He could not see true grandchildren. Achieving this would have made three generations. Since these three generations were turned upside down by the Fall - that is, since we inherited the wrong life, love and lineage from the fallen world - we have to turn everything right side up. This brings us to the conclusion that the grandfather should be in the position of the grandson, the father should be in the position of the son, and the older brother should be in the position of the younger brother. This is unprecedented, as if heaven and earth are turned upside down; it is revolutionary. From the vertical perspective, the grandfather represents the first position, God; Adam and Eve represent the father and mother; and the children represent the princes and princesses. Hence we ought to attend the grandfather and grandmother, who appear in the family on the horizontal level representing God. This is the original principle of family education.
27Parents need to be strict in the family, especially today. These days, parents are required to take responsibility in managing and educating their children, even to employ disciplinary measures so that they will not be tainted by the fallen world. Free sex, public flaunting of sex, and homosexuality are the devil's tricks. Our way, which takes us to the heavenly nation, is 180 degrees different from the way of this world. It is natural that someone like me would be opposed by this world. Therefore, unless I proclaim that I have completed all that I had promised in the course of restoration, I cannot enter the realm of perfection in substance. By achieving the eternal standard of the Blessing, as the partner of true love, I can unite with God, the subject partner who is centered on true love, the ideal of creation.
28The grandfather is a special envoy of the kingdom of heaven; the parents are the king and queen of the present world, and the children are the princes and princesses of heaven and earth. That is why a grandfather loves his grandchildren more than he loves his own sons and daughters. After becoming a grandfather myself, I found this to be true. We need to create educational institutions where our grandchildren can study. If we cannot do that, we have failed our mission as grandparents. Our grandchildren will call us to account for this again and again. Our grandchildren should be the parents who begin the re-creation of the kingdom of heaven throughout heaven and earth. We have to become grandparents and ancestors who can fulfill our mission to make it possible for our grandsons and granddaughters to stand in such a position.
1When we raise our children, we have to care for them with more love than that with which we care for ourselves. When we fulfill our responsibility as parents, our children come to understand parents' love, and when they have their own children, they will raise them the same way. In this way, children come to realize and share their parents' sorrow and joy as their own, and their parents' responsibility and work as their own. Thus, even if they are not told to do so, the children willingly consider their parents' adversaries to be their adversaries, accept their parents' work and responsibility as theirs, and inherit their parents' circumstances. Raising such children is in accordance with the principles of creation.
2The power of love gives insight that is impossible to come by otherwise. The parents' heart of love transcends distance to connect with their children. You have seen such a scene in movies: A child is involved in an accident far from home, and his father or mother sees the scene in a dream and wakes up distraught. This is the response that comes through the line of love; it conveys reality exactly as it is. It is not just a vision; it is reality that is communicated. Likewise, on earth you can contact God's substance directly through the line of love.
3Parents do not expose their beloved children's shortcomings, even though they may have flaws. They want their children to resemble only their own good points. After seeing that a child has done wrong, a parent may spank him or her, but will soon regret it and sympathize with the child. This is a parent's heart. A parent may discipline a child as a response to misbehavior, yet a parent's heart is always to magnify a child's good points, the points in which they see the best of themselves, rather than magnify his or her bad side.
4Parents cannot teach their children filial piety just by words. They have to inspire a filial attitude within their children. The child cannot learn this overnight. It requires a long period of consistent influence. Parents should set an example in daily life that inspires their children to emulate them. They should be experts at inspiring this practice of filial piety, based on God's Will.
5Parents should set the example in leading a life focused on the Will. They have to teach their children the life of prayer, the custom of family worship, and the life of faith. They should also teach them the importance of pledge service. The parents should conduct pledge service and use that time to educate their children about the Will of God. Parents first need to practice what they want to see in their children. They should be a model of loyalty to the Will. Their children should regard them with so much respect that they would not utter a word contrary to what their parents say. If they do not become such models, the children will not follow them. With regard to church life, children will observe their parents and compare their actions with what they understand of the Will and the Principle. If children see that their parents neglect their church duties and do not live according to church guidelines, but expect their children to live in a principled way, they will surely disobey their parents.
6If the parents of today are no different from the parents of the past, they are not qualified to educate their children. Hence you have to be clearly different from the past in your family life and in your relationships with the people of your community. Children have their own understanding as to how people who are walking the path of the Will should behave, and will see their parents from their own point of view.
7Children sense whether their parents are good or bad. If you maintain a right heart and attitude toward the Will, someday your children will recognize you and your situation. You, as parents, should bequeath the heavenly tradition even when you die. You exist for your family and your children, but before that you should serve God and your country. In the end, this is the path that will most benefit your children. Only through this can your children gain the fortune of God, the world and the nation.
8As a blessed couple, you tell your children to study. But your sons and daughters will not become children of filial piety and loyal patriots just by you telling them to study. What if they say, "Our parents suffered in the Unification Church, so we will not walk such a path"? You need to teach them the way of love that can digest even such suffering. Thus even if they may have to skip meals, parents should take their children around their town loving the people, praying and shedding tears for the nation. The children may dislike this when they are little, but when they grow up they will say, "Our father and mother are the best." They will understand why their mother and father were not there for them, and as they mature they will realize that their parents tried to love the nation, serve God's Will and save humankind, even at the cost of paying less attention to their children. You should not live carelessly. Your worrying about your children does not make them do well in life. What is important is to feed them the food of love.
9Children follow their father and mother's example, so please attend and worship God properly in your home. Show your children that their father is a man of prayer. Let them know that their father is serving God and living for the sake of others. Through this, you lay the foundation so that your children unconsciously will come to respect and admire you.
