16.
True Families and the Family Pledge16.
True Families and the Family Pledge
Our family, the owner of Cheon Il Guk, pledges to build the universal family encompassing heaven and earth, which is God's ideal of creation, and perfect the world of freedom, peace, unity and happiness, by centering on true love.
Family Pledge number four states: "Our family... pledges to build the universal family encompassing heaven and earth, which is God's ideal of creation, and perfect the world of freedom, peace, unity and happiness, by centering on true love!" It is from here that happiness arises. Happiness, freedom and the ideal are realized in the family of the ideal of creation desired by God. (260-305, 1994.5.19)
God's ideal is that the world becomes one family and one household. As it is a place where the people who have realized the four great realms of heart and the three great kingships are gathered, it is one family and cannot be two. Through forming the universal family encompassing heaven and earth, we make the world become one family. (260-191, 1994.5.8)
What is God's will taught by the Unification Church? It is to realize His ideal of creation. In order to fulfill God's will we must realize His ideal of creation before our individual perfection. Where should this ideal of creation be realized? It should be realized in the family through the individual. It must be accomplished within your families. (170-61, 1987.11.8)
What is the ideal of creation? In the Unification Church, we say it is the completion of the four-position foundation by Adam and Eve. That -- from the viewpoint of God's will and creation -- would have been the fulfillment of His will. For it to be complete there had to be a perfected Adam and perfected Eve. If a man and a woman thus perfected had joined together and reproduced perfected children, an embodiment of the ideal of creation with complete victory -- a subject partner or a perfected human being as the center of the created world -- the realm of human perfection would have been realized.
As God and His love were linked to this, all the ideals He had sought to create would have been realized. All the ideals of creation would have been realized if a true Adam and true Eve -- that is, a perfected Adam and perfected Eve -- perfected children, and a family based on the four-position foundation laid before God, had been linked to His love. (164-9, 1987.5.3)
What is it that will remain in the end? The relationship of God and human beings in love will remain. This is how we should see it. The unchanging love between God and human beings -- this law of love -- cannot be changed by anyone. Nor can any force change it. It is through such love that the relationships among human beings and their relationship to God will remain. What kind of world is that world? It is called God's Kingdom on earth. It is the world of the Kingdom of Heaven, and after you have lived there, you ascend to the eternal ideal life in heaven, and this is called God's Kingdom in heaven. We should always have such a concept. (164-9, 1987.5.3)
For us, God's will means realizing His ideal of creation. Then what is the ideal of creation? It is the completion of the four-position foundation as revealed in the Divine Principle. Such a definition is given. Then what is that four-position foundation? It of course refers to parents and children, that is, God, Adam and Eve, and their children. Then what is the center of that foundation? It is neither God nor Adam and Eve, nor the children. You are talking about the four-position foundation, but what does it have at the center to make a connection? What determines its center? This is the question. It is neither God, nor Adam and Eve, nor the children. Only true love can determine the center. (132-107, 1984.5.27)
The true family, in which parents and children have attained perfect oneness of love, is eternal. It is eternal and at the same time absolute. The origin of that love is unique, unchanging and absolute. Such love does not exist just in God, or just in the father or in the mother; it is established on the foundation of the family. The trust in the family based on love is absolute because love is absolute. Next, this is absolute in all relationships.
An invasion of one means the destruction of all, and so this cannot be allowed. Thus, each family member within the four-position foundation must guard against the possibility of love being invaded, even to the point of self-sacrifice. It is most fearful for the foundation of love to be shattered. This single nucleus expands to become the world. From Adam's family, his son's family should appear, and the family of the parents and that of the son must become as one. When these four-position foundations come into being, they will eventually become four-position foundations of the future spirit world. (106-57, 1979.12.9)
Humankind, born from Adam and Eve as the true parents, would have formed an extended family and thereby a peaceful world of the Adamic cultural realm. Accordingly, at the conclusion of the history of restoration, a true family based on true parents and true love will be established as the hope of humankind and at the same time the hope of God. This true family will serve as the source of true love and true life and the starting point of the peace and happiness of humankind. (294-67, 1998.6.11)
The family mentioned in this, "... build the universal family encompassing heaven and earth, which is God's ideal of creation...," is a great family. Isn't it formed through the establishment of the realm of the royal unfallen family? That has not been realized. Through the standard of peace whereby the members of the royal family are connected, they should become a kinship possessing the friendship and love of the great fraternity of the cosmos.
