BOOK 5 TRUE FAMILY

BOOK 5 TRUE FAMILY

CHAPTER 1 True Families from the Viewpoint of God's Will

Section 1. What Is a Family?

1 When we study the meaning of the word family, gajeong in Korean, the second character jeong (庭) stands for garden. Parents and siblings in a family are like the colorful varieties of lovely flowers in a garden. The family should be a place where each member can be joyful, Singing and dancing. If family members fight each other, the garden will become a wilderness. When a flower hears harmonious music it grows well, but if it hears discordant music it cannot. The same goes for a family. When its members hear the melody of love they can grow wonderfully. What makes them do so is the heart of love. (18-021, 1967.05.14)

2 In a family there are parents, husband and wife, sons and daughters; and there are surely other relatives living around you. Family members include grandfather and grandmother, mother and father, husband and wife and sons and daughters. It is not mere words that unite them. It is not money that draws them together, nor the necessity of living and eating together. Sharing the same house does not guarantee that family members will get along well. It is mutual affection, no matter who is older and who is younger, that allows them to overcome the difficult challenges of life together, in unity. Vertical and horizontal, left and right, front and back; within a family all these relationships are harmonized through the love not only of mother and father, of husband and wife, of brothers and sisters, but also of grandparents and grandchildren. The family with love as its core is the foundation upon which each of its members bonds with others, moves and acts. A family is based on love. (210-313, 1990.12.27)

3 At home we have our grandfather and grandmother, our mother and father, our spouse, and our sons and daughters. What is good about a home? It is there that you find the embracing love of the grandfather and grandmother, and of the mother and father. You find the great love between husband and wife and the great love between brothers and sisters. It is people’s original nature and tendency to seek the greatest love, so it is inevitable that we return to our family. The grandfather and grandmother are envoys of Heaven, and the father and mother, as the center of the family, represent the king and queen of the world. The grandfather and grandmother are the father and mother of the past, your own father and mother are the father and mother of the present, and you and your spouse are the father and mother of the future. When these three generations join as one, the past ages of the spirit world are connected to the historic realm of love on earth, going beyond the present family, and align with heavenly law in the future. Then all people of the world will be able to unite. The family is the core unit of harmony; ultimately all humanity must bind together as one ideal family. (316-150, 2000.02.11)

4 The family is the smallest unit that connects the past, present and future. It is a microcosm of the world. As the grandfather, father and son coexist in the family, they connect the past, present and future. When the son has sons and daughters, he rises to the position of the father, and his father rises to the position of the grandfather. From the grandfather to the father to the son, these three generations are to unite into one. The links of the past, present and future should unite them. No matter how much the world pitches and rolls, society will not adversely impact that sort of family. It will maintain a basis for happiness. (28-162, 1970.01.11)

5 In the family there are the four levels: grandfather and grandmother, father and mother, you and your spouse, and your sons and daughters. The world is the extension of these relationships. Thus you need to love the people of the world whose ages are similar to the people in your family, in the same way you love your family members. Just as your family loves and unites centered on the parents, so you should love and harmonize with all people according to the standard by which you love your own family members. In fact, God invested more to create His partners in love than for anything else. Likewise, you should love others even more than you love your own family members. (213-125, 1991.01.16)

6 The universe is the expansion of the directions of north, south, east and west that are represented by your grandfather and grandmother, your mother and father, you and your spouse, and your sons and daughters. The family is the ideal model wherein the different kinds of love become one; it is a textbook of love. Hence, we need to take all the types of love in the family and extend them to the world. When you relate with people from around the world who are of similar age to your grandfather and grandmother, no matter what race, respect them as you do your own grandparents. When you relate with people from the entire world who are of the same age as your father and mother, love them as you love your own mother and father. If you become such a person you can possess the kingdom of heaven; you can inherit the full scope of the kingdom of heaven on earth. Moreover, please honor all men and women in the world to the same degree you honor your husband or wife, and love all children in the world to the same degree you love your own children. The person who relates well with the entire world according to this teaching, for which the family serves as the textbook, becomes a prince or princess of God’s love. (209-232, 1990.11.29)

7 God is the cause, and the grandfather and grandmother living at home are the representatives of God. Our mother and father inherited the tradition of the grandparents and are connected directly to us in life and love, flesh and blood. Our brothers and sisters share our direct bloodline. Family members are our kin who are connected through true love, true life, and true flesh and blood. There is no question that this love is one unified core that cannot change, no matter where you go. (211-028, 1990.12.28)

8 You actualize origin-division-union action through everyday life in the family. When you say goodbye to one another in the morning as you go to work, do so in joy, and when you meet again in the evening, do so in joy. When you return to your family, gather your family to talk about what happened that day, discuss it together, and suggest ways to improve. You have to connect the entire family through love and through laughter. The family becomes the children’s haven of rest when they can say, “Our dad is the best! Our mom is the best! We really like it when you two love each other!” You have to become a couple who can build a family as the base of eternal joy and pride, such that your children will not want to go anywhere else. (30-283, 1970.04.04)

9 Why do you like love? You like it because it is how you are designed. When a mother and father love each other more than they love themselves, they are closer to the ideal. Love is a rope that binds the mother and father together into one. Steel chains rust over time and eventually break, but the rope of love lasts forever. Food or money cannot bind parents and children together; only love can bind them together. Unity among siblings is likewise possible only through love. (18-329, 1967.08.13)

10 A family is not necessarily good just because it has a good house and good surroundings. No matter how shabby a family’s house or environment may be, a good family is one that will cherish it as a haven of rest and build ties of love that endure despite all of life’s challenges. There you will find the heart of parents and children who live for each other. This heart becomes the original hometown of memories and provides the motivation that directs our lives. It is the basis of our happiness. Why is that so? It is because there is a singular tie of love between parents and children. It is a lineal bond of love that no one can replace or invade. There the love of parents and brothers and sisters becomes our motivating force. Our family members are the dearest to us in our everyday lives. (29-016, 1970.02.15)

Section 2. The Original Family of God's Creation

1 Genesis 1:27 reads: “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” What kind of being is God? God is a being within whom there are subject and object aspects. All seeds resemble their origin. Because God is the original cause of the universe, all created seeds are in God’s image. When you look at a seed, regardless of what kind, you see there are two halves wrapped in one outer layer. This reveals the image of God Himself. God’s personality comprises plus and minus characteristics connected to the origin of life. In this way God recreates His own image, and relates with those created beings as His counterparts. Adam is His subject-partner image, and Eve is His object-partner image. Then, why did God create them as separate beings? It is because He wanted to have them each grow to perfection individually. (53-113, 1972.02.11)

The ideal family of God's creation

2 When man is perfected and woman is perfected, the two are to join as subject and object partners. Prior to joining as one, they receive love as God’s son and daughter. After they grow to perfection by receiving that love, they are to become one. They are brought into union and bound as husband and wife. That is the origin of the family. When they come into union, whom do they resemble? They resemble God, the subject partner, and become His object partners. Then, as His object partners, they can do what God the absolute subject partner has done. That is, as they rise to the position where they can form a subject-object relationship with each other, as God can within Himself through the powerful force of love, a new life can emerge. Just as God created people, people can also give birth to sons and daughters through the power of love. Through God’s love, we are not only given the ability to create children and thus to stand in the same position as God, we are also given the heart to love our children so that we can feel the pleasure and joy God felt when He created His children and all things in heaven and earth. In the end, we should fully inherit the filial love, the conjugal love and the parental love that dwell within God. This is the wellspring of happiness that lies within us. (53-113, 1972.02.11)

3 The world in which we live is not the ideal world that God originally intended. Various religions pursue God’s Will over human will. But what is the Will of God? Unless we clearly understand God’s Will, it is impossible for us to find the way to fulfill it. God’s Will is the fulfillment of the ideal of creation. What is that ideal? God created human beings after creating all things. Ultimately, God wanted not only to exercise dominion over the creation through the first human ancestors, Adam and Eve, but also to bring about a family under His love. In the Unification Church we define this as the fulfillment of the four-position foundation. (80-268, 1975.11.02)

4 God’s Will is the actualization of the ideal of creation; concretely, it is the completion of the four-position foundation. To achieve this, Adam and Eve must be perfected as God’s children and receive God’s loving blessing on their marriage. Thus they first become God’s son and daughter, and later husband and wife. They should have sons and daughters and build a family that God is delighted to see. This means guiding their children to reach perfection. In conclusion, the ideal world of creation is the ideal family of unified love, where God and His children, Adam and Eve, become one. Then, with God’s love at the center, Adam and Eve become parents and create unity with their children. (80-269, 1975.11.02)

5 God’s Will is to fulfill His ideal for the created universe; that is, His purpose of creation. God surely had a purpose in creating; therefore, He will bring it to pass. Adam and Eve were at the center of that purpose. In the Unification Church we teach that God’s purpose is to complete His ideal of creation. The purpose of creation is to realize God’s ideal through Adam and Eve’s establishing the four-position foundation. Centered on God, Adam and Eve were to attain total oneness within the realm of God’s love, which they could never have left, even if they had tried. Their family would have become the center and the starting point of love, attending God above as the Father while standing as the ancestors of humanity on the earth below. When God created Adam and Eve, He anticipated the moment when Adam could relate fully to Eve, when the two would attain oneness in heart and body through their union in love. This was the ideal He wished to see become real. Adam and Eve were to become one in love as husband and wife, and give birth to sons and daughters who would be one with their parents. God’s Will would then have been fulfilled, based on His love, and the Adamic cultural realm would have emerged. (110-213, 1980.11.18)

6 God’s purpose of creation is complete only when the four-position foundation is established centered on God’s love. The four-position foundation refers to true sons and daughters, true husband and wife, and true parents; in other words, Adam and Eve and their children, with God at their center. Forming the four-position foundation entails the completion of the three-object-partner purpose. From the perspective of God at the center, there is a path of love going to Adam, a path of love going to Eve, and paths of love going to their sons and daughters. This love is to bear one fruit: children. Sons and daughters are the fruit of the love of their parents, a mother and father, and at the same time, the fruit of God’s love. The fact that you can state, “I have true children,” means that you are finally standing in the position where you can relate to the love of the entire universe. (82-276, 1976.02.01)

7 God’s ideal for our first ancestors was that an ideal man and an ideal woman would create an ideal family. But the center of that ideal family would be neither the man nor the woman. The husband and wife would be bonded together, with God’s love at their center. A family is ultimately a gathering of parents and children. Accordingly, the completion of God’s Will refers to the perfection of husband and wife and the perfection of a family, all centered on God’s love. (127-010, 1983.05.01)

8 God did not create Adam and Eve just to gaze upon them. He did not create men and women to have them age and die. They were created to grow to maturity, to reach the age when their hearts would long to relate to someone of the opposite sex. Then they were to build the true kingdom of heaven of humanity on earth. They were created to build a cozy home of love with God at the center, a home where the man, Adam, would represent heaven, and the woman, Eve, would represent earth. Thus, although they were two, their horizontal union would unify heaven and earth. When the man and woman achieved perfect unity in God’s love, the cosmos would naturally harmonize with them. (21-044, 1968.09.01)

9 The essence of the Unification Church’s teaching is simple: the formation of an ideal family in which God can rejoice. The Divine Principle explains the attributes of God. Among them are the attributes of internal character and external form, and of yin and yang. These are connected centered on God’s love. Thus we can say that love is the mainstream of all of God’s attributes. God’s love has the attribute of absoluteness. It is also unique, unchanging and eternal. Therefore a husband and wife bound together through God’s love are an absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal couple. The same is true for their children. God’s ideal is to build families that form the realm of three generations connected to God’s love. In such a family, the parents would be absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal parents, and the same would be true for the husband and wife and the children. That united entity, absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal in nature, constitutes God’s ideal family. God is present in such a family. As such a family expands to become a tribe, a people, a nation, the world and cosmos, the kingdom of heaven on earth and in heaven comes into being. And in the midst of this, God exists as the Parent, Teacher and King. (391-195, 2002.08.22)

The ideal base upon which we live in attendance to God

10 Adam and Eve were the substantial manifestations of God’s dual characteristics. In God’s heart there is nothing greater than the ideal of love in the perfect family, which is the supreme ideal of love: the perfect love of children, of siblings, of husband and wife, and of parents. Even the invisible spirit world and the visible substantial world came from the division of God’s dual characteristics. The perfection of the heart of children, siblings, husband and wife, and parents is the highest goal and purpose that God desires to attain. Once these are substantially perfected, God descends and engages with them in their perfection. Conjugal love is the point where not only children's love and siblings’ love, but also all other types of love, meet. Thus the realm of union in love is created on the first night of the marriage of a man and woman. At that point of union of east, west, north and south, the man and woman become completely one with God and experience the greatest joy. It is the same for God, who can experience the true joy of creation only through the perfect maturity of Adam and Eve. (235-027, 1992.08.24)

11 Where would Heaven’s palace have emerged had Adam and Eve not fallen? It would have been in the place where heaven and earth meet as one. Then why did God create Adam and Eve as two? It is because they each needed their own time period to grow to maturity. They should have reached maturity on the horizontal level and then entered the stage where they could reach perfect oneness. Then and there the vertical God could have come into them and brought them into union. This means that the vertical God would have entered the place where Adam and Eve horizontally became one, and their family would have become the home of true love. The home of true love where God could dwell was to have been Adam and Eve’s home. That would have been God’s dwelling place. (161-307, 1987.03.01)

12 Adam and Eve were meant to live with the hope of receiving God’s Blessing in marriage. If Adam and Eve had believed in and followed God’s commandment not to eat the fruit, they, as God’s only son and daughter, would have brought into being a family that realized God’s Will. This was intended according to the Principle. People need to keep hope alive in their hearts. With hope, we have to pass through a process and period of faith in order to build an eternal relationship. Our hope and faith are fulfilled on the day we can receive God’s love for the first time. That is the Principle. (5-108, 1959.01.04)

13 God is the subject partner of love for young children, men and women, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, and grandfathers and grandmothers. When we look at families based on these criteria, it becomes perfectly clear that the family is the highest realm of love. Had Adam and Eve reached perfection through love, without falling, they would have become the first son and first daughter of God. Their family would have become the home of love. (219-022, 1991.08.25)

14 Through Adam’s perfection, Eve would also have attained perfection, and through Adam and Eve’s perfection, God would have seen the beginning of the family centered on love. Had that happened, there is no question that from this perfected family the tribe, people, nation and world that could attend God would have arisen and God, Adam and Eve would have been at the very center of them all. With God as their center, Adam and Eve’s way of life and their life course would have remained in history as the tradition by which to live together with God. In that case, their habits, customs, rituals and way of life inevitably would have stood as traditions bound up with God’s love throughout history. (091-240, 1977.02.23)

15 Had our original ancestors, Adam and Eve, not fallen but instead become a family centered on God, on that day they would have fulfilled God’s ideal of creation and ushered in the day of God’s joy. It would have been the first day on which the love uniting God and humanity would have taken root on earth. It would also have been the day Adam and Eve embarked upon the journey of becoming the True Parents. On that day, all people and all things of creation would have rejoiced. (28-008, 1970.01.01)

16 Adam’s family should have realized true love in accordance with God’s ideal. God created Adam and Eve, our first ancestors, with the expectation that they would substantiate and complete His internal nature and convey His Will and love to the universe. Had they done so, Adam, Eve and their children would have established the fundamental Principle for all humanity to follow. Their descendants would have achieved mind-body unity and become individually one with God, creating families in which husbands and wives and parents and children were united. These families would have created a stable foundation overflowing with freedom, peace, happiness and hope that would have spread throughout the earth. Under God’s ideal, this model would not have been limited to the family or nation; it would have expanded to the world and to the entire universe. The model of the kingdom of heaven realized in the family was to expand to a nation; the kingdom of heaven in a nation was to expand to the world; and the global kingdom of heaven was to expand to the cosmos. (288-167, 1997.11.27)