10In the future, when your children research your life history, they may discover many stories of misery and difficulties. Yet if they say, "My father suffered like this in the past. To raise me and educate me, my father walked this way of suffering," it will not make them unhappy. Rather, it will make them respect and serve their parents more. We often experience the truth of this. Children cannot be disloyal when they find that their parents never stopped shedding tears for them.
11In matters of love, do not be lukewarm. Choose one, either cold or hot. Sometimes you need to be cold. When you raise your children, even though you love them, if they fail to respond to your love, you should be strict, even challenging them. You should not accept the way they are if they are just thinking, "Okay, whatever." For this reason, once I gathered the church leaders and scolded them. They responded, "Whoa, what kind of teacher is this?" I can be a most frightening person. Although I am a good-hearted person, I also can be the most difficult person to relate to. I can be merciless toward evil, and for the sake of goodness I also can be as fiery as a sizzling hot, thousand-degree furnace.
12Love's original nature is to live for the sake of others. Giving to others from within one's original essence is the nature of love. Where did that love come from? It came from God. Since God is the subject partner of absolute love, the original nature of love is giving. Parental love is the closest to that original nature; that is why parents always want to give to their children. If your child does not accept your love, you should show that child even greater love; then even a child who behaves like a hoodlum will be able to repent and turn around.
13Parents have to be able to represent God. You should say to your children, "Children! Please love your brothers and sisters more than you love me; please love your neighbors, your country and the world more than you love me." If you educate them in this way, you will stand out as true parents among parents. In this way, your sons and daughters will move forward and your family will develop into a center of greater goodness.
14There are three things you should leave behind when you conclude your life on earth. The first is the way of the Principle; you must leave behind the fact that you led your life in the way of the Principle, according to the Will. The second is to leave good descendants on earth. The third is the education of your descendants to be good and effective for the sake of the world. These are three core responsibilities.
15You should leave for your sons and daughters a tradition that teaches them how to lead their lives well. By fighting hard battles in your mission countries you are leaving behind a tradition for your descendants. This is a great opportunity to educate your children based on your experience, reporting to them, "We worked under these kinds of hardships." It is your opportunity to establish a tradition that you can leave behind as your legacy. Tradition is the issue. What you have done will remain; it sets an eternal tradition.
16Unless you set up a tradition for your family, you cannot set up a tradition for your people. If there is no tradition among your people, there will be no citizens in the nation. Blessed families need family law. We need standards for children's education and laws for the family. Otherwise we will fail as parents, and when our children call us to account for this we will have nothing to say. The family law is that before you love yourself, you have to love the nation, the world and God. A wife should be able to testify out of respect for her husband, "My husband loves the nation, the world and God even more than he loves me."
1What is it that parents should give to their children while educating them? Education should not be about knowledge but, rather, about love. Both father and mother should teach how to become one by loving one another. They should become a father and mother with whom God is pleased, and the mother and father should be pleased with one another. At the same time, they should strive to be parents whom their children like; then the children will want to make their parents proud of them. This is how parents should educate their children.
2Whether centered on God or Adam and Eve, the key is the four-position foundation. No matter how you look at it, it is the same four-position foundation. For this reason, we should receive education about love from God, based on His love. What is the origin of this education? It does not begin from human beings. Since God is their Parent, Adam and Eve should be educated about love by God. How is the standard of Adam and Eve's value determined? It is in accordance with the education they receive from God about love. For how long did Adam and Eve require this education? It was necessary until they figured out God's standard of value for the completion of love. In other words, they should have reached full maturity based on the love they received from their Parent.
3Becoming a parent puts you in a position to represent God. Thus, as a teacher, you have to teach your children the principles of love, the love of the family and the ideal of the nation, and raise them to become owners of the family and nation with proper qualifications. To this day our children are being educated in schools that do not provide the most essential education. They provide technical education. The home should be the place of character education. This is where parents bequeath the original lineage. Parents have a solemn duty to establish a tradition connected to lineage with a perspective of thousands of years, and to pass it on to their children. But this is not predestined; rather, it is a destiny we are responsible to accomplish. We cannot change our mother and father. We cannot exchange our brothers and sisters. Knowing this, we need to establish the family tradition in the presence of God and bear fruit as true parents and true teachers. By this means, we are recreating a lineage based on love. After doing so, we need to leave behind us the position of true owners of a true lineage that can last forever.
4Blessed families must think concretely, not just conceptually, about God's sovereignty, God's people and God's territory. It is now time for us to take action, taking responsibility for this mission. Every step we take should be toward this purpose. Even when educating children, parents have to think about how to raise them to become people who can fulfill the Will and mission. A mother should think this way even when she nurses her baby. If we live like this, although we are only individuals, we represent the life, hope and value of the whole, with a value that can stand before heaven and earth.
5Needless to say, you have to educate your children well. But in addition, you should guide them to receive the Blessing at an early age. When three generations have received the Blessing they can be bound together. Before you die you need to have three generations blessed. This is how you can fulfill your responsibility. Just as the Israelites were connected through three families, Adam, Noah and Abraham, the standard for you to be connected is three generations. What should you do to achieve that? You should create your own tribe based on your sons and daughters and relatives who are to fulfill the same conditions. On that foundation you can be free and accommodating with your tribe and they can be the same toward you.
6Toward your wife you should think, "In terms of receiving God's three kinds of love, she is the best. She is the best daughter in the world, she is the best wife in the world, and she will be the best mother who has ever existed." You have to educate your children so that they can say proudly, "My father and mother are the best in the world. No one except God is better than they are." Education within Unification Church families should achieve this standard, and it should be publicly recognized. God should be able to say, "That's right," and your descendants should say, "Yes." My children say to me, "After God, my father is the best." You too have to teach your children to think this way.