They are to form the universal family encompassing heaven and earth. Then, since that family has been formed, God will also enjoy freedom and peace. God and His sons and daughters will not be obstructed. Freedom and peace will not be obstructed. Next, unity will not be obstructed. What is next? Don't you pledge to realize a world of happiness? Everything is there. Yet even after it has been built, the heavenly world is still left out. The fallen ancestors still do not have a connection of heart. (283-82, 1997.4.8)
What is Family Pledge number four? It pertains to the universal family encompassing heaven and earth. All human beings are brothers and sisters -- one lineage. We must protect it like God. Even though we are sitting in His royal palace, we must fulfill pledge number four. We must form the universal family and realize the world of freedom, peace, unity and happiness. I have such a heart. I am an advocate of the universal family. I must plant freedom, happiness, unity and peace. What does this mean? It is to reveal my history. It is the ultimate goal of my life. You should know it clearly. (280-35, 1996.10.13)
We need a model for grandparents and parents, a model for spouses, and a model for children because we are seeking to establish the standard pursued by heaven and earth based on the family established by God. Korea follows the extended family system. You should establish a historic tradition in which seven generations live in the same house, and hundreds and thousands of people live as one family. It is amazing how this came to fit so exactly with the path of tribal messiahship in the Unification Church. The time will come, in which your families will compete, showing pride centering on the ideal of establishing extended families; a time in which all members of your family will receive blessing and awards. They will all become royal families. (276-180, 1996.2.19)
When we pledge, "...to build the universal family encompassing heaven and earth, which is God's ideal of creation...," it means that we should realize an extended family conforming to God's will. As such, we cannot exclude the satanic world. Although we may have kingship and everything else, we do not have the kingship of Adam's family; therefore, if we are to represent the kingship, untainted by the Fall, we must bring together everyone from the satanic world as an extended family and make them stand in the place of freedom, peace, unity and happiness. There will be freedom and peace, and unity must be included there. Our ideal is peace and unity. (267-151, 1995.1.4)
We must clearly understand that peace will be realized only when humankind commonly shares and practices God's true love and truth; starting from individuals to, families, then from families to societies, nations and to the world, and realizes that all human beings are brothers and sisters and builds the global extended family on earth. (259-47, 1994.3.27)
In an ideal society or nation, all people transcend nationality and race to engage in mutual cooperation, create harmony, and live in happiness. This community is that of an extended family in which people are conscious of being the sons and daughters of the one God and become a single fraternity under the True Parents. This is the place where Blessed Families, who have restored their lineage, rights of ownership and hearts, realize a world of freedom, peace and unity based on the True Parents' language and culture. They will come to lead lives of interdependence, mutual prosperity and universally shared values within the culture of God's heart. (269-155, 1995.4.17)
The society of the ideal world will be characterized politically by principles of interdependence, economically by mutual prosperity and ethically by universally shared values. The core content of the principle of interdependence is co-ownership based on God's true love. The basic model of the society of interdependence is the family. By co-owner-ship, I do not mean ownership merely in relation to material possessions, but ownership based on God's love.
In the family, even though all property would be legally held in the parents' names, in practice it would be jointly owned by the parents and children; that is, by the whole family. At the same time, the individual family members are allocated their own rooms, clothing and allowances. In this way, in the family, the whole purpose and the individual purpose are harmonized. When this ideal form of ownership of the family, based on such love, expands to the society, nation and world, it becomes the form of ownership of the ideal society. (271-76, 1995.8.22)
The original relationship between God and humankind is based on true love. There are many instances of co-ownership between God and the individual, between, the whole and the individual, and between the neighborhood and the individual, but we are supposed to have a co-ownership with a grateful heart arising out of God's true love.