17 When children become God’s princes and princesses, they enter into a parent- child relationship with God and inherit everything from Him. When these children marry and attain conjugal oneness based on true love, they form families living in attendance to God, and those families become the foundation of peace and the ideal. Man and woman, each being half of the whole, unite and complete God’s ideal love as His partners. Looking at God and Adam’s family, God would be considered the first generation, Adam and Eve the second generation and their children the third generation. God was to have been in the position of grandparents, Adam and Eve in the position of parents, and their children in the position of sons and daughters. Through these three generations settling in one family, the grandfather and grandmother would have had the position of God in the kingdom of heaven in heaven and the position of the king and queen representing the earthly realm and the heavenly realm. The parents would have taken the position of the king and the queen of the kingdom of heaven on earth, and the children would have held the position of princes and princesses, inheriting the kingdom of heaven on earth and in heaven while representing the future. (254-107, 1994.02.01)

Section 3. The Family Is the Training Ground of True Love

1 God’s love appears in the place where the three types of love—the love of parents, of husband and wife, and of children—manifest as one. Where these come together, God is absolutely present for eternity. God is always present where unchanging parental love, unchanging conjugal love, and unchanging filial love dwell. The teaching of the four-position foundation in the Unification Church appears on this foundation. (131-112, 1984.04.22)

The family is where true love settles

2 Ideal love is achieved in the family. However, God was unable to have true sons and daughters, to know true husbands and wives, and to become their Parent. Therefore it remains God’s Will that He achieve all these; where that occurs is where love can dwell. Abandoning all their possessions, people will flock to the place where such love is realized. Love is the most important thing. (19-315, 1968.03.17)

3 You must have heard the words, “God is love.” Where does that love manifest? All people want it to manifest within themselves. However, if that love were to manifest in only one person, it would end with that person. Whether that person were a man or a woman, if God’s love were only to manifest in that one person, everything having to do with that love would become extinct within a century and that would be the end of it. In other words, if that one person were unable to bequeath that love to another before his or her death, it would end after a single generation. Then how will we establish the standard of love that lasts? It is through an eternal lineage. Eternal love will emerge if God can plant His love in sons and daughters through the blood relationships within a family. This has to begin with the manifestation of His love in one man and one woman. Thus the beginning point from which the love of the incorporeal God manifests substantially would emerge. Ultimately, the foundation upon which we can realize God’s love is the family. (23-012, 1969.05.11)

4 Adam exists for Eve, Eve exists for Adam, and Adam and Eve exist for their family. They do so based on love. To form a nation, a world and the kingdom of heaven means to establish, based upon a single model, a training ground where this pattern can be reproduced, in order to expand what people feel and experience on the horizontal level. (113-165, 1981.05.03)

5 We have to live with three generations vertically and three generations horizontally. In a household, three generations should live together, connecting both vertically and horizontally. When you look for a spouse for your son or daughter, ideally you have in mind a harmonious family with a grandfather and grandmother, a father and mother, and sons and daughters. When a man looks for a wife, he naturally looks for one who comes from such a family. All men want a wife from such a family. Thus a man can learn how to relate to people in all positions, how to manage relationships with people above and below, and all around him. In this way a husband and wife mature and become well-rounded in heart and character. This training in love is what makes the heart grow. (118-147, 1982.05.23)

6 You need to build bonds within your family that will empower you to broaden your love for one another inside and outside the family. Your love within your family is the encapsulation of your love for your nation and the world. Thus, within your family you need to receive training in heart. The way of the heart will become your essential way of life, and you will assimilate the heart that is eager to fulfill God’s Will. Then you can apply that heart to your tribe and to your nation. (37-104, 1970.12.22)

7 You first have to love your parents and your siblings more than anyone else does. If you have a family, you should love each family member in the best possible way. Through this, you become the most beautiful of flowers, with the most pleasant fragrance. You need to secure strong bonds of oneness with everyone in your family. Only by doing this can you germinate a perfect seed and bear fruit that represents the universe. Original life comes from such love, and your original value also begins from this indwelling love. In this respect, your loving relationship with your partner determines your value as a person. (051-199, 1971.11.21)

8 A fruit comes forth from the condensing of elements after a tree has gone through the hardships of nature for twelve months of a year. Then how does love bear fruit? Because people have not known the answer to this question, this world has become wicked and the family has broken down. Parents are not just somewhat necessary. From the viewpoint of love, they are absolutely necessary. It is the same with children, with siblings, and with a wife or husband. A spouse is absolutely necessary. The family is where people are trained in their ability to love one another, and this love is realized in the kingdom of heaven. (137-336, 1986.01.05)

9 The Unification Church asserts that God wants to experience the greatest joy together with our families. The place where we learn to give and receive love, the place where we create joy through harmony, nurture it and experience it, is none other than the family. This is the core of our faith. Without being nurtured with love in the family throughout our infancy and adolescence, we cannot develop the capacity to love our spouse or love our children. (120-193, 1982.10.14)

10 The family is absolutely indispensable to bring love into the universe. It is through learning in our families how to love our parents that we become capable of loving people of the same age as our parents. It is when we have the experience in our families of loving our grandfathers and grandmothers that we become capable of loving people of their age. It is only when you love your husband’s sisters that you can love people similar to them; and only when you honor your husband’s younger and older brothers that you can honor people similar to them. That is the only way that you can come to love all people. (106-025, 1979.11.04)

11 Where is the ideal training ground of love? The studio in which we are trained to build the ideal framework of true love is none other than the family. Where did your father come from? You need to think of your father as having come from heaven, from a world larger than the earth. You must treat him as though he were from heaven. At the same time, you must also remember that he has come from the world and from a nation. Besides that, he has come from a specific clan. Keep in mind how your father came to be your father. You may think the same way about your mother. Where is your mother from? You may think, “My mother is a representative of heaven. She is a representative of the world, and of my nation. She represents my clan. That is why she was sent to my family.'' (106-065, 1979.12.09)

12 The family is the training ground and textbook that enables us to enter the kingdom of heaven. It includes our grandparents, parents, spouse, and brothers and sisters. Humanity covering the globe is the extension of the relationships we have with our grandparents, parents and children. Hence, only the families of the people who love each member of the human race as they love their own grandfather or grandmother, their own father or mother, their own husband or wife, and who can serve them as they would their own children, can inherit the kingdom of heaven. There we find the privilege to inherit all the power and authority of heaven and earth created by God. Even in the secular world, particularly among the ancient noble families of Korea, although they had many levels of hierarchical order, the son who worked the hardest, served the most, and loved his family the most became the heir. The principle is the same, regardless of time and space. This is a privilege granted by love. We may think God is so high, being infinite and eternal. Yet once we establish a loving relationship with God, we immediately have the right to participate in God’s work at a level and rank equal to His. Not only that, we have the right to inherit the universe. (143-285, 1986.03.20)

13 Unless a husband and wife can establish horizontal love between them, there is no way for them to find God’s vertical love. If the first human ancestors had not fallen, the kingdom of heaven would have started from their family. This is because humankind on the world level is the extension of a family. Therefore, the family is the training center of love that enables us to enter the kingdom of heaven. Only those who possess the love of God have the privilege of inheriting the authority of heaven and earth. When we ask whether life comes first or love comes first, the answer is that love comes first. In the family, sons and daughters are born through the love of the parents. Therefore children come to have the privilege of inheriting life as a result of their having participated in the love of their parents. Those who forge bonds of love stand in an equal position, at an equal level. (149-272, 1986.11.27)

14 The family consists of grandfather and grandmother, father and mother, husband and wife, and sons and daughters. When you extend this family, it becomes a nation and then the world. The vertical relationships of the family are extended horizontally to the nation and the world. All of this is gathered and knitted together, vertically and horizontally, into one place; that is the family. Therefore a home in which three generations live is a microcosm of the world. When we look out into the world, we can see people who are similar to our grandfathers and grandmothers, our father and mother, our husband or wife, and our sons and daughters. A family with three generations is thus a collaborative training center where we can learn to live in harmony with all people of the world. The family is the training ground where we can achieve a subject-object partnership with the authority to harmonize and create oneness by forging bonds of heart with the whole world, transcending nationality and race. This training takes place centered on love. (241-300, 1993.01.01)

Three-object-partner love in the family

15 God is the God of love. The love of such a God reveals itself among us as the love of parents, the love between husband and wife, and the love of children. No matter how great someone may be, if he is a man he is bound to seek a woman, and if she is a woman she is bound to seek a man. When they marry each other they are meant to give birth to children. (54-026, 1972.03.09)

16 God’s Will is to realize the purpose of His creation. His purpose of creation is to be fulfilled based on love, but how is that accomplished? In other words, how is the purpose of creation, where love is the center, to be achieved? It is through the completion of the four-position foundation. This is why, in the Divine Principle, the completion of the purpose of creation is explained as the completion of the four-position foundation. What does this mean? It means the father’s love is the mother’s love and the mother’s love is the father’s love; the parents’ love is the children’s love and the children’s love is the parents’ love. It also includes the siblings’ love for one another. All these kinds of love are one. Love can reach any place. From a vertical viewpoint there are three stages, but from a two-dimensional viewpoint, all three stages become one. Where does that occur? It happens with the parents at the center. Therefore, centering on parents’ love, a man and woman become one in love, and God becomes one with their love. (101-042, 1978.10.28)

17 When a husband and wife realize perfect love, the four directions circle around and form a sphere. Happiness and satisfaction are possible only when we are in touch with the elements of love. If we take love out of the picture, everything grinds to a halt. The Unification Principle teaches that the purpose of creation is fulfilled through the completion of the four-position foundation, and that this is not possible through the perfection of only the father and the mother. Not only do the father and mother have to become one, allowing God’s love to dwell within them, but they at the same time have to love their children absolutely, so that God’s love can reach the children through them. By love I do not mean thinking or saying, “I have to raise these children well so I can take it easy when I am older and my life is coming to a close.” That is not love. Parents are responsible to unwrap their bundle of love and convey it to their children in the family. Then the children will surely orbit around their loving family, which began from heaven, heading toward their ultimate destination. Parents therefore have to teach their sons and daughters how to serve and love God. The wife has to demonstrate how to love her husband and her sons and daughters, and the husband has to demonstrate how to love his wife and his sons and daughters. In the Unification Church this is known as the perfection of love among the three object partners. (101-043, 1978.10.28)

18 Love never starts from oneself. Love starts from the other partner. When we do not have a partner, love cannot even begin. When we see human beings as the center, even God becomes a counterpart. A woman is a man’s counterpart, and children are counterparts to their parents; love cannot be realized without counterparts. In the Unification Church we call this the love of the three object partners. A person who has not experienced the love of the three object partners cannot claim to have experienced God’s love. Divine Principle calls us to be just as joyful when we bear children as God was after He created Adam and Eve. After creating Adam and Eve, God hoped to feel joy and satisfaction as He protected them and raised them. He nurtured the hope that, “From now, you will have dominion over the world! Our family will become the center of the world! Quickly grow up! Quickly grow up!” and He was eager to see them marry. In the same way, fathers and mothers want to raise their children well and find them good life partners with whom they may become good husbands and wives. If they help their children have good marriages, their family will prosper. (057-120, 1972.05.29)

19 Originally, had Adam and Eve attained perfection and the two formed a couple, this couple would have realized love and given birth to sons and daughters from their love. Taking a broader perspective, we see that before they realized love between husband and wife, the two were to have related with the love of siblings. Each gradually was to have attained perfection as an individual. Then based on the love of husband and wife, they would have advanced to the stage of giving love as parents. An individual is perfected as a son or daughter in the presence of God by experiencing first the love of siblings. Then comes the love between husband and wife and finally love for children. Had Adam and Eve attained perfection by aligning themselves fully with God at the outset as siblings, as husband and wife, and then as parents, they would have had to go no further. Nothing could be greater than this. Adam and Eve would have been the first ones to attain perfection, give birth to children, and reach the position where they could affirm their love for their sons and daughters as perfected parents. Then God could have loved them all, and this would have enabled all the types of love in His creation to begin. (82-194, 1976.01.25)

20 Although male and female family members grow up in the same home as brothers and sisters, because of their physiology their lives are different. Males tend to be wild and adventurous in nature, while females tend to have a quiet demeanor, being reserved and cautious. Females more than males tend to feel secure when they receive love, content within the boundaries of a home. For this reason, when the two come together and interact in the conjugal relationship, this realm of heart of husband and wife, based on the children’s and siblings’ realms of heart, will blossom. (234-144, 1992.08.10)

21 After loving others as a brother or sister, when two of you become life partners and love each other as husband and wife, you will be glued to each other. As this takes place, you will bear the fruit of the parents’ heart and siblings’ heart, and perfect the hearts of man and woman. In this way, in oneness, you can go directly to God’s love, centered on the ideal of creation. Love travels the shortest distance. Thus it always travels in a straight line rather than a curve. Then where do the two meet? It is on the perpendicular. If the man takes one step forward, the woman also takes one step forward. Since they do not want to separate from each other, they finally bump together. In loving each other, the man does not want to lose to the woman, and the woman does not want to lose to the man. So they are on an equal footing. There is a core of love within the family. The love of parents, the love of siblings and the love between husband and wife are all connected to that core. (234-144, 1992.08.10)

22 Love is the basis upon which you can conform to the standard of the whole. Therefore, unless you have a husband or wife as your life partner, you cannot pass all the requirements God set for you to stand as a perfect being. The same principle applies to having a relationship with your parents and children. When it comes to having children, it is not enough to have only sons or only daughters. Those who have given birth only to sons ask for daughters. Why is that? It is because duality is lacking. We desire to reside within the love of parents, the love of a spouse and the love of children. We should be able to receive a father’s love and a mother’s love. We should also be able to receive love from a husband or wife. We should be able to experience loving sons and loving daughters. (25-276, 1969.10.05)

23 The public law of heaven and earth clarifies the proper positions for the father and mother, the husband and wife, and the son and daughter, and calls us to maintain them. The universe is based on this ideal and fundamental standard. When we are in complete accordance with this principle we experience joy, but when we cannot align with it, we are unhappy. Again, we are joyful only when we live fully embracing this principle. Whatever conforms to this principle is goodness. A person who builds upon this goodness is a good person, but someone who builds on what is bad undermines goodness and is evil. (25-276, 1969.10.05)

Section 4. The Family Is the Base of Happiness

1 We cannot live apart from heart. Even if you were the president of a country or possessed unsurpassed authority over the world, if you did not have a place to express your heartfelt joy, what good would it do you? You would not feel life’s deep joy from those whom you command—your cabinet members or followers. But in your family this is something you can feel. When you return home from work, you should be able to feel this from your spouse and from your children. You need to be able to share it with pride in the company of others. It is the same with God. Even if He were to restore the entire world, without a family God cannot feel joy. So we do ultimately need to have a family. (25-086, 1969.09.30)

The family is the foundation for joy

2 The family is a good place. It is good because our mother and father, our older brothers and sisters, and our younger siblings are there. Everyone, without exception, feels nostalgic for their hometown, and ultimately longs for their original homeland. People tend to think of their hometown more than their nation. Even though we may live somewhere in the Republic of Korea, we long for our hometown. Our hometown opens and elevates our heart. Love binds us to our hometown in multiple dimensions and in all four directions. That is, we are bound to our father and mother above us, to our spouse on the right or left, and to our sons and daughters below us. Our utmost desire is for happiness centered on love, so we cannot help but long for our original hometown. Then where is God’s original hometown? The basis of His original hometown is the recognition by His son and daughter that He is their Father. That is, it is the place where His only son and only daughter, who possess His love exclusively, dwell. It is the place where that son and daughter marry to form a perfect family. (23-151, 1969.05.18)

3 In the Unification Principle and in the book of Genesis, it is written that everything was created for the sake of human beings. The ideal world we long for exists for the sake of human beings. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is the world in which we live for the sake of others, knowing how to love people. The kingdom of heaven does not exist apart from us. The world in which we know how to serve and love others is the kingdom of heaven. Where is that place? When we think of this question with reference to our own life experience, we see that it is in the family, where we love others and where we are uplifted. When parents look at their child, even one who is immature and mischievous, with a zero score on a scale from one to ten, and nothing to be proud of, they still love him or her more than anyone else. The family is where love is abundant. It is the place where you are elevated to manifest your infinite value. It is the place where happiness dwells. (25-283, 1969.10.05)