7Parents teach their children to love their brothers and sisters and to love their mother and father. At the same time, they need to teach them, "As much as I love you, I love my country. Please love your country as much as I do." If you teach them in this way, they will understand. You do not need to educate them in other things. In the end they will understand, "In my family, my father and I live like this, and all other families in the nation should also live like this. Establishing a nationwide and worldwide foundation together with my family means becoming a patriot in my country."
8You have to teach your children to love the world more than they love their own country. I am teaching not just the way of a patriot for the nation but the way of a saint for the world. Since this way of the saint involves the laws for governing a nation, I am also teaching you how to fulfill the dutiful way and become a prince or princess in the kingdom of heaven.
9You have to be true mothers and fathers who, even while racing ahead, can say to your children: "If I die now, you must take this baton and keep running. I am going this way of suffering to save the world. I must do this in order to enable a new world to emerge. That is the hope of God, the hope of True Parents, and the hope of your father and mother. And that must be your hope too. I believe this unchanging hope will allow everyone to find happiness; that is why I am going this way." At the moment of your death, you should be able to say this to your children and ask them to commit to carrying on your work.
10As parents we need to have the educational resources by which to teach our children. We should be able to testify: "My beloved sons and daughters, you should not be indebted to your parents, brothers and sisters, or neighbors. I tried my best all my life, applying myself intensely, to avoid debt, until my fingers became bent and their skin as coarse as horsehide. My hands became like this through serving our neighbors and living for the sake of others."
11A true teacher is not one who teaches academics but one who teaches love. Of course, parents are one with their children based on love and the blood relationship, but they should also be teachers of love. That is why we parents should teach our children saying, "You should behave this way as brothers and sisters, you should behave that way as husband and wife, and this and that way with your relatives." Thereby we can educate them with love so that, through harmony and unity among family members, they can bring prosperity to the family and finally become owners of love. This is the duty of parents.
12Brothers and sisters need to follow the example of their parents loving each other. Daughters represent the mother and sons represent the father, and they need to learn the tradition of love with which the parents love each other. However, since there have been no true parents from whom to learn such love in Satan's world, we now have to teach our children to follow the example of the True Parents through the way of filial piety. In the Unification Church, in view of our relationship, and the relationship between my family and your family, your children will take after the heart that you have toward me. Children learn heart from their parents. You have to be people about whom your children can say, "My parents carry on, no matter what difficulties they face. Their way of life transcends time, the environment and their standard of living." At the same time, you have to set the tradition in your family that your children will listen to your directions and follow you in any circumstances. Your children should be able to say, "This is the way our parents went, so we have to go this way too. Considering all the circumstances, isn't this what we should do?" You should have your children follow your example by serving your own parents as a couple. By doing so, you set the standard by which to educate your descendants.
13Parents should educate their children about Heaven. In teaching your children, the first step is for you to set the example. Before instructing your children about filial piety, you should be a child of filial piety. If you first become a devoted son or daughter, according to Heaven's law, you will establish Heavens tradition of filial piety. On this foundation, you then teach your sons and daughters the way of loyal patriots in the heavenly nation. If your children cry for the Republic of Korea, teach them, holding their hands and with tears in your eyes, "You are people who actually have no nation. This nation is not your true nation. There is another country that, in a real sense, we have to serve." You should feel God's concern as closely as you feel your baby's breathing when you hold him or her to your bosom. You should teach your children while shedding tears and feeling God's concern. Only then can you expand the depth and breadth of your children's education.
14You need to have the mindset that whatever you own belongs to the Father. Sons and daughters should offer everything to the Father. For this, you should inspire your children to emulate Jesus in their loyalty to Heaven. In every possible way, you parents need to encourage your children to follow the right path of the Unification Church. This is what you need to do. To achieve this objective, it is you who first has to follow this path, for only then can you teach and educate your children to do the same. It violates the heavenly principles if parents try to educate their children to do something they have not done themselves. I teach you only that which I have established as a foundation, by bringing victory through my own practice.
15Personal fortune should support family fortune; family fortune should support that of society; the fortune of society should support that of the nation; the nation's fortune should support that of the world; the world's fortune should support the fortune of heaven and earth, and that in turn should support God's fortune. If you live with the heart that your daily life is connected with the world's fortune and God's fortune, your life represents the realm of life on the world level. No one under Heaven can stop such a person. Do not become a husband who brings shame to his wife. Your wife is God's envoy. Your children are God's envoys. Their role as envoys is to serve as your closest aides, monitor you and educate you to follow the right path. You must not be a father who feels shame before his children. Do not feed these envoys from Heaven with stolen goods. You cannot attend Heaven or your ancestors after committing fraud.
16When you educate your children, I hope you can say, "I went this way for the sake of God's Will, so I want you to go this way too." When a husband, wife or parents die, they should be able to say the following words as their last will and testament: "In my conscience I have not one iota of shame. Please follow the same way I have gone. This is the best gift in the whole universe I can give you." This is the will of all wills. You can add, "If you do as I bid you, the world will be yours; God and the universe will belong to you."
17As a couple, we should be able to show our sons and daughters an example of how a husband and wife should live. Our children should be inspired to say, "Our father and mother have such a good relationship. I want to marry as soon as possible and live the way they do." It is the father and mother who should be able to teach the children how to lead their lives. Everything depends on the father and mother.
18The family is the headquarters of education. When I married my wife, we promised to each other that we would not show our tears in front of our children. What sin do children have? No matter how angry, bitter or sorrowful we are, no matter how much we have been crying, when we hear their voices as they come to greet us in the morning, we need to show our children the same face we showed them yesterday. A mother should hold her children lovingly and let them kiss her and then kiss their father.