In the ideal world built by the people who have actualized God's love, the whole purpose and the individual purpose are naturally harmonized. Since human beings also have desires and the autonomy of love, they are permitted individual ownership and individual purpose. Even so, they do not pursue unlimited individual possession or an individual purpose that undermines the whole purpose. Perfected human beings are meant to own property commensurate with their position and circumstances according to their conscience and original nature.
In particular, since the economic activity of ideal human beings -- who have the character of true owners of all things by virtue of true love -- would manifest love and gratitude, there can be no avarice or corruption. At the same time, there could be no emphasis on regional or national interests inconsistent with the purpose of the whole, and economic activity will have its aim and focus not in the pursuit of profits but rather in overall welfare. (271-76, 1995.8.22)
The principle of interdependence is an ideal that pursues the politics of joint participation based on God's true love to realize the ideals of freedom, equality and happiness. Participating in communal politics serves the purpose of electing representatives. Yet if we understand political units to be an expansion of love-centered family relationships, then antagonistic relationships would not exist among candidates. Their candidacy would be rooted in a calling to serve, and they would be nominated by their constituents, who would relate to them as siblings serving one God as their common Parent.
After due process, the final result should be determined in accordance with God's will, in which no improper considerations can be involved. That is to say, it will be a method by which the winner is finally decided through a solemn process of drawing lots with prayer. As the result is determined by God's will and heavenly fortune, everyone would come to accept it with gratitude and joyful hearts. (271-76, 1995.8.22)
The principle of universally shared values refers to an ideal of all people in society observing universal ethics and morality centered on true love and pursuing a life of goodness and righteousness. It will be an ideal that seeks a moral society in which all peoples universally practice ethics and morality under the absolute values based on God's true love.
The ideal world presupposes ideal families and perfected people. The unified harmony of the ideal parents, spouses and children in accordance with true love becomes the prerequisite of the ideal family. Furthermore, a perfected person is one whose mind and body are harmoniously united through true love. The world of supreme love -- the world of morality in which the people perfected this way voluntarily practice goodness and righteousness in their family life as the basis of true love and in their social life as its expansion -- is the ideal world. (271-76, 1995.8.22)
The major organs and departments within a nation of the ideal world are harmonized through a smooth give and take action with one another under their common purpose. This is similar to the various organs of the human body, which work together for a common purpose according to the commands of the brain. (271-76, 1995.8.22)
Family Pledge number four states that we will become God's global and universal family and realize the world of freedom, peace, unity and happiness. By becoming representative families, we will unify everything. Isn't that what the four great realms of heart are all about? They send us out to the society.
Even when we have realized the unified four great realms of heart, this will not be the end of it. We have the responsibility to bring the world back through that family. We have to take care of the insecurities and anxieties of the world, the chaos of the satanic world, and the unhappy environment that is not free. This is our pledge number four: "Our family pledges to build the universal family encompassing heaven and earth, which is God's ideal of creation, and perfect the world of freedom, peace, unity, and happiness, by centering on true love." (267-151, 1995.1.4)
Family Pledge number four states: "Our family pledges to build the universal family encompassing heaven and earth, which is God's ideal of creation, and perfect the world of freedom, peace, unity, and happiness, by centering on true love." This is the coming of the Family Federation. All of you will each have to complete the four great realms of heart, the three great kingships, and the realm of the royal family.