4 The family is the eternally unchanging origin and foundation. It cannot be changed even by parents, much less by siblings or national policies. Nothing in the world can change it, not even God. Therefore, in relation to the family, the term revolution is eternally unnecessary. If the family is a place of love, there is no need for revolution. With regard to love between man and woman, our grandfathers and grandmothers in their youth experienced the same heart of yearning that young people feel today. Our hearts are the same; the feelings of youth are the same. However, the framework of the family is changing and this is creating all sorts of structures and shapes. A loving heart is a loving heart, but the shape of the family is changing. This eventually will bring ruin upon humanity. The family that stands on a solid foundation cannot be swayed by any ideology or thought. On the contrary, such a family transcends and governs every ideology and teaching. Once we establish the family with this standard it will never change, not after ten years, one hundred years, a thousand years, even for eternity. It will instill order in a people and a nation. (25-087, 1969.09.30)

5 Neither your nation nor the world is the base for your happiness. Your family is. Therefore, your ultimate ideal should not be the world; it is your family. Ideal individuals have to dwell in the family. Your ideal itself has to dwell in the family as well. If such a family were to exist, the father of that family would be an ideal father and the mother an ideal mother. The sons would be ideal sons, and the daughters would be ideal daughters. Then each one of them would be the base of an ideal family. Thus we are all meant to realize ideal families. (104-060, 1979.03.28)

6 What could be considered a happy environment? A happy environment exists when people are positioned to receive love from their parents, experience the love of their siblings, share conjugal love with their spouse, and love their children. People can bring about the advancement of a nation and the world only when they know all these kinds of love. Thus the foundation of happiness is love, centered on harmonious parents, couples and children in a perfected family. (39-238, 1971.01.15)

7 We absolutely need a home. Without the home as the base of perfect happiness, the nation and world cannot fulfill their purpose. We have to become parents, spouses and siblings centered on the home God would desire to see. Happiness and discontent both begin from homes and spread out to the nation and world. The home is the beginning point and settlement point that God desires. However, we have not been able to realize the home of God’s ideal. Instead, the home is sometimes a place of bad feelings and unhappiness. No one knew that the home, which was to be the base of the greatest happiness, could become the base of despair and distrust God has been working until now to reverse this through indemnity. Unhappiness in the family began from the time of Cain in Adam’s family. (24-306, 1969.09.07)

8 When we have something good, we like to boast about it and advertise it. Wanting to advertise something means that we want to draw other people into a relationship with it. What is it that we like most? First we like our parents most, then we like ourselves, and then we like our children. This is what we have seen in history. Then through what are all these are integrated? The family is the base that connects us to each other’s lives. Based on the environment that connects our lives together, the family is the basis upon which relationships of love can bloom. (36-290, 1970.12.13)

9 The family should be a place where we model all relationships on every level. All people without exception determine their life path within their families. They are born in a family, go out from their family to all directions and return to their family from all directions—north, south, east and west—and encounter ups and downs in their family. This understanding tells us that a person who cannot experience happiness in the family should not expect to find happiness on the national level. Even if he were to recover his nation, where would he live in that nation? He would be unhappy, with nowhere to go. Only in the family can we find our parents, our spouse and our children. (188-256, 1989.03.01)

10 Some people may say that they are satisfied with their work and need nothing more, but that is not true. There may be some fulfillment there, but the workplace connects people through material things. Politics is where people pursue their rights and interests. Even in religion, people seek God in different ways, from all directions. Though they may be able to find God, they will not find love. True love can be found only in the family. Someone may be successful in his company, earning vast sums of money and being recognized by many, but if he does not have a loving family, he is an unhappy man. Even if someone goes into the field of politics, becomes a member of parliament and even the president of his nation, if he has no loving home to which he can return, he will be an unhappy man. Even if someone becomes a famous pastor and a great spiritual leader who is genuinely loved by the members under his or her wing, that love is not enough. We look for a deeper and more central place of love than that; that place is none other than the family. (184-055, 1988.11.13)

11 Even if someone has unified the entire world, he or she will be unhappy if there is disunity within the family. The realization of the ideal of love has to begin in the family; the family is the haven of happiness. Thus the kingdom of heaven begins in the family. Jesus, who came to this earth to realize the kingdom of heaven, spoke of the day when a bride would be prepared for him. He based this statement on the standard of the family. The family is interconnected in love and is united through love. Love does not change, so it can unite everyone. That is why the love of grandparents, of parents and of husband and wife can be one. In love all can unite, because the nature of love includes unity. Further, love’s motive is to create life. The lives and ideals of a grandfather and grandmother are connected in love, which they bequeath to the parents. In other words, they bequeath everything to their children. Our parents are the children of our grandparents, and we are the children of our parents. The environment that revolves around such love is the kingdom of heaven. (48-010, 1971.08.31)

12 When we say someone is happy, on what basis to we say this? We cannot call someone happy just because he or she has external ability, power or prestige. Can we say that someone is happy because he or she has great wealth and envies no one? No, we cannot. Can someone be called happy because he or she has worldly knowledge, or is influential enough to move the world? These things alone do not make a person happy. All the people on this earth generally feel, experience, and recognize that the family is the base for happiness. Yet they do not have families that meet the standard of true happiness. That is why the issue is the family. In the family, there must be parents. In the world, a child without parents is called an orphan, and we always feel sorry for orphans. If there are parents in the family, it means there are also husband and wife. It is pitiable to have no parents, but it is also pitiable to have lost a beloved spouse. No matter how much husband and wife love each other, there is no greater sadness than when one of them is bereaved. Moreover, having no children is a great cause of unhappiness for a married couple. (23-011, 1969.05.11)

13 Suppose that someone were unable to acquire a position that brought authority, power or recognition, and had nothing to be proud of. However, suppose that person had a family with true parents, a true spouse and true children, a peaceful family that was the envy of his community. Such a happy family should share its genuine happiness even beyond the tribe; it should impact society, the people and even the nation. There is no question that such a family would be admired by the people and the entire nation. If such a family emerged on earth, representing both the people and the nation, without doubt the world would honor that family. (23-012, 1969.05.11)

14 We should be willing to make sacrifices in order to recover the family. If the father’s self-sacrifice saved his family, the children would say, “Father, you have worked so hard!” If his sacrifice moved his wife to the very marrow of her bones, she would say, “Oh, my love! I am so grateful to you!” This is the way true people are. The individual sacrifices for the family. In a family, the mother makes sacrifices for her husband and children, and the children in return offer devotion to their parents and love their siblings. A family that is united in this way is a happy family. A family where the members strive to serve one another, giving fully of themselves, will experience God in their midst. The family that can embrace God will eternally remain an ideal family. The family is the training center for life in the kingdom of heaven. (61-215, 1972.08.31)

15 The kingdom of heaven is the world in which we love all elderly people as we do our parents, we love all humankind as our brothers and sisters, and we love those of our own age as we do our spouse. The kingdom of heaven is the world where we live based on this universal view of people, expressed in the different realms of heart that we experience in the family. A social structure that expands based on families made up of such people is like the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is a global extension of our own family, filled with our brothers and sisters. (151-085, 1962.10.07)

16 What is the kingdom of heaven? It is the place where we can love the people of the world as we love our own family members. People who can do that are the citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Grandfather and grandmother, father and mother, couples, siblings and children make up four generations. They are a textbook in the form of a family, a textbook through which we can experience the true love of the universe as citizens of the heavenly kingdom. The family teaches us as if it were a textbook. People who live this way experience no national barriers, even after they go to the spirit world. Wherever they go, wherever they are, the road opens up for them. (129-098, 1983.10.01)

17 The kingdom of heaven is where husband and wife go after attaining complete oneness through God’s love, and is where the children who are born to such a couple go. It is where we go with the family, tribe and people who have attained oneness with God at the center. Therefore Jesus, who did not have a family while he was on the earth, could not enter the kingdom of heaven; he dwells in paradise. Only husbands and wives who have been brought together based on God’s love can enter the kingdom of heaven. It is a world where the principle of relationship as husband and wife applies. That is why only families can enter the kingdom of heaven, and each family should bring its tribe and nation along with it. (018-331, 1967.08.13)

18 Your family is in the position to represent the sovereignty of the heavenly kingdom. Parents represent the sovereignty, children represent the citizens, and material possessions represent the land of that nation. Consequently, being devoted to your parents is the same as being patriotic to your nation and also leads you to fulfill the way of a saint on the world level. (35-306, 1970.10.30)

19 The four-position foundation is formed when the three types of love- parental love, conjugal love and filial love—are realized. God will surely appear in the place where this four-position foundation has been fulfilled. God dwells in the place where the love of the four-position foundation is secured. It is there that we live and attend God for eternity. That place is the foundation for the kingdom of heaven. (47-224, 1971.08.28)

20 When people are perfected as the object partners of God, the incorporeal God’s ideal of love is substantiated. When people completely unite in mind and body and mature in character with God as their center, they become eternal object partners of God’s life, love and ideal. Once Adam and Eve become ideal individuals as God’s children, they will form an ideal family, then an ideal society, nation and world, and realize the kingdom of heaven of harmony and unity. In their lives they will experience ideal happiness and bliss in resonance with absolute love. (135-011, 1985.08.20)

21 Life in the kingdom of heaven begins in the family, not elsewhere. The kingdom of heaven is a multidimensional extension of the family, not something separate from the family realm. When you embrace your husband or wife, therefore, you should think that you are in harmony with all the men or women of the world. In this way, you make the condition in your family of having loved all humanity. (30-083, 1970.03.17)

22 The extension of the ideal family is the ideal nation, and the extension of the ideal nation is the ideal world. The extension of the ideal world is the ideal cosmos. When that is realized, since the heavenly kingdom is the extension of the family model, people who have experienced the way of true love in the family are set to be welcomed anywhere they go in the world. They will be able to travel freely in the heavenly world. (239-096, 1992.11.24)

23 The family is a training camp that equips people to enter the kingdom of heaven. It is a training ground. The world is inhabited by people just like our grandfathers and grandmothers. If we expand the family, we have the world. The population of this world is composed of people of the age of your mother and father, the age of your spouse and the age of your children. Therefore, people who expand in all directions the training that they received in their families, and live within a realm of love that serves people in all directions, will enter the kingdom of heaven. The family is the training ground that makes it possible for people to go straight to the kingdom of heaven. (143-072, 1986.03.15)

24 The family is the place where we can feel the joy of creation on behalf of the invisible God. When we look at the world, we find people who are like our children, people who are like us, people who are like our father and mother, and people who are like our grandfathers and grandmothers. Imagine that you had a yardstick to measure children, another to measure spouses, another to measure parents and another to measure grandparents. Putting all of these together, you could form the body of one family. When you extend the family, you have the world. Look at your own family’s situation. If you make all of them—children, spouses, parents and grandparents—the subject partners, and make the world their object partner, the two will go round and round as plus and minus. People who live on earth interacting in this way enter the kingdom of heaven. This world becomes the training ground that opens the way for you to go to heaven. (254-246, 1994.02.13)

25 The family is the training ground that prepares you to conquer the ideal nation and the ideal world with love. Moreover, it is the training ground that prepares you to conquer the heavenly kingdom and even God Himself. There, if you cast a net of love and pull it in with all your strength, the world will be pulled to you, the spirit world will be pulled to you, and even God will be pulled to you. In the end, an ideal family is where we fish to catch the universe with love. (106-026, 1979.11.04)

26 God is the vertical Parent. He will never be apart from you, for all eternity. The reason we have to attend our parents is to receive training in attending God, who is the vertical True Parent in the eternal world. The heavenly kingdom is the world of love. The world of love exists with the air of love, and the family is the place that trains you to adapt to that environment. True love contains the concept of giving. It does not mean that you can act as you please for yourself. If you think you can relax and be comfortable in your own home, you are wrong. It is actually a difficult path to follow. (183-336, 1988.11.09)

27 People who go the way of filial piety—attending their grandparents and parents in the family—and apply these lessons to the world, will find that they can relate to everyone, anywhere. Even if they go to the spirit world and meet people who have lived in past ages, they will be welcomed. Right there, equality, harmony and unity emerge from the north, south, east and west. When this center of equality, harmony and unity appears, freedom emerges. Freedom means being with God. Once you reach that level, all things of creation will welcome you. That is freedom in the truest sense. (216-302, 1991.04.14)

28 Our journey through life consists of becoming a son or daughter, a brother or sister, and a husband or wife who can receive and practice God’s love. It is a journey to become a husband or wife and love our sons and daughters from the position of second creators, just as God loved Adam and Eve. The beginning is love, the process is love and the end is also love. As the perfect product, after being manufactured according to the specifications of love, we go to the kingdom of heaven. When we actualize the kingdom of heaven, we do not do so as individuals but as whole families. (226-308, 1992.02.09)

29 In a family there are grandfathers and grandmothers, father and mother and also sons and daughters. It is the same in the world. If you are trained to love people in the world who are the same age as your grandfather and grandmother, your father and mother, and your children, more than you love your own family members, you will become a perfect being who can relate at any time to the multitudes in the heavenly world. (236-150, 1992.11.04)

30 Is yours a family in which the father and mother, the couple and the children are united in unchanging love? Is your family a treasure that the universe cannot continue without, a family everyone aspires to emulate? If we expand such a family horizontally, we create a tribe that God can love and cannot release. Yet even if we expand that foundation to a people and a nation, that nation is not enough. We need the world, and even that is still not enough. We cannot reach perfection unless we reach the stage of governing by the authority of the love that connects and unites the spirit world with the earthly world. If we do not reach that stage, there is no way for humanity to be liberated. (141-117, 1986.02.19)

31 Love is the reason God created man and woman as the ideal of His creation. That is why people who have lived centered on love enter the kingdom of heaven. If you compare the kingdom of heaven to a barn where the harvest is stored, the family is the harvest. A man and a woman who have become husband and wife centered on love enter the kingdom of heaven with their family. When you perfect your home on the earth by creating such a family, your entire hometown will welcome you. You will be a model son or daughter and model grandson and granddaughter whom God can embrace and love. When you put these teachings into practice in your own family, you will stand in a position from which you can go straight to the heavenly kingdom. (213-202, 1991.01.20)

CHAPTER 2 Blessed Marriage and Original Love between Man and Woman

Section 1. Coming of Age and the Love between Man and Woman

1 God placed Adam and Eve in the center of the created universe, and gave them a purpose to fulfill. During the time of adolescence, when a person explores the things of creation, he feels their mystery. God hoped that the emotions of His love would become part of Adam and Eve, and that the emotions He felt as He created the entire universe would also be shared by them. When your passion reaches its climax, you can write an amazing poem. In the same way, God created human beings with the purpose of attaining perfection and possessing the same great universal heart. God waited impatiently until the time was right for them to mature according to His goal. As Adam and Eve matured, God longed for them to relate to each other as substantial manifestations of the entire universe. When a man relates to a woman and a woman to a man, God wants them to see each other in that way. He wants people to mature to the level that allows not only God, but also all the things of the creation, to enter the world of human emotions. (9-171, 1960.05.08)

The changes during our youth

2 The time of our youth is when we feel as though we are the princes and princesses of the world. It is a time when we think of everything with ourselves as the center. At the same time, the time of adolescence is a time of rebellion, so if others do not recognize us, it is very easy to go a different path. That is why the problems of today’s adolescents are global problems. In the time of our youth, we dislike anything that doesn’t revolve around us. However, when something is connected to us, no matter how insignificant it may be, we become elated. If you stop and watch young women in their late teens and early twenties, you will see that they sometimes laugh for no apparent reason. A young woman may laugh when she sees a ripe persimmon suddenly fall from a persimmon tree that has lost all its leaves. This is because these young women can somehow connect to what is going on around them and thus experience the deepest emotions. Our youth is the transition time when we can encounter and make a connection with all things. This is due to the fact that God gave us an original nature, which allows a man and a woman to be completely united through His love. (33-333, 1970.08.23)

3 When young men and women meet as young adults, their hearts leap. When these feelings arise, their hearts go through a change. However, if their minds are not fixed on God and they stand on the opposite side, they fall into evil. Our mind must be fixed on God. Love is what allows our mind and heart, when focused on God, to rise to the position of oneness with God’s heart. Since people have to go through their lives in that position, they absolutely must have dreams and hopes, with love as their center. (26-159, 1969.10.25)