19Where there is no unity between husband and wife, there is neither freedom nor peace. If you really want peace through the unity of husband and wife, first you have to unite your mind and body absolutely. This is the first article of my education. To this day, many religious leaders have thought that they themselves were good, while the world was bad. Yet that is not the case, because they have not achieved the first article. If a mother and father, as a husband and wife, do not live in unity, heaven and earth will ignore them. On the other hand, when a couple is united and three generations of a family are united, the whole world will come to you.
20You have to be filial sons and daughters and loyal patriots. Until now, from God's viewpoint, there have been no real devoted children, loyal patriots or saints. You have to pray for your brothers and sisters as you would for the world. When you do so, along with the Parents, you can be recognized as a holy son or daughter, and stand before God. This is the formula. You have to educate your children by showing them how you attend me in your home. Teach them, "This man went through a path of suffering that changed history. By him the world is blessed. Let us attend him in our family. It will be a great blessing for our family to do so."
21As fathers and mothers, please do not let your children see you quarrel. You should never allow this to happen. You should promise this between husband and wife. This applies to my family too. To this day, my children say, "Our mother and father never fight. They are the best mother and father in the world." We have to teach our children to think that their parents are better than any king, that they are the hero and heroine of hope, greater than anyone else. If you have a son he should be able to say, "I want to be like my dad." Your daughter should be able to say, "I want to be a woman like my mom." You have to raise your children like this. This is true education.
22Your children should be able to testify that they never in their life saw their mother and father fight. I know there are all sorts of situations that can arise in life, but even so, you should not point fingers, push and shove, or drag each other down. No matter how upset the father is, he should not look at his son with an angry face. This is my philosophy. That is why my children think their father and mother are always experiencing peace and love as a couple. They think their mother is the best of all mothers and their father is the best of all fathers. The mother and father are each a second God. When you ask your children, "Do you want God or do you want your mother and father?" they should answer, "I want my mother and father." Even God likes that answer. That is something precious. The education that leads to this has the highest value of all.
1When you reach your twenties, you are bound to marry and start a family, for which you have responsibility, and then you enter a competition. All families are competing. Even brothers and sisters compete among themselves, and parents compete in society to maintain their livelihood. In this way, everything is a competition. In order not to fall behind, you should not let yourself make the mistake of following your own interest. You cannot afford to lose a year or even a month, but should keep going on a clear path to benefit your family. Even figuring out the best way to go is a competition. If you fall behind by a year, it will be more difficult to catch up. Children will come, but you are already a step behind. It is like shooting an arrow. You may have the same energy and stamina as everyone else when you finally aim and let go, but the arrows of those who let go first will fly first. For your arrow to catch up, you have to provide several times more propulsion, and not many people can do that. Therefore, during the time of your youth, the question is how you assimilate each year. That's why you need to set a clear goal of your own, and follow through with it. Before your ship sets out on a voyage, you have to know where it is going. You set the direction, start the engines, and then head out to sea. If you have to come back after you started your journey, you will face more difficulty.
2If you follow your original mind, the whole universe will open up before you. The original mind is faster and more forceful than a flying bullet. Once you enter such a state, you can converse with your own mind. You can hold a conversation with yourself. As soon as you consider doing something, the answer as to what to do will already be right in front of you. Being in such a state of spirituality, would you not know where to go? The way you ought to go surely will unfold before you, and the forces of the universe will help you follow it. Even if you feel pushed into a place where you are tested, once you are there, everything will assist you. In fact it is only then that you will be able to do great things. This great power undergirds the lives of true men and women. They are aware of this infinite power, and it propels them forward in the direction they wish to take. They can tell in a second if their direction is wrong. You make this decision through your own effort, but from then on, everything will be taken care of. To get there, you need to decide by yourself on the direction you should take. This is something you alone must determine. It is something you yourself know best.
3Your youth is an important period. The decisions you make then will affect your entire life. If you decide something and you push through with it for forty, fifty or sixty years, holding on to it and making effort day and night, whether you are eating or working, asleep or awake, you surely will become a world-class person. So once you decide something in your youth, you should follow through, even for your whole life, no matter how difficult it is. Even if your children and parents oppose you, the nation and world oppose you, even if God kicks you away, you have to continue. If you keep going like this, you will become a global figure. The time of your youth is that important.
4In your studies, you may have a favorite subject. Think about the importance of choosing what to study. The subject should be something that you value, that suits your aptitude and catches your interest. It should be something that you will enjoy all the time, when you are a child, a young adult, middle-aged and in your senior years - in the past, present and future. You have to focus on and study that subject. Then you have to explore eminent figures in that field of the past, present and future and compare yourself with them. If you are not yet good enough, you need to double your effort until you reach the top in your field. If you pioneer the way to become the world's best in your field, you can take the position of teaching prominent leaders in every field. Then this world can be restored in a short time.
5When thinking about your future and deciding the area of expertise you will pursue, look deeply into your original mind and discuss it with God. You know your own character best. You know the talents you have. Follow where your original mind wants to lead you. No one can steer a boat before deciding which direction to go. When the pilot turns the wheel over to you, you will have to find the way by yourself.
6It is good to pray and practice devotion. Why is it good to pray? When you are focused in your mind, your powers of observation quicken. You will find that when you listen to your teacher's lecture at school, you already know what will be included in the test. You will know whether he or she will ask this question or not. You will be able to read the teacher's mind. It is as if you raised your spiritual antenna. The higher you raise your antenna, the more you will hear sounds that are very difficult to hear. Likewise, those who practice devotion have a connection to the future world. Revelations and prophecy come to those who practice devotion. Further, when you study, if you aim for higher results in order to develop a better future for the sake of humanity, for God and for the whole, then good spirits who were experts in that field will come to you. They surely will come.