Now, the people of the Cain world are in the position of the younger brother, and you should teach them properly from the position of the elder brother and establish the tradition. Only then will the satanic side be restored to the realm of the royal family. We will restore the right of the first son that was lost and save them. By establishing them as the second prince, we are entering the heavenly kingdom with the right of the crown prince. When the two do this, the realm of the royal family will be restored. Otherwise, neither the right of the first son nor the realm of the royal family will be restored. (264-201, 1994.10.9)
When we pledge, "...to build the universal family encompassing heaven and earth, which is God's ideal of creation...," it means that we should realize an extended family conforming to God's will. As such, we cannot exclude the satanic world. Although we may have kingship and everything else, we do not have the kingship of Adam's family; therefore, if we are to represent the kingship, untainted by the Fall, we must bring together everyone from the satanic world as an extended family and make them stand in the place of freedom, peace, unity and happiness. There will be freedom and peace, and unity must be included there. Our ideal is peace and unity. We will achieve unity by assimilating communism. (267-151, 1995.1.4)
The saints who have come and gone until now have only thought about how to unify the external world. However, what is different about the Unification Church is that we are also concerned about the individual internal aspects and how we can maintain unity first. Without unity, there is neither peace nor freedom. Happiness and freedom come only on the basis of unity. Unity is most important. (227-249, 1992.2.14)
Peace, happiness, freedom and hope exist only on the basis of unity. When your mind and body are disunited, will there be freedom? Even when you go to your office, will there be freedom when your mind and body are locked in global conflict and unable to settle down? They will dislike even the word freedom itself. When your mind and body clash, is there happiness? Isn't this why you are agonizing over your life?
This is fundamentally the big question. Where is happiness or peace when your mind and body are disunited? All problems arise on this line. Peace, happiness, freedom and hope are realized on this line. On the day this is crushed, everything will be shattered. Communists and people like Marx and Hegel observed that the mind and body struggle, and thus thought that this was the basic aspect of humanity. They did not know that this happened because of the Fall. This is where the concept of struggle originated. (242-60, 1992.12.27)
We must realize the universal family. Each unit is the family, but from Cain and Abel, this has not been just one family. Within this, each individual unit is a family, and among these are Cain-type and Abel-type families. The families of the whole world should uphold the ideal of the universal family; in whatever environment they are, they should adapt themselves to their surroundings instead of maintaining closely-knit self-contained enclaves. Human beings are God's sons and daughters and extended family. They should become such an extended family, and not live blindly as they are. The earthly world that has formed the extended family should live in conformity with the standard of the heavenly world. (266-150, 1994.12.22)
You should know that where there is no unity, there is no freedom, happiness, peace or hope. Let us see if this is true or not. If your mind and body have not become one, can you be happy? If they clash, can you be happy? Does freedom exist there? They should have good give and take with each other. Peace requires mutual balance, but is there a balance?
Are you in accord with your spouse? When you fight with your spouse in the morning, are you happy for the whole day? You are not. You should know that. There is freedom only on the basis of unity. Without it, there is no happiness, peace or hope. (231-269, 1992.6.7)
Without: unity, there is no happiness. There is neither hope nor happiness. Hope, happiness, peace and even freedom, which all people desire, must stand on that foundation. Everything happens on the basis of unity. Even between parents and children, there is freedom, happiness and true joy only on the basis of unity. Think about this. Today, people are looking for freedom, happiness and peace. Where will they find them? How will they find them? Happiness, peace and freedom are realized only in relationships of subject and object partners -- of vertical and horizontal, front and back, and left and right. These subject-object relationships stand on the foundation of unity. Until now people have not known this. Is it true or not? (225-93, 1992.1.5)
Peace is not realized without the basis of unity. There are words like peace and happiness. Also there is a word freedom. None of these exists without oneness. Is there peace where husband and wife fight? Doesn't peace only exist where there is oneness? Can there be happiness without husband and wife becoming as one? Happiness would run away. The same is true for freedom. If a man and a woman collided with each other, would there be freedom? There is neither peace nor freedom where there is conflict. Freedom exists on the basis of unity. (229-228, 1992.4.12)