4 In terms of perfecting a man and a woman, the power of love builds a relationship between a subject partner and an object partner. The power of love emerges after adolescence, at the time men and women attain perfection. The power of love is greater than both man and woman, so it can unite them. A man and a woman inevitably become husband and wife. On the path of love, one can even discard one’s own life. Love is stronger than life. As men and women grow into young adulthood, this powerful force makes them long for a partner. (61-332, 1972.09.03)

5 The place of greatest happiness for people is the place in which human morality and compassion conform in oneness to heavenly morality and heavenly compassion. God created human beings as His object partners. The time that God as the subject partner recognizes the perfect value of people as His object partners is when they become mature. It is the time when we can give and receive based on God’s love. I am saying that when an object partner comes to recognize his or her subject partner, that person has reached maturity. This is when a man or woman becomes a young adult. (65-025, 1972.11.13)

6 When women think about a man during their youth, they want to think of that man as someone who represents the world. During our youth, we want to pull the entire world to us and drive it into our hearts, and we want to walk with the great ocean in our embrace. This is why the time of youth is a wonderful one. It is wonderful because from a horizontal perspective it is when the subject and object partners meet and thus become closer; and from a vertical perspective it is when God and human beings become closer. When a mature man and woman are bound together through genuine love, everything that was invested by God at the time of the Creation ripens and returns back to God for the first time. At such times, everyone becomes a poet and lyrical writer. (65-026, 1972.11.13)

7 No matter how pretty a young lady may be, she will have her youth only once. It is like the blooming of the most beautiful flower, a most precious time in her life. Is there any woman who, when reaching young adulthood, would rather live alone? Such a person is not a woman. Is there any man who, possessing a fine figure and being in the middle of his energetic days of youth, wants to live by himself? At such a time, men or women always seek their partner. Who do they resemble by doing that? They resemble God. How could such a person seek partnership if God were not like that Himself? God is like that. It is the same for both men and women, in that they seek out their eternal partner during their energetic youth. That’s the most precious time of life. (32-248, 1970.07.19)

8 Are you able to love freely or not? Just because a man calls to you on the street does not mean you should follow him. You must protect your body well until the proper time. I am saying that you must not entrust your pure heart to troll-like men. Men who strut around the streets frivolously are all little devils. Would you place your destiny in the hands of such a man? This is not an issue to take lightly. Finding your spouse is something that occurs only once in your lifetime. On the day you make one misstep, you put your entire life at risk. It’s the same for men. Until now, women were told to protect their chastity, but men must also protect their chastity. No matter how evil or heartless the world may be, you must not commit an act that deviates from the proper way. (26-161, 1969.10.25)

9 Your youth is a precious time in your life when you can take the grief of Adam and Eve, who lost their purity in their adolescence, and indemnify it. So you should protect and preserve your purity during your youth. You need to have the resolve that you will preserve your purity as something clean and precious. You should say, “Even if I may have to live alone for all time, I will absolutely never allow my love to be violated.” Unless we love our people and our nation, we cannot meet the person whom we can love. Unless we love the world, we cannot have a person to love. This thought is the tradition of the Unification Church. Therefore you can love your wife and love your husband after you have loved God, loved the world and loved your people. This is a matter of principle. (37-108, 1970.12.22)

10 It is said that human beings are the most precious of all created things, and that they go through a spring season and an autumn season in their life. From this viewpoint, it can be said that young men and women who are in the growing period lasting until their marriage are in their spring season. In the spring season, the cold weather gradually warms and a green garden forms in which flowers bloom and spread their fragrance. Thus all things are prepared for welcoming the abundant summer. After passing through such a summer season, we welcome the autumn and the time for harvest. For people, the time of spring is adolescence, when we are at the height of our growth. (221-266, 1991.10.26)

The love between a man and a woman in the original creation

11 You need to understand that the reason for your birth as a woman or a man is to join your partner in virtue through true love. When we examine this, woman and man are each composed of yin and yang. From the viewpoint of the Divine Principle, yin and yang are called characteristics of sung sang or internal nature and hyung sang or external form. When we look at individual beings, we can see that each of us has yin and yang aspects. Yin and yang correspond to the attributes that enable us to receive internal nature and external form. God divided yin and yang because of love. (216-189, 1991.03.31)

12 What do the subject and object partners—in other words, yang nature and yin nature—have as their central focus when they unite? Love is not just a concept. It is a reality. What is the reality through which love can be established? We did not know what it was that made a man a man, and a woman a woman. Quite simply, it is the reproductive organs. The world is perishing, however, because all men believe their reproductive organs belong to them, and all women believe the same about theirs. Both men and women have a misconception about who owns their reproductive organs. Everyone says that love is absolute and eternal and thinks of it in an idealized fashion, but if people only knew clearly that the ownership of eternal love has been vested in one’s loving counterpart, then the world would not be as it is today. (279-245, 1996.09.15)

13 If you want to realize love, you must invest and forget, invest and forget. Why must we possess such love? It is because love grows larger and larger— not smaller—the more it moves. Natural phenomena in the world of physical dynamics are such that the more things move and the more they act, the more they are diminished. But in the world of true love, the more things move, the more they grow. Because God knew that, He was able to initiate the process of Creation with true love as His central focus. When a person matures and begins to interact in a certain way for the first time, it is love that is behind this. Once they are fully grown, young men and women seek to interact focusing on love. Their eyes, which had been only for themselves, change, and they now look outward. Even self-centered and prim young women glance to their sides when they reach their adolescence. Their eyes, which had previously been only for their mother and father, start to stray elsewhere. This is not a bad thing. Rather, it is natural. It permits them to grasp the larger world of their future spouse, in order to maintain their course in life. (237-127, 1992.11.13)

14 How do you want to live? The answer is simple. Is there something in this world you would wish to gaze upon until your eyes popped out, smell until you lost your sense of smell, listen to until your ears burst, and touch until your hands no longer had feeling? This thing is not money, knowledge or power. It is love. The more you hold love in your hands, the more you want to hold onto it. And when you let go, you liberate everything fully at once. The thing that makes all things possible is love. Your eyes must meet at the correct focal point and your nose must also have the right focus. You can only hear well when your ears find the right focus. The balance or focal point between the ear’s three semicircular canals must be just right so that you do not feel dizzy. Human beings all live with focal points. What is the integrated focal point for a person? There is the focal point of the eyes, the ears, the nose, the mouth and the sense of touch. But what is the root of all these focal points? Love is the root of the creation and the movement of all the focal points. Nothing other than love. (195-032, 1989.11.01)

15 Only your partner can stand eternally in the position of the owner of your love. A woman is the one who perfects a man. Only a woman makes a man an owner of love, and only a man makes a woman an owner of love. Any other kind of owner is false. There is only one key—one partner—to unlock a person’s love, not two. (453-259, 2004.06.13)

16 God’s Will is the fulfillment of His purpose of creation. Individuals can reach that point within the realm of God’s love. However, fallen people— no matter how hard they try—have no way to pass through and succeed in any matters. But God, by adhering to absolute conditions, has established a path to love that will allow everyone to be recognized as scoring one hundred percent. Therefore, people have formed the religious realm in order to receive the privilege of that love, and a way of maintaining faith absolutely has unfolded through that realm. A man and woman who are united in mind and body, and who have the basis in their relationship that allows God’s love to be with them, are to receive the Blessing and marry. In doing so, they will explode for the first time with the power of an earthquake. Love is established at the same time that heaven and earth vibrate. (101-047, 1978.10.28)

17 Establishing a family in which God’s love and the three great kinds of human love can blossom together is the desire of the world, of humanity and of the future. The love of husband and wife is a precious and beautiful thing that can finally spread the fragrances of history in accordance with the principles of heaven and earth and appear as a new flower. (35-243, 1970.10.19)

18 The ideal married couple we speak of in the Unification Church is a couple who can realistically manifest the highest art and the highest literature. Before we encounter the highest ideal and the highest world of culture, the highest, sweetest love shared by a husband and wife must become the most sublime work of art in the world. The life of a husband and wife should inspire the most sublime work of literature. It should be the subject of a great literary work. (22-270, 1969.05.04)

19 The place where a husband and wife share true love after marrying is the palace that is the origin of the love, life and lineage of God and humankind. It is the starting point of the kingdom of heaven on earth and in the spirit world that actualizes the ideal. With true love as their center, the children born of this love become the perfect union of husband and wife, form a family attending God, and become the origin of peace and the ideal. The man and woman, who by themselves represent only halves, unite into one and complete the ideal love of God as His object partners. (259-046, 1994.03.27)

Section 2. The Significance and Value of Blessed Marriage

1 The literal meaning of our word for the Blessing, chukbok, is “praying for blessings.” If you analyze the word chukbok, chuk means to pray or wish for something. When you are praying for blessings, what is most precious? The blessing of love is most precious. The core starting point of the universe’s promise is a man and a woman creating harmony. So the Blessing is the most wonderful thing. Because the Blessing is the greatest blessing you can receive, the Unification Church refers to the wedding ceremony as “the Blessing.” When we in the Unification Church say we have received the Blessing, we do not mean we have received some worldly, present day blessing. When we speak of the Blessing, we mean that we have been joined in holy matrimony by the leader of the Unification Church. (83-226, 1976.02.08)

The purpose of marrying

2 We marry to resemble the form of God. God exists with dual characteristics of masculinity and femininity. He is a unified being in whom both characteristics exist together in harmony. Men and women were created to reflect the dual characteristics of God. Therefore, a man and a woman should come together in complete unity and harmony, become like the seed, and return to the state of the original nature of God. (290-055, 1998.02.02)

3 Men and women are each only half of a whole entity. Therefore women must conquer the world of men and men must conquer the world of women. That is how they are perfected. They come to resemble God by joining their separate manifestations of God’s dual characteristics back together through love. God and people are to unite based on the love between subject and object partners. The reason God has dual characteristics is also because of love. The most precious things for people are their sons and daughters, their brothers and sisters, their spouses and their parents. You cannot perfect your love unless you go through the progression of child, sibling, spouse and parent. That is why you must marry and give birth to sons and daughters. This is a formula. It is a cycle that repeats. (260-242, 1994.05.19)

4 Why do we marry? For Adam and Eve it was not so that they could discover their mutual love. It was to make the vertical love of God as the nucleus and, centered on that, create a spherical form as the embodiment of the Father. God’s ideal of creation is also fulfilled by focusing on such a love, and only through the union of a mature man and a mature woman can love be fulfilled and connected to life. The connection cannot be made through life but rather through love. Based on vertical parental love, the seeds of original love can be connected for the first time through horizontal conjugal love. (173-288, 1988.02.21)

5 People marry to give love to God. We love God because we need to become one with God. When we become one with God based on the eternal love of the absolute God, we can realize eternal life. This is not all. The world created by God through love belongs to Him of course, but that world can become mine through the right of inheritance. At the place where we come to meet with God, He bequeaths to us the right to inherit the entire universe. (136-040, 1985.12.20)

6 If a man and a woman want to achieve individual perfection, they need to do so by perfecting their partner, and that is why they must marry. They cannot enter the realm of love if they are not married. The reason people need to marry is so they can relate to the love of God. A man and woman cannot fully connect to the love of God if they are not married. When they marry, the love of God resides with them, and they become one through this love. God can then bequeath the whole universe to them, including God Himself, His love and everything that belongs to Him. (135-327, 1985.12.15)

7 People marry to perfect their individual love while at the same time perfecting the love of their partner. Doesn’t it feel good to know you marry to perfect both your love and the love of God? Men and women have to marry to prepare the foundation on earth through which God can love. The love of God cannot reside there until a man and woman unite together based on the foundation of love. In the final analysis, people marry for the sake of God’s love, that is, to possess the love of God. (165-087, 1987.05.20)

8 A man should know that the woman standing in front of him is God’s daughter and the feminine aspect of humanity. Before she is my wife, she belongs to humankind. Only if you can love her as a woman who is loved by humanity and love her as God’s beloved daughter, are you qualified to be her husband. Women are the same. Do not think, “He is my man.” Think of him as God’s son and as a man representing all humankind. You have to love and serve him more than humanity does and more than God does. (88-318, 1976.10.03)

9 God desires for husbands and wives to say, “The man will become the right foot and the woman the left, and we will find happiness through making a family that leaves footprints of love for humanity and for God.” The right foot is the husband and the left foot is the wife. Do not become lame! You have to think, “We will surely move forward!” You also have to progress straight ahead. Only then are you qualified to be married. You have to think, “When I think admiringly of my husband, I am thinking admiringly of all people and thinking admiringly of God. When I love my husband, I am loving all humanity and loving God.” (88-318, 1976.10.03)

The significance and value of receiving the Blessing

10 In the Unification Church, we call marriage the “Blessing.” The life of a married person is such that a man and woman who had been alone on their path to seek love abandon that path and stand as complements to each other- comforting each other when they feel lonely, sharing joy together when they feel joy and giving each other strength during difficulties. In this way, one becomes the right foot and the other the left; one becomes the right hand and the other the left. Together they praise God, saying they are moving forward with God’s love superimposed on the theater of their lives. (101-033, 1978.10.28)

11 From the time of the Fall of Adam and Eve, our first ancestors, people have waited eagerly for the day when God would bless them. Religion has played the role of mediator between God and humankind until the day the Blessing is given. The Unification Church seeks to find legitimate children to whom everything can be bequeathed. Because of Satan, people cannot receive the Blessing without going through the process of indemnity. Even the lives of ancestors in the spirit world are determined by how much blessed couples on the earth are aligned with God’s Will. I have been making the utmost effort and fighting for the sake of this day. The Blessing means we can inherit a relationship with the True Parents. That is why True Parents conduct the Blessing under the same banner they used while fighting against Satan’s world. (19-023, 1967.11.14)

12 The era in which the Blessing is given is the most important time. It is the time when God’s wishes can finally be fulfilled and His grief of the past six thousand years can be resolved. It is also the time when the wishes of Jesus, who came to earth as the Son of God for all humanity, can be fulfilled. Moreover, it is the moment when people can truly love for the first time since their creation, and receive respect, honor and joy from the rest of creation. On that day, all evil will disappear and we will usher in a new era with the bright rays of the ascending sun. Nature will rejoice, everything in the universe will dance with joy and we will welcome a bright new morning, the new morning of victory. (19-106, 1967.12.31)

13 The time of marriage is the time when one inherits the love of God. It is also the time we inherit the authority of re-creation. The joy God felt after He created Adam and Eve appears through marriage. After that, the right of dominion commences. Through receiving the Blessing in the realm of perfection, things of the greatest value are inherited. What we call our wedding ceremony therefore refers to the manifestation of love; it refers to our being given the right to create, and it refers to us as subject partner and object partner receiving the right of dominion over each other. (76-047, 1975.01.26)

14 God’s reason for creating man and woman and giving them the three great blessings was to complete a family. The three great blessings—that is, to be fruitful, to multiply and to fill the earth—are not something that an individual can fulfill alone. They can only be fulfilled within a family. Therefore the family is a secure environment in which individuals can establish themselves. It is the ideal foundation for that. No matter how great a man or a woman may be, there must be a father and mother, a husband and wife and brothers and sisters in their family. (261-044, 1994.05.22)

15 Why is it that women are absolutely needed by men and men by women? It is for the sake of absolute love. Why is absolute love needed? It is in order to possess God. If someone possesses God, God belongs to that person. Within that love is the right to inherit from God, the right to live together with God and the right to participate with God. Therefore within love, God becomes ours, as does everything of God’s creation. (222-025, 1991.10.27)

16 The purpose of marriage is self-perfection and dominion over the universe. When one perfects himself, he seizes control of the universe and embraces the world of the future. Marrying is a statement that we will perfect ourselves and come to possess God. Thus, we will eternally remain as a counterpart of God, one who has assisted Him in realizing His ideal of creation. Since God created good sons and daughters, we should also give birth to and raise many good sons and daughters. Having children is a serious matter. Through giving birth to children, we infinitely expand the world that God governs, the world that God created. And we create the ideal world that God can enjoy. This is the content of the three great blessings. When we perfect our individual nature, we attain the right of ownership of the world that God governs. When that happens, our joy is multiplied. When we produce children, joy overflows in the horizontal world. (246-253, 1993.04.18)