7In the Last Days, we have to emphasize maintaining purity. We have to emphasize true love and true family. Without these we cannot correct this world. This is obvious. In the world there are many kinds of people, but they do not have a pure lineage. The problem of lineage has become so complicated through all the ups and downs of history. Who can solve it? Unless we solve the problem of lineage, we cannot return to the heavenly kingdom.
8If we were to ask God, "Within human beings, where does Your love dwell?" what would God reply? Where is the holy of holies in which God would want to dwell, the place of His settlement in the human world? Put it this way to God: "Where is the place where both You and human beings want Your absolute love to settle and stay?" We can conclude that this place of union between God and people is nowhere other than the reproductive organs. This is a revolutionary declaration. It is here that world peace, which brings everything into unity, begins, and from where the perfection of the ideal world expands.
9We live for those we love. We would not exchange them for the whole world. Love is absolute, unique, eternal and unchanging. The place where that love can settle is within each of us. There is no higher hope than finding and uniting with our own counterpart of love in that place of settlement. That is where God is; that is where the root of the universe germinates. That is where the root of love is created. What is the motivation for man and woman to relate? Even for those who do not know God, the motivation is love. We cannot deny this, even physiologically. No one can deny the fact that all created beings move in pairs, as subject and object partners, male and female. Why was this pair system created? Love made it that way.
10God invested all His heart and devotion in making your most precious part, your reproductive organ. This organ is not bad, but it became bad because at the time of the Fall it was misused to destroy God's world. Happiness is related to it. History is related to it. Originally it was holy. The Bible refers to it as a place known as the holy of holies. For people, where is the holy of holies? The human body is a holy temple, and the reproductive part is your holy of holies. Heaven punishes the misuse of it. Its misuse can ensnare the whole tribe. You do not know how much I have had to suffer to recover this foundation. I had to carry the cross of love. I had to go through incredible suffering; I was dragged over the pass of tears, the pass of the cross, while being whipped and shedding blood, to fill the abyss of bitter sorrow. I tell you: do not get too close to a man or a woman. Unless you go through a very serious process, you cannot reconnect to the destined pure lineage.
11In these Last Days, the time of harvest, the unprincipled love that Adam and Eve planted in the Garden of Eden is rampant throughout the world. A woman does not own her reproductive organ, nor does a man own his. Woman is born for man, and man is born for woman. The owner of a woman's reproductive organ is not herself; the owner is her husband. The owner of a man's reproductive organ is his wife. If he uses it selfishly, it will ruin him. God, being wise, assigned the ownership of each person's reproductive organ to his or her marriage partner.
12Those who are called by God are responsible and destined to protect the blessed lineage, without stain, for thousands of generations. Those who cannot do this will not enter the kingdom of heaven. This teaching is not mistaken; it is correct. You must build the kingdom of heaven by yourself. You do so by uniting your mind and body based on true love.
13After you experience love in your family, you have to expand that love beyond the bounds of the family. To do this you must sacrifice for the greater love. Your family must sacrifice for the sake of your tribe and your tribe for the sake of the nation. Once you set up the condition of expanding your love through sacrifice, you will connect to the ideal realm of love everywhere. Once you open this environment of love, you can enter the kingdom of heaven. In reality, even if your love does not reach that level, if you practice such love only within your given environment, you will pass the test and be able to enter the heavenly realm in the other world. Even if you stay within the boundary of the village, you can join with and share the benefits of those who loved the world and heaven and earth.
14What is the principle of the Unification Church? It is that the individual has to sacrifice for the family, live for the sake of others, and lead a life of love. The purpose of the family is to serve the tribe and live for that which is greater. Thus, with a heart that you are representing the entire Cain world, you need to live for the sake of others. If everyone in the family - the grandfather and grandmother, father and mother, husband and wife, and sons and daughters - lives with the same heart, you should be able to go freely anywhere in the heavenly world. You can even go to the realm of the patriots without any problem. The place where we live like that is the kingdom of heaven on earth.
1Where did the Fall begin? What was the Fall that happened in the family? What can possibly fall down in a family? It can be nothing other than love. Do you think the Fall happened through the eating of a literal fruit? Could the original sin result from eating a fruit? People say that eating the fruit was the sin, but what fruit could cause one's descendants for thousands of generations to be sinners? This is a matter of lineage. If the root of sin is planted into lineage, it will last forever through heredity. The only way this can occur is through love. The misuse of love, illicit love, was the cause of the Fall.
2Due to Adam and Eve's Fall, God could not relate to them as the true ancestors or parents of humankind or as His sons and daughters. Adam and Eve were God's only son and daughter, but they fell to a position where He could not relate to them as such. If they had reached maturity, He would have blessed them as a couple and recognized them as His object partners of joy and comfort. Yet they failed to become His object partners, as children or as bride and bridegroom. God had endowed them with infinite value in proportion to His hope for them; yet because of their Fall, He experienced from them neither the filial heart of children nor the heart of comfort as a husband and wife. God had hoped that Adam and Eve would establish the way of filial piety and loyalty so they could stand before Him as the ancestors of hope and the sovereigns of all humanity.
3God is the King and Lord of true love. If He is the King and Bridegroom of true love, to say that He needs a Queen as His partner is absolutely within the Principle. In front of God, who is absolute, the first true man and woman are the people who can become His partners in love. You need money, knowledge and power, but if you do not have a spouse, these are all in vain. A husband needs his wife and children, and a wife needs her husband and children. The family is where we live with our loved ones. Families who attend God, the subject partner of love, become the base on which begins God's kingdom of heaven on earth, centered on His true love. Just as we wish for our loved ones to be infinitely more valuable than we are, God also wishes for His partners in love to become beings of infinite value. This is the status of true men and women. Adam and Eve were to have become such a man and woman.