Where your children unite to seek out the nation of peace, there will be freedom, peace and happiness. Now, even your husbands will be involved... Entire families will be dancing, and peace and happiness will arise where they dance. The people dancing will say, "Oh, we are so grateful," and the whole family, nation and world will dance; only then can God declare them as His historic sons and daughters of liberation so that all peoples of all nations can triumphantly march in as the citizens of the unified kingdom. (234-219, 1992.8.10)
Peace is placed on the level plane and not the slope. Don't you all seek freedom? Don't you all call out, "freedom, freedom and freedom!"? Where does that freedom want to live? It wants to live on the unified level plane. Freedom, happiness, peace, hope and everything exists on this; but none of them are on the slope. Where is your individual hope and freedom? They exist on top of mind-body oneness. Where does happiness exist? It is on the level plane where your mind and body have become as one. Hope exists there as well. (254-252, 1994.2.15)
Where does freedom stand? It has to stand on the level plane, on the basis of unity. Happiness, hope and peace also stand on the basis of unity. This is what peace itself is like. None of them can be attained if not on the basis of unity. (257-141, 1994.3.14)
If God's love and human love do not have the same origin, they will diverge. If their directions differ, so will their purposes; the world of peace and unity could not be realized, and things like unity, peace, happiness, freedom and hope would all disappear. (265-262, 1994.11.23)
Without standing on the basis of unity, freedom cannot exist. If your mind and body clash, can you bring freedom, hold on to it, and say you are joyful? Can freedom appear? There is no way. Also, where is peace? Peace is to be fully free where everything is smooth and nothing is lacking. Yet when your mind and body clash, is there a place where peace can stay? The same is true for happiness. Don't you like it? Yet when your mind and body clash, can you find it? There is no way. (232-189, 1992.7.6)
There is freedom in oneness. Even your eyes feel good when they are focused on one point. When your nose is blocked, it is a problem, but when it is opened up, it is free. Your ears, hands, body and other things are also free. Yet without oneness, there is no freedom, peace, happiness and unity. The perfection of all creation lies where there is balance, in a level place. It cannot stay on a sharp point. (267-312, 1995.2.5)
You know everything because you have it from the True Parents, who have achieved global victory; therefore, you just have to realize the family Kingdom of Heaven. I have to realize the global Kingdom of Heaven, but in order for you to be true parents, you need to unify mind and body, husband and wife, and parents and children, thereby regaining everything Adam's family lost through the Fall. This is the beginning. You must restore peace, happiness, freedom, unity and the Kingdom of Heaven. Then, everything will go well, everything will be okay. (259-318, 1994.4.24)
In an ideal society or nation, all people transcend nationality and race to engage in mutual cooperation, create harmony and live in happiness. This community is that of an extended family in which people are conscious of being the sons and daughters of the one God and become brothers and sisters under the True Parents. This is the place where Blessed Families, who have restored their lineage, rights of ownership and hearts, realize a world of freedom, peace and unity based on the True Parents' language and culture. They will come to lead lives of interdependence, mutual prosperity and universally shared values within the culture of God's heart. (269-155, 1995.4.17)
Had the Fall not taken place, how would Adam's family, formed through true love, have propagated itself? Adam and Eve would have become ideal true spouses. Next, they would have become true parents, and then the true ancestors of their descendants and all humankind in accordance with true love.
Human beings multiplying from Adam and Eve as their true parents would have formed an extended family and thereby a peaceful world of the Adamic cultural sphere. Accordingly, the culmination of the history of restoration lies in establishing the true family based on true parents and true love as the hope of humankind and at the same time the hope of God. This true family will serve as the source of true love and true life and the starting point of the peace and happiness of humankind. (294-67, 1995.4.17)
What humankind most urgently needs is a revolution of true love initiated by the True Parents. Without a fundamental change, we cannot expect happiness and a peaceful world. Today's problems should be solved by the ideology based on the ideal of true family, centered on true parents and on God's ideology of true love. You should seriously evaluate the peace movement and the ideal of true love that I have developed around the world until now. The movement of true love and purity for the youth, and the true family movement based on true love, which transcends nationality, culture, race and religion, should not be viewed as activities just of the Unification Church.