17 If you look at a woman in the spirit world, you will see the smiling face of a man within her. If you ask, “I see the face of such-and-such a man within you. Who is he?” She will answer, “He is my husband.” When two are united into one, they cannot be separated afterward. They live together for eternity after they die. In this way, the man whom the woman loved remains one with her in her heart. Likewise, within a man is his beloved wife. That is happiness. Eventually this happiness will be shared with God. The right of substantial beings with dual characteristics is to stand as God’s counterparts through true love and to return to God. This is the meaning of origin-di- vision-union. The united internal nature and external form divide and then come together again as substantial beings. This is the Blessing of a man and a woman. God comes to dwell in them, becoming one with them. The man and woman become one, and everything is brought into unity. (250-108, 1993.10.12)

18 You did not realize that a man’s perfection is impossible without a woman. A man and a woman are each half of one being that is only completed when they serve each other. The two become one and live for each other, and thus return God’s grace, and they become the object partners of God’s love. This is the reason that the woman brings perfection to the man, the man brings perfection to the woman, and the love of the two of them brings perfection to God’s love. Thus they are in a sense greater than God. All of us wish that the counterpart of our love would be greater than we are. We wish for our counterpart to be not just a thousand times greater but ten thousand times greater! Not ten thousand times but one hundred million times greater! Instead of one hundred million times, one hundred million times infinity times greater than we are! Instead of being one hundred million times infinity times greater than we are, we want the counterpart of our love to be eternally one hundred million times infinity times greater! From where does this desire come? It comes from our ancestors. Since the root of our ancestors is God, it comes ultimately from God. Even God wants the counterpart of His love to be many hundreds of millions times greater than He. This is the imperative of heaven and earth. (268-155, 1995.03.31)

19 If Adam and Eve had not fallen and instead had become perfected, they would have experienced their Blessing ceremony. In other words, Adam and Eve were to have been the substantial object partners of God. With Him as the subject partner, they automatically should have become the object partners. As the object partners, they should have achieved individual perfection. This would have been the foundation upon which they could have connected their objective love to God, the subject partner of love, and fulfilled the Blessing through marriage. In the end, perfection refers to marriage, and marriage refers to the manifestation of God’s love. If marriage did not exist, love would never have begun in the human world. The owner of that love is not humanity; it is God. When that love of God appears within human beings, it becomes true love. When that heavenly true love is realized for the first time within humanity, it becomes the pride and joy of God. That is the feeling of God’s love. (76-040, 1975.01.26)

20 The most precious of all blessings is to receive the love of God. The first thing is to receive the blessing of God’s love. Next, one is to inherit God’s authority over creation. Just as God created Adam and Eve based on love, thereby feeling joy and hope, all people, equally and universally, are meant to have the authority of creation. They receive this same joy when they have children. Why is it that you cannot help but love your children? It is because having children is equivalent to inheriting God’s great work of creation in the horizontal realm. People can feel the joy that God felt after He created Adam and Eve. We can inherit the love of God and God’s creative power. God oversees the earth, the heavens and all created things. Even though we occupy a horizontal position, God gives us the authority of dominion over all the creation. (76-046, 1975.01.26)

21 You must know the value of the Blessing. In the age of the Second Coming, we should complete the standard of the Blessing. The new heaven and new earth begin when God resolves all the issues representing history, heaven and earth, all people and the entire providence. Then He will decide all things and transfer everything to one place. The gates of the Blessing are that astonishing. The Blessing is so great that you could not buy it even if you offered the nation of Israel, or the countless prophets and patriotic martyrs, or all the works of God for six thousand years, or all of Jesus’ and the Holy Spirit’s works for two thousand years, or even all the suffering endured by all humanity to this day. (158-167, 1967.12.27)

22 I consider the Blessing to have been the most precious gift in my life. For you also, the greatest gift in human history is the Blessing. Those who have received God’s Blessing represent God. Therefore when you receive the Blessing, you must start a family and bring Satan to his knees. You have to bring Satan to judgment. After that, you need to actualize the four-position foundation and become a victorious person with dominion over the creation. (23-317, 1969.06.08)

23 The marriage ceremony is how the Heavenly Parent and the earthly parents become one through love. The man and woman join into one on the first day. You have heard the phrase “joining in virtue,” haven’t you? The place where you become one body is where God enters. Two worlds unite into one when God, who is the inner internal nature and external form, enters Adam and Eve, who are the outer internal nature and external form, through the power of love. The invisible internal nature and external form of the spirit world is the plus, while the internal nature and external form of the visible world is the minus. A large plus becomes one with a large minus for the first time. The place where they unite is the love organs. It is only when they unite that way that a baby born through the bodies of Adam and Eve will not only be God’s child but also True Parents’ child. (286-088, 1997.08.09)

24 If you do not receive the Blessing after attaining perfection, you will lose the chance to be God’s external form and also to be the object partner of God’s love. For things to happen in line with God’s Will, He must first take on an external form and find an object partner for His love. Then He needs sons and daughters who will serve the family, descendants and nation. That is the family. On the day the family is perfected, God comes to have an external form. He comes to have an object partner for His love and sons and daughters. How is all this unified? It is unified through the lineage. The central root, stem and buds are all one. You have to receive God’s lineage. The root is one. You have to receive the lineage of the invisible God and the lineage of the visible God. (286-016, 1997.07.01)

The attitude of those who receive the Blessing

25 The Blessing is the most precious thing in all heaven and earth. It is also the most frightening. If a husband and wife have different thoughts, they may do each other harm. It is from you that the good ancestors, good land and good nation will appear. Therefore, people who have received the Blessing should think of heaven and earth at all times. The Blessing is so that we can share blessings with others. Husbands and wives must become mothers and fathers to each other in heart. They should inspire the people of the world to say to them, “We want to make families like yours.” (13-067, 1963.10.17)

26 The Unification Church honors the tradition of the family. That is why I am telling you there is something of value in the Blessing I give to you that cannot be replaced with anything else from any past age. If you leave a stain or a wound on your Blessing, it will be the shame of your family, the shame of your nation and a shame throughout human history. With that in mind, you must give all your strength to the re-establishment of the family. (242-091, 1992.12.27)

27 The Blessing is a magnificent thing. You cannot receive the Blessing based on your own desire. The value of a life is more precious than that of the whole universe. That is why when you make vows to take responsibility for a person, you should be ready and willing to do so forever. The Blessing is concerned with these issues. For this reason, if a person can receive the Blessing during his or her lifetime, he or she is truly a happy person. You must have a stronger resolve than ever before if you are to take part in receiving this great Blessing. (30-186, 1970.03.22)

28 The occasion of the Blessing is where the most precious among your relationships is decided. The Blessing can only come once in your lifetime. Therefore you need to pray a lot. I am telling you to offer your utmost sincere heart to God before you come to receive the Blessing. Don’t even think of trying to find the person who is to become your spouse. You have to be willing to marry even the least attractive person. You should think, “I will live happily, even if it has to be with that homely person over there.” It’s problematic if your mind is all excited, without any foundation, and flies to one person and then another. People who pray for themselves are greedy. It would be better not to pray and instead think, “Heavenly Father, I leave everything in Your hands. Isn’t there a partner even for an unattractive and foolish person like me? Please do everything according to Your wishes. Even if You tell me to grow old and die alone, I will do so gladly.” (30-191, 1970.03.22)

29 Marriage is not something you should enter into casually. It’s not something people should do who meet just walking down the street. If people marry simply because they feel affection for one another, as soon as they wed, some misfortune may occur. You should definitely not stand in the position in which you try to succeed based on your own perspective. The Blessing is something we do for the sake of the nation and the world. It is also for the sake of future generations. (30-205, 1970.03.22)

30 Whether it is men or women, when they did not know the Will, they probably lived just as they pleased. If you are a virgin only in name because you have some blemish from the past, you must repent with endless tears. If you do so, God will forgive you through the time of the Blessing. The most blessed thing is for a pure girl and a pure boy to be wed in accordance with Heaven’s will, in a place where God can be joyful. Such a person is lucky in front of all heaven and earth. He is a successful person in all matters in the course of human life on earth. If you cannot do that, you must repent earnestly to the point where your stomach hurts, your heart turns over, and heaven and earth are turned upside down. We say to God, with a clean body and mind, “Father, what should I do with this shameful body of mine?” The Father says, “I know your heart. It is my joy that I can forgive even worse than you have done, and that you overcame such painful obstacles.” You must participate in the Blessing with the attitude of receiving the power of Heaven’s compassion within you, telling you that God knows everything you have done but is forgiving you. This is the principled attitude to have. (157-344, 1967.10.16)

Section 3. Rebirth through Blessed Marriage

1 In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were supposed to become one body with God, in both spirit and flesh. However, because Adam and Eve could not become one body with God and lost the position of True Parents, people have to be born again through the body of the True Parents, with God as the center. In the Bible, Jesus told Nicodemus, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Then Nicodemus asked, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” (John 3:3- 4) People must be born again. You have to deny your old self and be born again. So in order to be born again, you must deny your old self. If you do not deny yourself, you cannot prepare the motivation within yourself to be born again. (24-326, 1969.09.14)

Rebirth and change of lineage

2 Fallen people were unable to be born with a direct blood relationship with God. If we do not acknowledge this, make a new relationship with God and return to our original position, we cannot advance to the position of receiving the Blessing. In other words, because we were born in the fallen world of death, in order for us to return to a God-centered life, we have no choice but to be reborn. We have to be born again. (30-165, 1970.03.22)

3 To be reborn, you need to love Jesus more than anyone else. There is no way to connect to God unless your love, centered on God, is greater than the love established in the shadow of satanic love in the fallen realm, and surpasses the love in Satan’s world. This is the path of suffering, the difficult path that religious people must follow. Christians long for Jesus every day and are waiting impatiently for him to come again. For two thousand years they cried out to Heaven, “Jesus, our bridegroom, please come quickly!” When they reach the point at which their bodies are ready to burst, their hearts are being torn, their bones are melting and they do not know if their spirit is inside their body or outside—the point at which only God or Jesus can be present—then the Holy Spirit will enter them and bring them spiritual rebirth as spiritual babies. (114-028, 1981.05.14)

4 What is the ultimate purpose of the Blessing? It is to realize a true family. This is the greatest purpose sought by fallen people. For this true family to form, there must first be a true person. That true person should be none other than a true man. This true man will seek out a true woman and they will have their Holy Wedding with God as the center. Then for the first time a true family can emerge. Because of the Fall, this did not come to pass and so we must deny all families that have been created up until now. Following God’s providential Will, we must move beyond that fallen family standard. From a Divine Principle point of view, if fallen people cannot achieve this they will not be able to return to the original world. It must be clearly understood that fallen people, no matter who they are, cannot stand before God if they do not fulfill this formula course. (35-214, 1970.10.19)

5 You do not connect to God’s heart through theory. You can be connected only through the lineage. Did you inherit the lineage of God’s heart? Up to this point you have not understood. That is why, before you receive the Blessing, there is a ceremony for the change of lineage. At that time you must enter into a state of selflessness in which you are nothing. You must assume the position of someone without a body of his or her own and have the conviction that enables you to say, “I am the starting point from which all my descendants will inherit the flesh and blood of the True Parents.” (180-159, 1988.08.22)

6 God takes people living in the realm of Satan’s false love and gives them rebirth through His greater love. People are born to parents of false love; they are born from ancestors of false love into a lineage of false love. They can become God’s children and God’s people only after being born again through parents of true love, ancestors of true love and a lineage of true love. Human beings must be born again. This is the path of destiny for fallen humans. No matter what kind of difficulties we may face, we must go this course. God’s work of salvation is His work of giving rebirth, thereby grafting His lineage into us. Therefore I must completely deny all the things that are part of me from my past—in other words, my concept of possession, my tradition, my consciousness—all of these things. Things we already have inside us cannot be recognized by God as they are now. When we graft a tree, we cut everything but the root portion, then graft on the new shoot. Similarly, we have to first cancel everything, get rid of it all, and then be reborn. (135-013, 1985.08.20)

7 All people desire to attend True Parents. Although six thousand years ago Adam and Eve should have been blessed in holy marriage and humankind should have become God’s descendants, the Fall made people Satan’s descendants. Therefore on this earth we must re-establish the True Parents, who are on the side of Heaven and who were lost six thousand years ago. We must be reborn through connecting with True Parents’ love. Only then can we become citizens of the kingdom of heaven. (19-203, 1968.01.07)

8 The Fall occurred through the wrongful marriage in the Garden of Eden. Now the time has come for True Parents to overturn this by marrying people in the right way. Through cleaning up the terrible things that false parents have perpetrated, the True Parents are eliminating hell and giving the Blessing to the millions and billions of ancestors in the spirit world. They are recovering the proper true love, true life and true lineage in order to actualize the true father- son relationship. (316-244, 2000.02.13)

9 As for an adopted son, he should receive engrafting by a true son. The wild olive tree must be cut off, and then the shoot of the true olive tree can be engrafted onto it. We have to take part in a movement to convert all wild olive trees into true olive trees. To be reborn, you need to inherit the lineage of True Parents. That is why Jesus and the Holy Spirit yearned to consummate the marriage feast of the Lamb and why the whole of humanity hopes for True Parents. (19-164, 1968.01.01)

10 The Messiah separates you from Satan’s lineage, but you must take the steps that permit Satan’s lineage to be removed. In that position you have to unite with the Messiah and be selfless in front of him. Unless we establish this standard, we cannot be saved. You have to pass through the place of life and death. For the evil lineage to be removed we have to go through that adversity. We have to enter a state where life and death meet each other. We have to grope through that state of death on our path. (35-160, 1970.10.13)

11 Throughout history no one could change the fallen lineage, but I have succeeded. That is why I have borne a tearful cross of the heart. Because I have that holy standard, you received the Blessing without having any merit. You received a new lineage through the Blessing. The victorious right to change lineage was achieved through my life of labor in the physical world, based on God’s thousands of years of travail. You are the people who stood on that, using God and me as a stepping-stone. To receive the Blessing is to be cut off from the lineage of evil and to be newly grafted. When you are engrafted, your lineage is changed. (35-179, 1970.10.13)

12 Why do you need True Parents? It is so you can put down your roots in the realm of heart. At this point your root is different. Due to the Fall, your trunk and branches are not what they should be. The Unification Church is putting down new roots starting from the True Parents, and a trunk and branches are appearing and are then grafted Branches of True Parents are cut and grafted onto you so that the Unification Church will become the central mainstream of the universe. We must cut off everything that is of Satan’s world. (164-156, 1987.05.10)

Ceremonies to change the lineage

13 First there is the matching ceremony, then the holy wine ceremony, followed by the marriage ceremony. The matching ceremony, the holy wine ceremony and the marriage ceremony are unprecedented among all ceremonies of the past. That is because they symbolically represent and indemnify every aspect of the Fall. (35-215, 1970.10.19)

14 Fallen people cannot receive the Blessing unless they repudiate all their past loves defiled with the false love of Satan’s world. They cannot participate unless they become resurrected beings who can multiply the love of True Parents based on the love of God. On that basis, the holy wine ceremony promises the achievement of a standard of new life by opening the gates of True Parents’ love. (35-217, 1970.10.19)

15 The holy wine ceremony is carried out in the reverse order of the Fall of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were still in the state of engagement when they fell. Before you can marry there must be an engagement ceremony, and then a holy wine ceremony. Only then can you attend the wedding ceremony. Because you are fallen, you have been unable to become God’s sons and daughters. Through the engagement ceremony, however, you present yourselves before God and True Parents, who have been trying to reclaim their children, and you say, “I became an Adam or Eve who is better than a fallen child.” (120-184, 1982.10.13)

16 Because we received Satan’s blood, we must have a ceremony to cut it off. That ceremony is the holy wine ceremony. From a principled viewpoint, it is absolutely impossible for us to receive the Blessing from God if we allow any stains from the blood of Satan’s world to remain in us. Not only must we eliminate all the blood that we received from Satan’s world but also all the sins that occurred up until now. There are many kinds of sin, such as hereditary, historical and individual sins, but the one thing that makes a condition to settle all of them is the holy wine ceremony. The holy wine includes twenty-one different substances. Each of them has been sanctified. Each of them was established through victorious conditions set during my confrontations with the spirit world, with Satan and with God. It may seem that drinking a cup of holy wine is a trivial gesture, but that is not the case. On the day you drink that cup with faith, you will stand on the foundation of True Parents’ victorious conditions, cut off from the blood of Satan’s world and cut off from all the ties you have with the sins of your ancestors and from all the tangled connections your ancestors wove. (113-300, 1981.05.10)