4Due to the Fall, God lost the True Parents and the children of Adam's family. God lost His true son and daughter. God has had no family that could inherit His lineage of true love. Because we inherited false love, false life and false lineage through the fallen parents, our mind and body came into conflict. Adam and Eve turned into enemies, and bloody wars broke out among their sons and daughters. The providence of salvation, through which God has worked to resolve this conflict, is the providence of restoration. In this providence, a son and a daughter whose minds and bodies are united, representing those who were lost, must become husband and wife in absolute unity. Their sons and daughters must unite with them absolutely, centered on God's true love, and build a true family in which all live eternally in attendance of God. Then this family unites with Christianity, the religion in the position of the bride, to establish a blood relationship with God. Together they re-organize, through God's true love, the family, tribe, people, nation and world of oneness. That is the completion of God's providence of salvation.
5What is God's purpose in establishing religions? His Will is to form a beloved family, tribe, people and nation centered on His most beloved son and daughter, in whom His flesh and bones can become one. Then what is the Messiah? He is the one who comes to earth with God's eternal true love as his root. He is the first to perfect the ideal that all religions pursue. The purpose of God's providence of salvation is for him to expand true life and true lineage throughout the earth, centering on the true love that was lost, and finally recover the ideal family.
6All things exist for human beings. The ultimate objective of history must be a model family, which includes material things as well as children and parents. This is the basic foundation of the universe. Without parents, children cannot be born; those children should have dominion over the material world centered on their parents. Adam and Eve should have had dominion over the material world. All of this should have come about simultaneously.
7The family of Adam, the ancestor of humankind, was invaded, so this family must be redeemed. That is why Jesus had to come as unfallen Adam. As such, he is the second Adam. Since Adam, the first ancestor of humankind, became the fallen ancestor, God, in order to establish His original Will, sent Jesus as the true ancestor who has nothing to do with the Fall. Through that true ancestor Adam's family should have been recovered.
8Every conceivable incident has taken place in the family. This began in Adam and Eve's family. Through their wrongful union, Adam and Eve drove God out of their family. Also they caused the expulsion of the angelic world, they lost the world of creation, they lost the value of humanity, and they lost love. All of this occurred because of the wrongful union of a man and a woman in Adam's family.
9A redeemed family substantiates the hope of history. God has been guiding the providence for six thousand years until now in order to redeem one family. Where should this hope, the substance of history, be realized? It should be realized in our present society, not some time in the future. This culminates in the Last Days. This redeemed family is the core of hope in history and the core of hope of all people today. It is the core of the past, present and future hope of humankind. The countless saints and sages who came and left this world longed for this family.
10The term "restored family" appears for the first time when the returning Lord receives his bride. This family had to be restored; it is the family that all humanity has hoped for. Throughout the past six thousand years, countless faithful religious believers who sacrificed their lives at the hands of rulers and politicians, ardently wished that the Lord would come and alleviate the bitter sorrow caused by their enemies. Yet the Lord cannot do that alone. If He could, He would have done it long ago. That is why God's family has to appear and lay a new foundation on earth. In so doing, it should be able to transform Satan's world with the explosive power of the heart.
11What is our deepest sorrow? It is that Adam and Eve were unable to form a true family as the True Father and True Mother in the Garden of Eden at the beginning of history. This was God's bitter sorrow even before it was ours. God created human beings to establish such a family and build the kingdom of peace on this earth. Nevertheless, His dream for this family was shattered; as a result God has been guiding the prolonged history of restoration for six thousand years, harboring bitter grief. To this day, God has traveled innumerable treacherous paths of suffering to complete this process. The returning Lord bears the responsibility to resolve this history. Then what should he do? He must form a family, not in mid-air, but upon the earth. Only then will there emerge a true tribe, people, nation and world.
12The coming Jesus will have to establish the family of God's hope - the True Family. Until now humanity has been seeking true love, but in fact there should have been no such thing as false love in the family or in society. Essentially, the one true family has to appear as the center of God's love and the center of the greatest love for which all humankind has longed. Without such a family, God cannot form a tribe and a people; without such a people, we cannot realize God's nation or world. It starts in the family, the only place where the highest standards can be realized - the highest ideal God desires in His providence of salvation and the highest standard that people can attain.
13Throughout the ages, religions have sought one man. Yet they did not encourage marriage, and have refused to change that stance. If they continue like this, they will perish. Nonetheless, we have reached the point where that man has been recovered, and a woman has been recovered for him. The Unification Church is the group that initiated this recovery of women. Consequently, the Unification Church is the church that is working to restore the family.
14Until now the purpose of religion has been to save individuals. However, the purpose of the Unification Church is the salvation of the family, rather than the individual. Although we seek salvation, it is based on the family, and while seeking the kingdom of heaven, we do not speak of a husband going to the kingdom of heaven while his wife goes to hell. Both of them go to the kingdom of heaven together. Likewise, we do not let our parents go to hell. Instead, we bring them to the kingdom of heaven, along with our children. The Unification Church teaches the way for us to go to the kingdom of heaven, bringing our entire beloved family and tribe. Hence it is on a different level from other religions. Religions thus far have emphasized celibacy, but the Unification Church puts primary importance on the family. We go the family-centered way, but our families are for the sake of the world and for the sake of God. This is the way we Unification Church members are to go.
15The love of parents, husband and wife, and children are what motivate us to forge eternal bonds of oneness. These bonds of love transcend laws, systems, all contexts and circumstances, and even ourselves. No social system or nation that ignores this can endure. The Unification Church's purpose is to attain family salvation in addition to individual salvation. This is what makes the Unification Church different from other religions.
16Our view of life is centered on the cosmos; the "cosmos" here refers to heaven and earth. From this viewpoint, each person has a mind that symbolizes heaven and a body that symbolizes earth. These two, mind and body, are to unite with God inwardly and outwardly. In the original state in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, each with united mind and body, should have united with each other, making God their center. Had they completed a family centered on God, God would have dwelt in that family.
