Book Four - True Family
Chapter Three - The Family Is the Model for the Kingdom of Heaven
Section 2. The Family is the Textbook of Love through Which We Can Connect with Universal Love

What is the universe? Everything in the created world is designed as a sort of training aid to help God's beloved sons and daughters find the ideal of love. This is why everything exists in reciprocal relationships. Minerals are based on the reciprocal relationship of subject and object partners and so are atoms. Protons and electrons also exist based on the reciprocal relationship of subject and object partners. Without reciprocation they cannot continue to exist. Without give and take action they cannot exist eternally. Therefore, the universe is a world created in such a way that its center can only be reached through human beings. (137-59, 1985.12.18)

What is the universe? It is an expansion of the family. If you look at a family that has completely realized the ideal of family love, it has a top, middle and bottom (parents, husband and wife, and children), left and right, and front and back. This is the principle. So when we talk about top and bottom we mean the parents and children, when we talk about left and right we mean the husband and wife, and when we talk about front and back we mean the brothers and sisters.

Through what do they all become one? It doesn't happen through power, knowledge or money. Then what can bring it about? It is love. This is an absolute truth. Otherwise the sphere cannot be formed. Then what are the top, middle and bottom in our family? They are a textbook of love. They are a textbook of love through which we can encounter universal love. Go out into society and put it into practice. How should we love? Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as yourself." How should we follow this teaching? We are not sure.

When you go out into the world and meet a grandfather, treat him as your own grandfather. Treat people like your own mothers, like your own fathers or like your own sons. When you go out into the world you should all live like this. The people of the top, middle and bottom, front and back, and left and right are all displayed in the exhibition hall of the world. You should know that the world is an exhibition of people. If you can love everyone with such love, God will dwell in the midst of that love. (128-22, 1983.5.29)

What is the Kingdom of Heaven? It is the place where you love the people of the world as your own family, and people who do this are the people of the Kingdom of Heaven. Your grandfather and grandmother, your mother and father, your wife, your brothers and sisters, and your children -- what are these four generations? They are the textbook through whom you can deeply experience love, the true love of the universe as people of the Kingdom of Heaven. The family is the foundation, a type of textbook that teaches you this love. (129-96, 1983.10.1)

We can not live without learning the love of the universe. God has prepared things such as a textbook or scripture containing promises which openly say, "Love your grandmother and grandfather. Your grandmother and grandfather on earth are sent as representatives of the grandmothers and grandfathers in the spirit world. Therefore if you love them, I will take it as if you had loved all grandmothers and grandfathers."

Next God says, "Since your mother and father represent the countless mothers and fathers of the world, as a textbook and model of love, if you love them to the utmost, I will take it as a condition of you having loved all mothers and fathers. Furthermore if you as a man, representing all men, love a woman who represents all women, it will be a condition of having loved all women." Next He says, "I will take your loving your sons and daughters as you having loved all sons and daughters." Therefore the family is the training center to receive such training.

It is a training process for loving the world in accordance with the scriptures. We can ask the trainees if now they will go out to the world and love the grandmothers and grandfathers of the world in place of their own grandfather and grandmother, and if they say "yes," this will save the world. (130-273, 1984.2.5)