Section 4. The Significance of the Blessing Groups

1 If you receive the Blessing of the Unification Church, your domain will expand because, with God as your focus, you will begin forming a family of the new mainstream. Therefore families that receive the Blessing in the Unification Church consider other such families to be members of their own tribe. After connecting to new parents, known as the True Parents, families that have inherited the innermost heart of the heavenly principles emerge and multiply horizontally. What this means is that within the Unification movement a tribe is being formed that will later expand to become a people and eventually a nation. (100-268, 1978.10.22)

2 Blessed families must form a new nation of Israel. That began in 1960 and continues to expand. We are starting over again. From here the historical age will go forward to the ages of family, tribe, people, nation and world. Therefore in the Unification Church, I, who am similar to Jacob, must create a family and then organize a tribe and a people. (81-110, 1975.12.01)

3 Families that were joined together centering on my family are part of a new clan. As the clan continues to prosper day by day, it becomes a new people. When it develops a bit more, it forms a nation and a global realm. It becomes a new people, a Third Israel. The Unification Church is the place that allows people to become children who have newly inherited the right of lineage, thanks to God. The place we must stand is different than where the people of this world are. I have taught you the contents that will allow you to block Satan’s accusations and establish a base for victory. It’s problematic for you to receive the Blessing, because you have not even risen to the standard of the completion level of the growth stage. The Fall was when one man and one woman were cast out. Therefore, to receive the Blessing, a man and woman must go beyond the state of being unwelcome. The Blessing is what is received after you have overcome that state. (22-198, 1969.02.02)

The providential meaning of the 36 couples, the 72 couples and the 124 couples

4 The work of Heaven is to organize a people, beginning with a tribe. The formation of the tribe began in earnest with True Parents’ Holy Wedding and the Blessing ceremonies I held in the 1960s. I am speaking of the 36 couples and the 72 couples. The 36 couples represent the restoration of the ancestors of the people of Israel, the history of Judaism. They are the representatives of the ancestors. (110-120, 1980.11.10)

5 The 72 couples stand in front of the 36 couples and all the other families as the Cain and Abel families in relation to Adam’s family. Up to this point, all the ancestors who have influenced this age have failed to unite Cain and Abel within God’s providence. Because the base through which Cain and Abel could be united was not formed, this era of the fallen world has been prolonged. Therefore I blessed the 72 couples centered on the 36 couples, making one ancestral family connecting Cain families and Abel families. (110-121, 1980.11.10)

6 If we consider the twelve apostles to be at the level of a tribe, the 72 disciples of Jesus were at the level of a people and the 120 disciples were at the level representing a nation. The Unification Church must indemnify, rectify, liberate and accomplish the historical content of Jesus’ incomplete mission. Unless the coming Lord can accomplish this, there is no way for the world to survive. That is why I organized the 36 and 72 couples; through the unity of these couples the center of a new people can be established. (110-122, 1980.11.10)

7 The 36 couples represent the ancestors who lived during the two thousand years from the time of Adam to Abraham. That is why there must be Cain and Abel in front of the 36 couples. The 72 couples were thus designated to occupy these positions. The 124 couples were set up to represent all numbers, based on the number twelve. Of the 124 couples, four couples were already married. Their Blessing was for the purpose of recovering the position fallen people had lost and realizing the family God has searched for throughout history, which Jesus tried to establish. (17-216, 1967.01.01)

8 On the foundation of my family, I gave the Blessing to three couples. Then I gave the Blessing to 36 couples, then 72 couples and 124 couples centering on groups of twelve couples that, in turn, centered on those original three couples. I gave them the Blessing after experiencing historic battles. These couples represent the 3 disciples, 12 apostles, 70 disciples and the 120 followers that were established based on their faith in Jesus. Just as Jesus became the victorious leader on behalf of his Father in the position of the Son of God, all of you must also fulfill your responsibilities in the position of a son. (22-163, 1969.02.02)

9 In the position that represents a nation and people, we are going through an exhaustive process. Through this, a final, decisive battle must be won on the borderline between life and death. In the 1960s, on the foundation of True Parents’ Holy Wedding, we developed from the 36 couples to the 72 couples and on to the 124 couples. Based on the first three couples, I selected the 36 couples to represent the three ages, each group of twelve for one age. They represent the Old, New and Completed Testament Ages. The number twelve should not just represent the horizontal foundation. As it is also necessary from a vertical viewpoint to establish a base that connects to the spirit world, the 36 couples were set as the foundation for the ancestors in the spirit world to come to earth again. The 72 couples and 124 couples are connected to this. (100-171, 1978.10.14)

10 The 72 couples were selected from the clans as those who could organize a people to represent Heaven. Just as Moses prepared a foundation to lead the people based on the seventy-two elders, I also had to develop such a group from the realm of the clan to the realm of the people. That was possible only through the family. It is always through the family that God works. Then what do the 124 couples signify? Jesus went to heaven on the foundation of the 120 followers. So at Pentecost the 120 followers joined together to make a global beginning. This signified that the Lord would return during the Last Days at a time when there would be at least 120 nations in the world. We therefore had to establish, in front of Heaven, 120 families who represented the elder brother family on the world level and to prepare that foundation on the earth. I added four couples to that and gave the Blessing to 124 couples. (100-172, 1978.10.14)

11 According to the providential viewpoint, Jesus would have been able to accomplish the Will of God on earth if 120 nations had rallied to him, based on the foundation of seventy-two families representing one people. It is the responsibility of the Unification Church and of the families that received the Blessing of the Unification Church to resolve this by paying indemnity. With the achievement of the Blessing of 124 couples, I selected holy grounds throughout the world in 1965. Responding to the Will of God, I established the 36 couples and then the 72 couples, making them the central people on the national level. I then laid the foundation to bless 120 couples, representing all the nations of the world. As a result, we are now in a position to manage the world’s nations. Since we are entering such a time, I selected 120 holy ground sites in forty nations around the world. (84-145, 1976.02.22)

12 The 36 couples represent the resurrected ancestors of fallen humanity; the 72 couples represent the resurrected sons and daughters of the ancestors; and the 124 couples represent the resurrected people of the world. It follows then that if all these couples are fully united, the families, the sons and daughters and the world will also be united. That is why I will take responsibility for all couples up to the 124 couples. From now on, your way of thinking should be the same as mine. In order to realize one world, we must first rescue one nation; in order to rescue one nation, we must mobilize our tribe. For example, if you are a Moon, you must mobilize the Moon tribe. We must save the people of Korea by mobilizing each of our tribes. (82-245, 1976.01.31)

The 430 couples represent the Korean people

13 After selecting holy grounds throughout the world, I gave the Blessing to 430 couples. These couples correspond to the 430 years during which the Jews were in Egypt and to the 4,300 years of Korean history. They signified the beginning of a new history. Moreover, the 430 couples represent all the families of the world. Afterward, while I was carrying out my second world tour, I blessed a total of forty-three couples in the United States, Europe and Japan. I could then connect those 43 couples to the 430 couples on the world level. In so doing, I was able to connect the victorious foundation established in Korea to the world, including the West. All the world’s families, not just the members of the Unification Church, could right then and there receive heavenly fortune. (52-131, 1971.12.26)

14 The 430 couples correspond to the 4,300 years of Korean history. After 430 years, the Israelites were able to escape from Egypt. The 430 couples, representing 4,300 years, must forge a new beginning as the Israelites did, based on the earthly foundation of the number forty- three. They must expand the territory in which the nation and people can be established according to God’s Will. If we consider the number 43, adding 4 and 3 makes 7, and when you multiply these two numbers you arrive at 12. The 430 couples were blessed in Korea according to this principle. Just as the Israelites were liberated after 430 years and began their exodus, migrations occurred within the Unification Church. Thus people from Jeolla Province moved to Gangwon Province, and people from Gangwon moved to Jeolla. A great mobilization was thus begun through which people from different provinces intermingled. (58-061, 1972.06.06)

15 The fact that I blessed the 430 couples signifies that the gate through which we can carry out the mission on the world level has been opened. After you attain that goal on the world level, you can then be in the position to become messiahs on the tribal level. As blessed families, you are not in the same position as the crucified Jesus. That is because you have received the Blessing. For the sake of restoring your tribe, you are in the position of the returned Jesus. (52-194, 1971.12.28)

The Blessings of 777, 1800, 6000 and 6500 couples

16 The history of the large wedding ceremonies starts with the 3 couples, and then continues to the 36 couples, the 72 couples, the 124 couples, the 430 couples, the 777 couples and the 1800 couples. We are now living in an era in which the gates have been opened so that any nation in the world can enter the realm of God’s Blessing. I therefore held Blessings for international couples with the United States, Germany and Japan as the main nations. Through the Blessing of the 777 couples in 1970, the time finally came in which any nation could come within the realm of God’s providence. (84-148, 1976.02.22)

17 In the 1970s there was a great mobilization. Blessed families from more than ten nations were called to Korea for the restoration of Canaan. They were called to Korea and gathered together as one. It started with the Blessing of the 777 couples. (69-298, 1974.01.01)

18 With the Blessing of 777 couples, we entered the era of marriage that transcends race. Thus the Unification Church is not a church centered only on Korea. Through the Blessing of 777 couples, I have already laid the national foundation by connecting the people of the world together. This Blessing marks the beginning of a new era transcending races and tribes in which a new nation of the world can be formed. From that time, the Unification Church began its work worldwide. (100-174, 1978.10.14)

19 I have already opened the gates to the kingdom of heaven for all tribes in Korea. These gates must not be blocked. The gates cannot be closed, because universal love rooted in God is the love of the whole. All the gates must therefore remain open. Everything expands from there, from the 430 couples and then the 777 couples. Through them we can stand on the world level. We are going beyond the national stage and entering the world stage. (291-295, 1998.03.18)

20 The fact that the Blessing has been given signifies that the realm of heavenly lineage has come into existence on the earth springing from the True Parents. Many tribes are included in that realm. With Korea as the center, all kinds of tribes are incorporated within that realm. The gates to that realm were opened through the Blessings of the 430 and 777 couples. (164-166, 1987.05.14)

21 Satan perpetrated the Fall centered on the family, so I bound families to the realm of Gods dominion; through that I am developing an international movement. I am doing so through the 777 couples and the 1800 couples. The 1800 couples complete the creation of this movement. The number 18 comes from Satan’s number 6 multiplied by 3, representing formation, growth and completion. The fact that I have rescued 1800 couples from Satan’s world signifies that I have gone beyond the realm of the tribe. The victory I achieved on the national level is the starting point of the path to the world level. The 1800 couples are three times the number six hundred, which represents the realm of Satan's dominion. Established on this basis, the 1800 couples’ standard indemnifies the families in Satan’s realm. (190-275, 1989.06.19)

22 The Blessing of 1800 couples, conducted on the global level, signifies that we have laid the foundation leading toward a global standard. So what are the 1800 couples? The number eighteen is the sum of three sixes. The number of couples corresponds to this and represents our gaining complete supremacy over Satan’s world. Having laid the global foundation, we can conclude that we have entered the era in which we can move the nation and the world according to God’s Will. (81-112, 1975.12.01)

23 Through the 6000 couples, Christians in the vertical, Abel position and non- Christian peoples in the Cain position worldwide were connected. The fact that I made these connections through the 6000 couples means that the era of Satan’s world attacking the family has passed. The spiritual standard of the growth stage has been established on the national level. In establishing the global standard, since the spiritual foundation of Christianity works as the global foundation, the substantial global standard had to be connected to the Christian cultural sphere. To do this, I went to the United States and carried out revival activities nationwide. Wherever I went I was welcomed. In this manner I connected this foundation in America to Korea as the representative of the national standard. That was how I returned victoriously to Korea. (190-275, 1989.06.19)

24 Through the 6000 couples, even those in prison or hell were able to be gathered together. The number six thousand opened the gates not only to the Cain world but even to hell on earth and in the spirit world. The 6000 couples opened those gates. Since we opened the gates, everything came to light worldwide. The gates of heaven have been opened to any person, even those who are in hell, so all is now open for everyone. (281-044, 1997.01.02)

25 I blessed Japanese and Korean people, 6500 couples, in cross-cultural marriages. Japanese received their Korean partners and Koreans received their Japanese partners. I had been telling those in charge of the Japanese Unification Church for a long time that I would marry elite Japanese and Korean couples. (203-278, 1990.06.27)

26 It is very meaningful that there have been intercultural marriages between Korean people, representing the Adam nation, and Japanese people, representing the Eve nation. Through such cross- cultural marriages, we are connecting a unified family that goes beyond the national dimension. We have transcended the national level and passed to the age of the world level. Up to this point, the nation has been the issue. Satan has ruled based on nations. The issue of how this national standard can be implemented on the family level, allowing for the unification of Japan and Korea, will be resolved by creating a system focusing on the second generation who can unite through their families. That is why the cross-cultural marriage Blessing of the 6500 couples is important. God wished to convey heavenly fortune through Korea; but because Korea did not uphold the will of Heaven, Satan’s world invaded, splitting Korea into north and south. This has become a major problem for the whole world. Since the nation was divided, we cannot return to the original homeland unless Korea’s fortunes are realigned toward reunification. In connection with this, I performed the cross-cultural marriage of representatives of the Adam and Eve nations, and thus we could surpass the national standard at least conditionally on the family level. (194-117, 1989.10.17)

27 The Koreans and the Japanese who accepted to be married cross-culturally are neither Japanese nor Korean. They are even more than just Asian. From the perspective that they now possess a teaching great enough to lead their own nations, the spouses who have moved to the other’s country must be willing to pioneer even China. I am tying Koreans and Japanese into realms of oneness as Adams and Eves in order to dispatch them to the land of the original hometown and thus lay a foundation through which I can embrace the world. That is how this history is unfolding. (234-092, 1992.08.04)

The Blessings of 30,000,360,000 and 3.6 million couples

28 In 1992, the Blessing of 30,000 couples was held on the international level. In 1952, the global Blessing could have been given worldwide centering on the Parents, but the opportunity had been lost. Forty years later, however, we entered the era of global Blessings, and the Blessing of 30,000 couples took place at the formation stage of the global age. (275-282, 1996.01.01)

29 The Blessing of 30,000 couples in 1992 was the formation stage of the international level. Participants put aside everything, including race and culture. Marriage was made by God for the sake of Adam and Eve’s love. Adam and Eve embraced Satan and denied Heaven, so you are restoring this through indemnity by affirming the Blessing centering on God and centering on True Parents. (277-136, 1996.04.07)

30 On April 10, 1992, I gave the Blessing to people of eight different nationalities, including Muslims, thereby setting the condition for Muslim unity. Not one of those people—including the Muslims— denied the Blessing. The Blessing of 30,000 couples also was a truly international Blessing. Chinese people and North Korean young people even, were attracted by the Blessing, so they also participated. There were even some people who stopped believing in communism in order to receive the Blessing. This signifies my having given the Blessing on the world level. (243-247, 1993.01.17)

31 It is a happy occasion worthy of cosmic history when thirty thousand couples from among the young people of the world gather in one place to marry. It is an occasion greater than when entire kingdoms celebrate the marriages of their princes and princesses. People from 131 nations participated in the Blessing of 30,000 couples. Even though some people may want to deny it, it was truly a global event. It was at the world level! (234-281, 1992.08.27)

32 The Blessing of 30,000 couples was an international Blessing. With Father and Mother standing as equals for the first time, this was the formation-stage International Holy Wedding Ceremony for the purpose of planting True Parents’ victorious authority in nations of the world. The Blessings that followed were the growth-stage International Holy Wedding of 360,000 couples and the completion-stage International Holy Wedding of 3.6 million couples. From the time of the 30,000 couples, I had opened the way for anyone to receive the Blessing, regardless of religion or ethnicity. After passing successfully through the growth period, through the Blessing of 360,000 couples, our intention through the Blessing of 3.6 million couples is to bequeath the Blessing even to people with no religious belief, to set them on equal footing. (280-216, 1997.01.01)