17Culture drives history's development. The world of culture is driven by the purpose of seeking one embodiment of true character. That is, it is seeking one being with a character that embodies truth. Therefore history seeks truth, true words and the true way. Then what is ideology or philosophy? In the beginning, there was no need for such concepts. If you nevertheless want to name it, you would call it "Adam's philosophy," "Adam's way of thinking" or "Adamic thought." Adamic thought is neither communism nor democracy. It is the parent-centered way of thinking.
18Godism is what we can call the way of thinking Adam and Eve would have developed had they not fallen, but attended God as their Father and grown up as His son and daughter. This way of thinking accepts and assimilates the whole, centered on God, and draws all people to harmonize with the subject partner. It encompasses both the individual and the whole. Therefore we accept one another, and no divisions come about. Nonetheless, because of the Fall, that philosophy did not emerge. We have had to recover it. This is Godism, which is the philosophy of sons and daughters centered on God. The Unification Church also introduces "cosmos-ism," which refers to the way of thinking based on the cosmos - heaven and earth. It advocates that sons and daughters become couples and establish families centering on God. This is a cosmic worldview. In the word for cosmos, cheonju (天宙) the second Chinese character, ju (宙), means house. I chose the character meaning house because a house is a place where a family, with a husband and wife, dwells.
19To really love the world, you first have to love people. To really love people, you first have to love your spouse. A man must love a woman, and a woman must love a man. That is a couple, husband and wife. Those who are bonded as a husband and wife will be able to love the world with the heart of love they have for their spouse. In other words, a woman who loves her husband should honor all men of the world as she honors him. She should likewise love and honor all women of the world, recognizing that they are loved and valued by their husbands. It is the same for men. Each man should honor all women of the world as worthy to receive the love he has toward his precious wife. He should also honor all men as worthy to receive the same quality of love he receives from his wife. We should go forward on the path of love like this, step by step. It must not be ambiguous. Therefore, the family is the standard for the formation of a nation. It is the standard for the whole world, no matter how big. For this reason, the Unification Church advocates a worldview centered on Heaven's family. We call it the cosmos-centered worldview, because cheonju (the cosmos) signifies Heaven's home.
20Unification Church members have to live according to cosmos-ism, a way of thinking centered on heaven and earth, Heaven's home. This means to build God's home, which should be maintained based on Godism. God is the King of the world, the subject partner who maintains the households of the world. He should be able to lead everyone to do so, based on Godism. Therefore, Unification Church blessed families, who live where this worldview is taught, should live for others, not just for their husband or wife. We were never meant to live that way. This is different from the past. We move forward based on the family. We must be saved, but salvation is not for the individual alone. We absolutely cannot go to the kingdom of heaven alone. The Unification Church has introduced this new teaching on earth. Who will be the owner in the future? The family will be the owner, the family of God's tradition.
21The teaching of the Unification Church is the way of thinking centered on the cosmos. For the fallen world, a teaching is like a ship in which we can cross the waters. It is a means that can guide us through a certain time and process only. When we talk about the cosmos-centered way of thinking, the word cosmos means something like a house. Why a house? It is because we cannot build the kingdom of heaven without the family, which dwells in a house. To become the Third Israel, we have to go through the house; in other words, we have to go through the family. To build the kingdom of heaven in the Garden of Eden, we have to go through Adam's family. When the members of that household honor the law, the order and the teachings of the family, and their descendants for thousands of generations inherit these practices and expand them horizontally to the worldwide level, the kingdom of heaven will come about.
22The cosmos-centered way of thinking is based on True Parents. It is rooted in the idea of the Parents. This should be the outlook of your home, your nation and yourself. Whose view of life would the world have embraced had there been no Fall? It would have been Adam's view of life, the way of thinking centered on True Parents. It is the way of thinking centered on the Father and Mother. There can be no ideology higher than that. That is why the Unification Church strives to resolve matters of the heart based on Heaven's viewpoint, within the framework of the original ideal family based on True Parents' worldview. As long as we apply this teaching and system in our families, the Unification Church will not perish.
23Where does the kingdom of heaven begin? It begins from the family. Then what is our ideology? We have a family-centered ideology. The word cheonju juui (cosmos-centered way of thinking) contains cheon, meaning Heaven, and ju, meaning house, so it means the philosophy of Heavens house. Only this explanation makes the meaning of the word cheonju (the cosmos) clear. The sixty-six books of the Bible are filled with words that express the desire for the ideal family. Furthermore, what is it that all men desire? It is to have an ideal wife. The greatest desire of all women is to have an ideal husband. Consider a woman who earned a doctorate. No matter how proud and famous she is, her deepest desire remains to meet an ideal man she can love and bear children with. This is the root of happiness. The ideal of the Unification Church does not lie anywhere else. It begins and ends with the family.
24God's ideal is not something vague that exists only in His mind. It is not intended to remain a mere concept, but is to be realized in the actual lives of people on earth. It refers not just to the personal daily lives of men and women as individuals. God planned to realize His ideal based on the foundation of family life. When the ideal is realized in the family, children who are true and ideal will appear. Those children will bring forth the tribe, people, nation and world that will eventually realize God's ideal world. God's ideal is to realize this world, which begins not from the individual but from the family.
25What is the way for a man and a woman? It is the family. The foundation of the family is a man and a woman in complete unity. That is where it begins. Without harmony in the family, everything will be shattered in confusion. Man and woman should not have different ideals. They should have one ideal in accordance with God's ideal. That is, these three, God, man and woman, create a family in which God's ideal begins centered on one man. By doing so, the ideals of both the man and the woman are realized and embodied.