World peace first requires a peaceful nation. National peace presupposes family peace and comfort. Power, wealth and knowledge, which worldly people have ordinarily desired, cannot be the necessary and sufficient conditions for peace and happiness. True happiness is not proportional to one's possession of secular love, nor is it determined by external circumstances of life. True peace and happiness are attained only in conjunction with true love. Genuine peace and infinite happiness can only be gained when we serve others with true love, which goes around and then comes around in one full circle. (294-68, 1998.6.11)
Humanity now faces grave peril. Remedies from any one specialized area will not suffice. Leaders should become the conscience of the age, and show the way by example of creating true families, which are the prerequisite and fundamental unit of a peaceful world. The Holy Blessing Ceremony of the 360 Million Couples, which I will officiate, is one of the fruits of my lifelong efforts to educate the world about ideal families. Those participants have already made a marriage vow before God and will build true families by becoming true couples and true parents centered on God's true love. We are proudly advancing the historic revolution of true love through the true family movement for the sake of realizing a peaceful world. (294-68, 1998.6.11)
Where there is no love, there is no happiness. There is no peace either. How can man and woman feel at peace? In order for them to feel at peace, they should become as one through concave and convex. They only have their spouse with whom to do this. Can they feel at peace through another man or woman? That would be a great mishap. Can they be happy with another man or another woman? It would be a calamity. Everything is like this. With another man or another woman, you cannot be free. It would be a disaster. Thus, you should know that without love everything is incomplete. (275-17, 1995.10.30)
Things like ideals, freedom, peace, unity and happiness come through love. In the world of men and women, freedom cannot exist without oneness of love. Where is the base of the start of freedom on earth? It is neither money nor material nor knowledge. The logic is established that it must start from love. As its starting point is one, its destination and point of settlement should not vary. (270-268, 1995.7.16)
Freedom and peace are one. Peace has freedom from the time when oneness is achieved. If there is only freedom, there will be no ground to stand. Is freedom a substantial entity or what? It is for a man and a woman to act in oneness with nothing standing in their way within each other. What is needed for this? It is not that it is so simple to unite. This is the issue. What will make them one? It is not freedom that will make them one. When men and women want to be free, don't they run away? Is this freedom? Is it freedom if a wife, while going away, wants to turn back and sheds tears because she cannot forget her husband? No. Everything must be centered on love. If love were removed, everything would be shattered. (247-153, 1993.5.2)
When mother and father become one in love, the place where they do so is full of freedom. It is there that peace comes and happiness exists. Also, if all brothers and sisters are to become as one, what would unify them? It is not freedom or equality, but love that will do so. What makes the parents and children unite? What unites grandparents and grandchildren? Is it freedom? Is it some ideology? It is love, love, love. The same applies to the nation. It is not the president but the people who love the nation that unify it. The same applies to humanity: people become one through love, the love for humankind. There is no other way. (247-153, 1993.5.2)
Heaven started from that original love of God and this is the starting point of the Kingdom in heaven and on earth. The starting point of freedom, happiness, ideals and the origin of peace and unity are all there. This is an amazing word. You should bear this in mind. (267-257, 1995.1.8)
Without true love, there is no freedom, peace, unity and happiness. Everything can only be perfected through true love. This is an age of the perfection of freedom, peace, unity and happiness through true love. (289-206, 1998.1.2)
In order to put an end to the historic struggle, we must return to God. First, with God as the center, the mind and body of the individual must become united. Then, when such a true man and true woman form a true family with God as the center, they will again have God within it. Therefore, the true family based on true love becomes the earthly base for God's dwelling and furthermore, the starting point of the true nation and true world of peace. Through this the world of true freedom and happiness will open up. (271-88, 1995.8.22)