33 In this era we are progressing beyond the Blessings of the 30,000, 360,000 and 3.6 million couples and finally reaching the standard of a global liberated realm. I have now begun to cheer “Mansei!” Up to this point, my life has been miserable. I have walked the path of death, gritting my teeth, in order to usher in the day when everything under Heaven could rejoice. Four thousand years of history would normally have taken four hundred years to indemnify, but since I cannot live for four hundred years, imagine how serious my heart is. I had to put my life on the line to accomplish my task within forty years. (289-081, 1997.12.30)

34 I am conducting a worldwide campaign to prepare the framework for the global realm of True Parents. That is why I am conducting Blessing ceremonies for 30,000,360,000 and 3.6 million couples. We have passed through the formation and growth stages. The fact that we have gone past the growth stage signifies that we have gone beyond the national level. We have come to a time when we can recover the realm of Israel, lost in Jesus’ time. The time when we can recover the lost nation has now arrived. We have now entered the time of recovering a family, tribe, people and nation that are one with True Parents. I am saying that we are now moving on to a time of royal authority. (277-288, 1996.04.19)

35 The marriage of 3.6 million couples is the completion of the formation, growth and completion stages. By passing through the Blessings of 30,000 and 360,000 couples, we have reached the completion stage. In terms of water level, imagine the tide that comes in over a six-hour period and goes out again by the time twelve hours have passed. The high tide six hours earlier and the high tide six hours later reach an equal level. And the tide that comes in later, which replaced the tide that came in first, can be said to be in front. Like this, we have entered the era of equalization. (282-182, 1997.03.12)

36 Based on our blessed families, we are expanding globally. By forming a global domain of families based on the 30,000, 360,000 and 3.6 million couples, we have entered an age in which God can live on this earth without having to go through the vertical and horizontal eight stages. Not only God Himself but also God’s family and the True Parents’ family can settle on earth. I therefore declared the Cosmic Sabbath for the Parents of Heaven and Earth. The age in which the Unificationist families of the world can move without hindrance and be welcomed wherever they go is an age in which God can rest wherever He goes. (287-108, 1997.09.01)

37 In order to surmount the final obstacles in the world-level providence, the national messiahs must lead the effort to accomplish the Blessing of 3.6 million couples. When we are victorious in giving the Blessing to 3.6 million couples, the newly blessed couples in each nation will become the foundation upon which the national messiahs can influence the cabinet ministers of that nation. UN ambassadors should be urged to support the idea that the United Nations needs to follow the guidance of the True Parents and work toward establishing the Women’s UN and the Youth UN. Each nation joining the Women’s UN, the Youth UN and the Student UN, will represent the unity of the Father, the Mother and Cain and Abel. At that point we will start to see the unfolding of one unified world. (282-037, 1997.02.16)

38 Based on the family, we must go beyond the world level. In order to achieve that, the Unification Church has been carrying out large wedding ceremonies. Starting with the 36 couples and based on the number ten, we blessed the 30,000 couples, then the 360,000 couples and then the 3.6 million couples in order to go over the peak. I’m saying we have gone beyond the turning point. It was difficult to reach that point, but now all the gates of the Blessing have been opened to the world. By widening and raising the horizontal standard through the 3.6 million couples, the vertical standard has also risen proportionally. Just as the Blessing is given beyond tribal, ethnic or national groups, the heavenly world and even the realm of the archangels will all receive the Blessing. (286-167, 1997.08.09)

The Blessing of 360 million couples

39 If Adam had not fallen but had instead received the Blessing, that would have been a historic, cosmic Blessing. However, due to the Fall, humankind was separated from God, so families in the world today are unable to receive the grace of the Blessing on the universal level. In order to recover that which was lost in Adam’s family through the Fall, the 360 million couples Blessing will be held in order to stand in a position equal to that which was lost, on the worldwide level. (287-143, 1997.09.14)

40 There were twelve peaks to surmount—passing through the formation, growth and completion stages—up to and including the Blessing of360 million couples. I never retreated from that path after I completed the 40 million couples Blessing. As a result, everything was made level. That is why there are 400 million blessed couples. The Blessing of 360 million couples was one of equalization—the Blessing of equalization for all citizens of the world. (302-132, 1999.06.12)

41 Now that the Realm of the Cosmic Sabbath for the Parents of Heaven and Earth has been proclaimed, God can come to the earth. Thus now is the time for a great worldwide Blessing to take place through which all the foundations of families and tribes can be connected. We need to sever Satan’s bloodline, manifested in all humanity, by blessing the 3.6 million, 36 million and 360 million couples. Not one person of Satan's bloodline should be left behind. (288-065, 1997.10.31)

42 Once the Blessing of 360 million couples is complete, I will no longer conduct Blessing ceremonies. From that time on, parents will bless their own children. This will be known as the era of the liberation of the realm of the fourth Adam. There will be no indemnity. The first and second Adams failed in the Old Testament and New Testament Ages respectively. Even in the Completed Testament Age, we have been persecuted, but now we are entering the realm of liberation. We are entering the original world before the Fall, the age of the liberated realm of the fourth Adam. That’s why parents who are not fallen can bless their own sons and daughters. Because they have become couples who have inherited the internal and external ideal created by God, the parents can bless their children. The parents stand in the position of True Parents. The world will thus inevitably become one. (290-168, 1998.02.18)

43 Blessing 360 million couples will demolish all the walls that create blocks in our world. The walls of Satan’s world around individuals, around families, around tribes, peoples, nations, around the world, around the cosmos and even around the realm of God’s heart will all be demolished. (292-055, 1998.03.28)

The significance of Blessing ceremonies for already married couples and single people

44 Among those couples who were already married before receiving the Blessing are people who married by their own choice. Then there are those men and women who had love relationships but didn’t marry. In the free world of today, I must save all those who have not formed families. Already married couples must be saved, as well as all those who could not form families and have gone the wrong way in their love relationships. After that, the direct children must be saved. It was the 36 couples who paved the way to make it possible to open the gates of the Blessing for everyone. Among them there are three types of couples: Adam-type couples, Noah- type couples and Jacob-type couples. Of these types, the Adam couples are the already married couples. Originally, the Lord at his Second Advent—the True Parent—was to have nothing to do with couples who were already married. However, those already married couples were born of the body of Adam before the Fall, and the Lord who comes as the perfect Adam cannot abandon what was born of Adam’s body. (242-102, 1993.01.01)

45 The people standing at the stage of imperfection, even fallen people, are sons and daughters of Adam. They are in the position to be returned to the heavenly side. That is why the perfected Adam must appear on the earth and bring all fallen people to a position equivalent to that before the Fall. All humanity can thus escape from Satan’s realm. The already married couples are in a position of Adam’s family that has formed a love relationship without committing the Fall. (242-104, 1993.01.01)

46 From now on, the Unification Church should bless those in the Cain position. This is the time to bless couples who are already married. Those who married by themselves must receive the Blessing; otherwise, they cannot go to Heaven. Because people married in the wrong way, they fell. People are destined to go to hell through wrongful marriage based on false love, false life and false lineage from false parents. To reverse that, the True Parents must come and marry them in the proper way. That is what the Blessing is all about. It is not only on the level of Korea but on the cosmic level; it transcends racial boundaries. (274-285, 1995.11.03)

47 You must become tribal messiahs. The already married couples cannot imagine how precious is the term tribal messiah. Nothing can be done without tribal messiahship. Therefore all of you should bring up your children and do all you can to have them receive the Blessing. Then your grandchildren will be in a perfected position before God. Through these third-generation children, you need to ask God to forgive your ancestors. (31-283, 1970.06.04)

48 The already married couples, the newly blessed couples and my family need to come together to rescue this nation. Only when the nation is recovered can Jesus’ desire be fulfilled. If Jesus’ heart is not freed from all the pain over what he could not accomplish, the grief of the Son of God cannot be eased. If the grief of the Son is not eased, God’s bitter grief cannot be eased either. Would there be any way to relieve the heart of the Parent? The grief of the Son must be eased first. Jesus came as God’s Son on the global level, centering upon one nation. The grief and bitter pain in his heart must be relieved. (58-196, 1972.06.11)

49 If you couples who are already married cannot outperform those who were blessed while still single, you will not be able to uphold the dignity of already married blessed couples. Was there such a thing as the Blessing of already married couples in the Garden of Eden or within God’s Will? In order to save you, I have opened the gates through which everything ragged and false can be patched up. This became possible through the inclusion of already married couples in the 36 couples Blessing. (101-286, 1978.11.07)

50 It is wonderful grace to be able to receive the Blessing as a couple on earth rather than as a single person. Originally it would not have been possible to receive the Blessing as a single person. The Blessing in the Garden of Eden meant there should be a man in front of a woman and a woman in front of a man. It is a principle of the ideal of creation that a man and a woman should receive the Blessing from God. Thus the single Blessing is not normative. If you receive the Blessing as a single person, in the spirit world you will have the right to choose your own spouse. Ladies who receive the Blessing from me can choose a partner from among many men in the spirit world. So in the spirit world I have to do the ceremony again. We have permission to do this kind of thing only in the name of True Parents on earth. In the spirit world there have been no married couples until today. You can be married after being born as the children of True Parents, but those in the spirit world were not born as children of True Parents on earth. They were all born of the lineage of Satan’s world. They must be engrafted by True Parents and become a family of a new lineage. Receiving the single Blessing is a condition for a future relationship between you who are on earth and your bride or bridegroom who is already in the spirit world. (101-307, 1978.11.07)

51 The time is coming when widows or widowers who have received the Blessing as single people on earth can be blessed with their spouse in the spirit world. In the era after we transcend the national and global levels, when they go to the spirit world they can finally be blessed with their spouse. Until now such things have been impossible. Those of you who received the Blessing for married couples lived separately for some time before being blessed. But from now on, married couples can remain together and receive the Blessing. Since this privilege has been granted on earth, when a married couple with one spouse on earth and the other in the spirit world receive the Blessing together, they stand united in an equal position. The one on earth therefore receives the Blessing with his or her partner in the spirit world. (284-167, 1997.04.16)

Section 5. Registration and the Responsibility of Blessed Families

1 True Parents are the center of each blessed family. In the Garden of Eden, there never was a family that lived with True Parents. It is for you to resolve this. To do so, you must absolutely follow the commands of True Parents. You cannot insist on your own opinion in front of True Parents. Only when your personal concepts disappear can True Parents settle within your family. If this does not come to pass, you cannot realize ideal families. This is not an idea I came up with; it is God’s original concept of creation. (277-250, 1996.04.18)

2 Through fallen Adam and Eve, the eight members of Adam’s family, including Cain, Abel, Seth and their spouses, all fell. Therefore we must proceed toward the completion stage by setting conditions of indemnity. This you must do while feeling your parents’ love. Our lives originate in our parents’ love. Only when you go through experiences that lead you to respect this value in life, more than anything else in the world, can you proceed to the new path. (35-234, 1970.10.18)

3 Individual perfection today is not the absolute and complete perfection of the individual but is a conditional perfection. You must understand that during the process of restoration, perfection is conditional. Even though people stand in the position of parents, they do not know the realm of God’s heart. Husband and wife have not experienced the power of loving each other so much that they would never trade each other even for the entire universe. Families who have received the Blessing must bear in mind that until they cross over from this fallen realm, they are not in the realm of the perfected kingdom of heaven but the realm of conditional perfection. Once they pass into the spirit world, therefore, they need to go through certain formalities. Only after they pass through these formalities and are approved as having reached perfection can they receive their passports and enter the kingdom of heaven. (100-145, 1978.10.09)

4 The true freedom that God gave us comes with the precondition of responsibility. How much chaos and destruction would occur if people were to insist on and practice the freedom of love only as individuals, without fulfilling their responsibility? The perfection of human beings, who are destined to realize the lofty ideal of love, is possible only when they take responsibility for love. That responsibility has three components. The first responsibility is to become the master of the freedom of true love, knowing how to cultivate and control oneself and be truly grateful to God for granting the freedom to love. This responsibility for a love relationship should not be undertaken merely because of law or social convention. Instead, a person should take responsibility through self-control, self-determination and life in a vertical relationship with God. The second responsibility is toward one’s object partner. By nature, people do not want to share the love of their partner with anyone else. The horizontal relationship between husband and wife is different from the vertical relationship between parents and children. When it is divided, its perfection is destroyed. This is because of the Principle of Creation, which is based on the absolute oneness of love between couples. People have the responsibility to absolutely love their partner. The third responsibility is to love one’s children. Parental love is the foundation of a child’s pride and happiness. Children receive life from their parents, who have created harmonious oneness through true love, and they want to be raised in such love. The most precious responsibility toward children is not only to raise them externally, but also to provide the life elements of true love that will complete their spirituality. This is the reason the family is important. The heart of a true child, true brother and sister, true husband and wife and true parents can be experienced only in such true family life. (277-201, 1996.04.16)

5 If you use your reproductive organ in an aimless and directionless way, you will go to hell. But if you use it the opposite way, in accordance with God’s absolute love, you will go to the high kingdom of heaven. This is a clear conclusion. Now we have a serious problem with youth. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve fell through illicit love in their youth and planted the seed of free sex. In the Last Days, which is the time of harvest, the phenomenon of free sex among adolescents will be an expanding trend. (279-257, 1996.09.15)

6 If you use your love organ recklessly, you will be punished. Your love organ is the royal palace of love, the ancestral garden of love. Love, life, and even history begin from there. It is the origin of the kingdom of heaven on earth and in the spirit world. The origin of God’s happiness and the basis for Him to laugh are found there. It is the very place where God can find love and dance with joy. You have to search for and find that place. (256-200, 1994.03.13)

7 Without a nation there can be no nationality, no foundation upon which you can be registered. We need to create a people and register anew. We have to establish the kingdom of God on earth and, as its citizens, love that kingdom and its people. We are to live on earth together with our tribes and family members as the victorious sons and daughters who have inherited the true lineage of the Parents of goodness. Only after doing so can we enter the kingdom of heaven in the spirit world. This is all according to the Principle. (058-145, 1972.05.22)

8 Once a woman is married, her name is entered into her husband’s family register and removed from the register of her birth family. Everyone on earth has a hometown. When you are born, your birth is immediately registered in your hometown. You have proof that you are the child of a certain family and the citizen of a certain nation. As long as that nation exists, and as long as the child’s parents are recorded, a child who is registered cannot be uprooted and sent away. (177-302, 1988.05.22)

9 A time will come when you will need to be registered. The era of registration is coming in which you will connect to the family of True Father, the royal family. However, even when the era of registration arrives, those who have been unable to restore their tribes will not be able to register. It is similar to the twelve tribes of Israel. You cannot register before you have restored your tribe. Once people come to understand the need for the restoration of tribes, they will swarm to the Unification Church to become members. What then will happen at the time of registration? Until this time, nothing has belonged to God— neither people nor any of the things of creation. The True Father, who has fulfilled God’s Will, must rescue all that Satan, through selfish love, came to possess. He must rescue God’s sons and daughters and all things of creation. I do not have a nation at present. The nation therefore must be found. (208-339, 1990.11.21)

10 The time will come when you must be registered. Receiving the Blessing is not the same as being registered. The Blessing is only a symbolic registration. That is why we are seeking to recover the nation in which we can be registered. What kind of nation would it be? It would consist of a trinity: sovereignty representing parents, citizens representing children, and land representing all things of creation. In order for a nation to be established there must be sovereignty, citizenry and territory. The same principle is true for religion. (35-282, 1970.10.25)

11 Because of the Fall of the family of Adam and Eve, everything was registered in the name of Satan. Now, based on your families, your nations and everything in the world must be returned to God and registered in His name. This completely follows the Principle. The Fall occurred in the family. This must be indemnified. Since this principle exists, if there were a world president, he could bring his nations before God to be registered. On the day of registration, every nation would be saved. (184-096, 1988.12.20)