26Where do we expect the ideal of love first to be realized? Will it begin out in the world? Will a nation create it? The action of love is relational and not individual; it has to begin in the home. Even if someone were to unify the world, if he were unable to unite his own family he would be an unhappy person. The kingdom of heaven starts in the family. Do you think that after Jesus said, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," he went on to say, "Singles, come here and the kingdom of heaven will be realized"? No, he did not. What did Jesus say? He referred to himself as a bridegroom, which implies a bride. He was speaking of the family. The Messiah has to return in order to find his bride. That means he is coming to make his home. God's ideal of a principled family had never been realized, so He intended to make Jesus' family the first model family in history. It would have been a textbook to educate all people, connecting families and bringing about a unified world, realizing the concept of the kingdom of heaven on earth.
27In our families we can sing of happiness, of freedom and the ideal, and we can embrace the world. This is the ideal world, the world where we can be satisfied. Nothing is lacking in that world. Within our families, we are satisfied whether in our hearts or in material things, and we offer gratitude and glory to God. In this way we can enter the kingdom of heaven. What kind of people can enter the kingdom of heaven? It is those who attend their parents at home, share their happiness, freedom, ideals and satisfaction with their brothers and sisters, and overcome difficulties to return glory to God, in a joyful place of dominion over the creation in heaven and on earth.
28The earth is where we determine the foundation of God's ideal. Where on earth? It is in the family, where a man and a woman unite as one in love, centered on God. When we mention the kingdom of heaven, what comes to mind? It should be the place where God, my family and I have reached unity. Even if you went to that kingdom, if God were not there, it would not be the kingdom of heaven. God's presence is absolutely required. But will God's presence alone be enough? If you do not have your own ideal partner, even God's love will have no value to you. Therefore, in the spirit world, those who have lived ideal family lives are the closest to God.
29To love our parents is to love heaven and earth; to love our children is to love humankind; to love material things is to love the whole universe. We have to love our parents, children and material things in our daily lives. These together are the microcosm of the universe. We have to set this tradition in our family. Establishing such a tradition in the family is absolutely necessary. We have to set up the tradition by reclaiming the family, and seek the ideal world in our family. If there had been no Fall, we would have loved our spouse and children and would have attained total oneness. We naturally would have gone to the kingdom of heaven.
30In the world today we hear many people saying, "The world should become one." They all want to see a peaceful and happy world. In religious terminology, we would say that we need to build the kingdom of heaven on earth; we need to build an ideal world. But even though people say this, and even though the whole world wants this and tries to make it happen, they have yet to learn that this can only come about through the family. For this reason, unless we actually build a worldwide foundation upon which we sing of the ideal in the family, build peace within the family, and sing songs of love and happiness in the family, no matter how much we dream of the ideal world, or the kingdom of heaven on earth, that world will not come about.
31How will the kingdom of heaven in the family come about? If the mother and father are united completely in love, the sons will want to have wives like their mother, and the daughters will want to have husbands like their father. With the mother and father as a plus and the sons and daughters as a minus, they will unite as one perfect family; that is the kingdom of heaven of the family. At the place where this kingdom is realized, God's ideal can settle in the four-position foundation. The Principle states that the perfection of the ideal of creation is the perfection of the four-position foundation.
32The Unification Church has a clear viewpoint. Therefore today, wherever you go, if you are equipped with the Unification Church teaching, nothing can block you. You should build the kingdom of heaven for tomorrow with this confidence. We advocate building that kingdom in our everyday lives through our own efforts. We build the kingdom of heaven of heart in our own families, in our family life, and expand it to the environment, through our own efforts. God wanted to build an eternally blessed paradise so that He could dwell on earth. In our generation we have to build what God intended, together with Him, and offer it to Him. With all material things, with our sons and daughters, with our brothers and sisters, we have to lead our lives in praise of God. Otherwise we cannot call ourselves His sons and daughters, who live in accordance with the Principle of Creation and the principle of the four-position foundation.
33What is true love? It is the combination of parents' love, husband-wife love and children's love. Unless we set up the tradition of making sacrifices for one another, relationships of love will not last for long; they will break down. Because parents make sacrifices for their children, this bond never breaks. Further, children who have grown up receiving genuine love from their parents can never be disloyal to them. Moreover, blessings will come to the family of the husband and wife who relentlessly strive to serve and sacrifice for each other, with each saying to the other, "You have lived for my sake." Such a family is the blessed land that God can come to visit.
34Again, I am saying that we have to change our families, one by one. The organizational structure of the Unification Church is based on families; families are the center. The focus has shifted from the individual to the family. Until today you may have disregarded the importance of the family, but in fact it is essential. Now is the time in which the family, which you have neglected, will emerge with absolute authority. For this reason, the Blessing has unsurpassed value.
35Tribes will emerge centered upon blessed families, so please accomplish your mission as tribal messiahs. In the future we will establish churches around the leaders of tribes. All blessed families are leaders of tribes. In the future, the Unification Church will not have services based on sermons; they will be based on testimony. We will focus on testimonies that can bring honor and pride to our families. Thus, all family members will participate in such services together. We will learn from the testimonies of exemplary families. Families with little to report will receive guidance. In this way we will be able to build the kingdom of heaven in our families. Unless we do so, the kingdom of heaven will not be realized on earth.
36Only a husband and wife who love each other can enter the kingdom of heaven. A couple that lives in love on earth is already living in that kingdom. Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is within you, didn't he? But today the Unification Church says the kingdom of heaven is within your family. If we do not realize the kingdom of heaven in our families, we will not fulfill the purpose of the Unification Church. If we do realize it, we are fulfilling that purpose. With this in mind we should walk the right way, centered on the Principle.
Fin de The Education of Children and the Kingdom of Heaven in the Family