12 We have to be registered in the position of sons and daughters who can be loved eternally by God and True Parents. The registration will begin from this time forth. You will be registered in the Book of Life of the kingdom of God. A new form of registration has to take place centered on the new True Parentism and Godism. At the same time, the organization of tribes should take place. Corresponding to the twelve apostles of Jesus and the twelve tribes of Israel, we need to organize ourselves into tribes. (146-230, 1986.07.01)

13 The Blessing of the Unification Church is a church-level Blessing, not a national one. There are three stages to pass through to arrive at the world- level Blessing. After passing through the era of the church-level Blessing, the reunification of Korea brings about one nation, giving way to the era of the national-level Blessing centered on God’s nation. After this comes the era of Blessing in which the physical and spiritual realms are united. We need to pass through these three eras of the Blessing. Originally these three should have been accomplished in the generation of Adam, but this did not occur and it has been postponed until the era of the returning Lord. This must be accomplished in True Father’s time. By the year 20001 must give a global Blessing for everyone at once. That is how registration will be accomplished on a grand scale. (290-254, 1998.03.02)

14 The Blessing in the Unification Church goes through three stages: the church, national and world levels. That is why the blessed families of today must go beyond their current position. Originally, liberated people should receive the Blessing without any indemnity conditions. However, we are caught by the need to offer indemnity conditions. Our church must face the nation, which is persecuting us, and beyond that, the world. We must overcome them all. Only after we overcome persecution and lead our families into the place of liberation, which is the unified world, can God bestow upon us the right of inheritance originally destined for Adam’s family. Only then can there be true liberation. On that basis, there will be the realms of the church, the nation and the world. We must go beyond the realm of the restoration of worldwide kingship, leave the realm of Satan’s accusation, and liberate the physical and spiritual realms. After we have risen to that position, we have to receive the Blessing. (285-236, 1997.06.05)

15 You cannot find the path of salvation through the ordinary, habitual lifestyle you have pursued up to this point. You must walk the path of complete indemnity. The providence of salvation is the providence of restoration, and the providence of restoration is the providence of re-creation. Thus in order to be re-created you must attain the original position untainted by the Fall—the zero point. At the original position, our concepts and habits, our surnames like Kim or Lee, will not exist. You must go to such a zero point. Viewed from God’s original standard of 1 creation, every created being began from the zero point. (213-098, 1991.01.16)

16 Every one of you should stand in the position of practicing absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience. The families in the Garden of Eden have nothing they can claim as their own. When they become true sons and daughters, standing in oneness with God and His absolute love, everything in the whole universe will belong to them. Once you have become one in love, everything will become yours. (300-304, 1999.04.11)

17 After receiving the Blessing you absolutely must not fall. What would happen if you fell? There would be no way to be saved, even by True Parents. Blessing means changing your lineage and inheriting the right of kingship that represents the ancestors of three ages. This blessed lineage must never be defiled for thousands and tens of thousands of years to come. We must not pass on the stained bloodline. You must keep your purity. This is a very serious matter. You will no longer be able to ask for forgiveness, saying, “Please forgive us in the name of True Parents.” You must pass on a pure lineage. (332-292, 2000.09.24)

CHAPTER 3 Principles and Order in the Family

Section 1. Family Harmony Makes All Go Well

1 A family should consist of parents, a husband and wife, and children. Only then can there be a foundation for happiness. God’s purpose in seeking to dwell with humanity is also for His own happiness. God’s venturing forth to find a foundation of happiness, fulfilling His ideal, cannot take place apart from human beings. That point of connection can be found only through His relationship with us. Just as we feel happy when everything we need for our emotional well-being is present in our family, God likewise longs to feel happy in such a setting. (32-198, 1970.07.15)

The family principle of three generations living together

2 The love of God is manifested as parental love, conjugal love and filial love. These three great loves make it possible for people to exist forever, transcending even the most elevated human view of love. This is why people feel joy when these three great loves are united. When they are fulfilled, happiness is also realized. When they are lacking, misfortune sets in. Are motherless people happy? The emptiness they feel translates into misery. Are fatherless people happy? Fatherless people envy those who have a father. Happiness, like love, has no room for envy. If you envy someone or something, you cannot say you are happy. (20-040, 1968.03.31)

3 The grandfather, grandmother, mother- in-law, father-in-law, sisters-in-law and grandchildren should all live together. Living together with God, the three generations corresponding to the formation, growth and completion stages will settle down. You can love God if you know how to love not only your father and mother but also your grandparents. You will be able to love God only when you place your grandparents above your father and mother and know how to love them in that position. So, why are spouses, parents, and sons and daughters indispensable? It is because you can you attend God completely only when you have all the members of the family. It is a fundamental principle that you should have parents and sons and daughters. (128-018, 1983.05.29)

4 The grandfather and grandmother are the most experienced people in the world. They are the ones who resemble God the most. Because they are old, they do not sleep very long. So you should think, “Oh, my grandfather is like God, who protects my family without sleeping! My grandfather has become old by protecting us! I can see his age reflected in the wrinkles on his face.” This means you should obey your grandparents. Isn’t this beautiful? When the grandparents are not sleeping, they are praying, “God, bless my sons and daughters. Please bless them.” While praying, they will guide you, saying, “My love, it is dangerous to go out today. Please listen to me.” The universe protects those who try to live in the original, ideal way. When they love each other, the grandmother and grandfather dance, the mother and father dance, and the brothers and sisters dance. The universe protects those who live by this model. If someone were about to kill such a person, the universe would automatically prevent it. (107-327, 1980.06.08)

5 You must complete the four-position foundation by attaining perfect maturity as an individual, perfect unity as a couple, and the growth of your children to adulthood. Otherwise, what was meant to be achieved through the three generations of your family will be lost. Like a tree that buds in the spring, grows through the summer, and bears fruit in the autumn, we live our lives as children, couples and parents. When you have your own sons and daughters, you stand in a position equal to that of God. You can participate in His work; you can even kiss Him. He will then bestow everything upon you, saying, “All that I have is yours.” Whoever achieves the standard of the ideal that God desires to see can immediately inherit everything from Him. (393-206, 2002.10.04)

6 The place where the invisible God and substantial human beings unite is the origin. This origin begins with the family—God’s family and True Parents’ family. This family has to complete the four-position foundation. It should go through three generations—the grandfather’s generation, father’s generation and grandson’s generation. Because of the Fall, God was unable to experience a family of three generations. We should establish a standard through three generations. When we find the standard centering on one mind, one body and one heart, which is the most vertical standard in the world, we need to connect it through three generations. (396-277, 2002.11.11)

7 Your family is the fruit of all the sacrifices of history. With material things representing the Old Testament Age, sons and daughters representing the New Testament Age, and you yourselves representing the Completed Testament Age, we have to repay the debts of these three ages. Since you are in the position to pay indemnity for these historical ages, do not treat your belongings, sons and daughters, or spouse as your own. Following this type of public law, this principle of Heaven, you should become men and women, grandfathers and grandmothers, fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, and sons and daughters who can adopt, evaluate and live according to a fundamental attitude that will lead you to complete oneness with the ideal. When these positions unite together, the family is formed. Unless we build a foundation of love upon which to inherit this ownership and right of dominion, our families cannot form the initial foundation for the kingdom of heaven on earth. (168-217, 1987.09.20)

Family harmony makes all go well

8 In the expression Ga hwa man saseong, which means “Family harmony makes all go well,” the character hwa (和) means “to harmonize.” On the other hand, in hwahak (chemistry), the character hwa (化) indicates substances harmonizing as their original essence changes. Yet the character hwa (和), as in the word il-hwa (one harmony), does not indicate a change in one’s essence when harmony is made. So, whether you are a man or woman, you should harmonize with your partner without changing your essential self. Which is more valuable? Of the two, harmony without changing your original essence is better than harmony at the cost of changing your essence. The union of man and woman is a form of harmony. The unity between adult and child is a form of harmony. The unity between man and woman, old and young, not to mention front and back, right and left, and above and below, are all examples of harmony. All forms of harmony lead to prosperity. This is because harmony is the standard of ideal existence. Everything supports harmony and wants to attach itself to that which is in harmony. You can say that harmony leads to prosperity because it draws everything to unite with it. (173-243, 1988.02.21)

9 It is said that “Family harmony makes all go well.” Ideal relationships between the grandfather and grandmother, husband and wife, and brothers and sisters lead to success and prosperity. Nonetheless, the grandmother and grandfather should not love only each other; husband and wife should not love only each other, and brothers and sisters should not love only each other. Grandmother and son, son and son, daughter-in-law and son, vertically and horizontally, front and back, right and left—everyone should be in harmony. The character hwa means “to level.” In hwahak (chemistry), hwa refers to the unity of substances that change when they combine. But the hwa in the word for harmony implies no change in the essence of those who have achieved harmony. (196-303, 1990.01.12)

10 In the Orient we have the expression, “Family harmony makes all go well.” It means that if you want peace, you have to base it on love. This principle applies to the universe, to the East and West, and everywhere. Would you like to live in a home for the elderly? I do not like such places. Anywhere the parents go, the children should follow; the whole family needs to follow. I am concerned, however, that reality is not like this. If a family cannot live together, where can we find harmony in the world, and how can we live together in the kingdom of heaven? (167-125, 1987.07.01)

11 If someone who loves you very much helped you by giving you $1,000, you would not want to repay a reduced amount, such as $900. Rather, you would want to repay it many times over. The original mind is like that. What does this reveal? It explains that actions based on original love produce an output that is greater than the input. This logic is viable. Since we say, “Family harmony makes all go well,” we need to act on that principle. Action reduces the amount of available energy, so why does family harmony lead to an increase? The more you harmonize in love, and the more you invest in loving, nothing gets smaller; everything becomes bigger. (212-279, 1991.01.08)

12 When we say that family harmony makes all go well, we need to realize that harmony requires patience. We will likely go through many difficulties. The one who can deal well with such difficulties will become the central figure and responsible person. A true man does not change, and a true woman does not change either. When an absolutely unchanging man and woman appear, focused on true love, the whole universe will bow down to this couple. (142-335, 1986.03.14)

13 "When we say, ""Family harmony makes all go well,” do you think we are talking about harmony coming about based on nuggets of gold? If you simply look at the gold nuggets and keep them locked up, family harmony may be possible. If you dispense them based on your own viewpoint, brawls will break out. However, if you dispense them with love, the more you dispense them, the more you will prosper. But the more you dispense things based on economic motives, the more people will fight over them. Unending divisions will result. But the more you dispense things based on love, the greater will be the unity, harmony and peace that will follow. In love, “Family harmony makes all go well,” as the saying goes. The father loves the mother, the mother loves the father, parents love their children, and children love their parents—in this way, through harmony in love, everything prospers. (115-254, 1981.11.22)"

14 Looking at the world of life and the world of spiritual death reveals that although origin of death is Satan, the origin of life is God. The world centered on Satan is exactly the opposite of the world centered on God. Are families in the fallen world peaceful or are they in conflict? Because families in the fallen world began in conflict, families everywhere are in conflict. The world that began with conflict in the family, and is composed of families that are in conflict, is not the heavenly world. (44-135, 1971.05.06)

15 The saying “Family harmony makes all go well” is an excellent expression. If a husband goes to work after fighting with his wife at home, he will almost surely get into a fight at work. This is because he will feel the need to vent his anger. If the head of a company goes to the office after a fight at home, he or she will not feel good about the company’s employees. Bad feelings that originate in the home certainly spread to the society. (44-134, 1971.05.06)

16 What is the most unbearable thing? It is resentment between loved ones. There is nothing harder to bear than that. Since the seed of conflict was sown in Adam’s family, families that quarrel live in the fallen realm, while peaceful, harmonious families dwell in the heavenly realm. They are opposites. Discordant families are at the center of the fallen world. The center of the fallen world is evil. Disharmonious families fight every day. In such families, the father and mother are always in conflict. The husband and wife are in conflict. (44-134, 1971.05.06)

17 We need to be careful that our children do not say, “Mother and father had a fight.” If your children say, “Mother and father fight all the time,” you will surely go to hell, no matter how well you do otherwise. Our children should say, “My father is like God. He is God in our home. My father is the president of our family. He is the saint in our family and so is my mother.” Long ago, the saints said that family harmony makes everything go well, but today the Unification Church advocates harmony with Heaven centering on the cosmos. Heavenly harmony makes everything go well. (101-041, 1978.10.28)

18 We say that family harmony makes all go well, but the Bible says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.” (Matt. 5:9) It means that those who bring peace will be sons and daughters of God. If there were a messenger of peace in this world who was eliminating the causes of conflict, providing a base for unification, and leading a movement toward the one Lord, God would be compelled to pay attention to that person. Since God is the King of peace and the Owner of peace, He watches for the one who has a heart of peace. God has patiently borne tens of thousands of years of sorrow all alone, traveling a painful path by Himself. God has overcome everything alone from His difficult position, but He is not boastful and does not want to make this known, so He continues to endure everything alone. If anyone were bravely walking the same way in front of God, God would surely notice. It would be impossible for Him to ignore such a person. (101-185, 1978.10.29)

19 There is an old saying, “Family harmony makes all go well,” but do you think family harmony is possible without harmony within the individual? If our own integrity is on the verge of collapse, can we foster harmony in our family? If individuals had carried conflict within themselves from the very outset, those who would deny God’s existence would be right. But our inner conflict came about because something went wrong. Ideologies such as materialism developed, with the wrong diagnosis of reality. The Absolute Being could not have designed people with conflicting purposes. There can be only a single purpose. However, we are incomplete. Since we have remained an incomplete product until now, the Absolute Being is exerting His power of re-creation to bring us to full maturity. Therefore, throughout history, God has invested in factories that remake people into completed products. Thus, whether people like it or not, new assembly lines need to appear. These are none other than religious organizations. (39-019, 1971.01.09)

20 “Before you try to master the universe, you must first master yourself.’ This was my motto at the time I was pioneering the path of truth. I told everyone, “Before you try to gain dominion over the universe or connect with everything in the world, you must gain dominion over yourself.” Our mind can become the true owner, true teacher, and true parent. When our body discovers such a mind and feels inadequate to attend this mind, even for tens of thousands of years, heavenly fortune will come to us. Our mind wants to live for the sake of our body, but our body doesn’t want to serve our mind. That is the problem. (201-154, 1990.03.30)

21 The problem lies within the self, not within society. If there is a problem in my family, it is not because my elder brother is bad, my elder sister is bad, or my father is bad; it is because I am bad. I must first attain a certain standard before I can be in a position to criticize the standard of others. Only after attaining unity between my own original mind and my body can I proudly enter the one unified world. If my original mind and body are divided, how can I participate in a world where everything is harmonized? I would automatically retreat from it. Therefore, I should not allow my body to become my master. I should not allow my body to suppress or ignore my mind, to exhaust or distress it. I can be happy only when I control my body and direct it to serve my mind; then God will come and dwell within me. It is said that “Family harmony makes all go well.” If I want peace in my family and within myself, I need to unite my mind and body. (201-154, 1990.03.30)

22 The universe resembles a sphere. In the solar system, the planets follow cyclical orbits. The enormous cosmos is also spherical, containing hundreds of millions of solar systems. That’s why we say everything moves around and around. When we say, “Family harmony makes all go well,” it means we need to move around and around in harmony. There should be harmony not just between the grandfather and grandmother; the grandfather and grandson also need to be in harmony, children and parents need to be in harmony, and husband and wife need to be in harmony; everyone should live in harmony. When we live like that, everything will be fulfilled. When our lives move in cyclical motion, we create a sphere. We need to become well-rounded people. Sharp-edged people cause problems. That is because the universe is in motion. (198-291, 1990.02.05)

Section 2. Ideal Couples and the Parent-Child Relationship

1 When a bride and bridegroom are going to consummate their marriage after the wedding ceremony, they do not need to call their mother and father to teach them how to love each other. Even insects do well without being instructed. Then what should human beings, as the lords of creation, be taught? That which is covered with a veil of mystery should be unveiled only by those in the position of its owners. The original pattern of the dutiful path and of proper education never appeared, so we impart these in the Unification Church. One representative man and one representative woman, having mastered filial love for their parents and siblings’ love for each other, must meet and become a perfected couple capable of loving all humanity. This universal man and woman, representing right and left, are united as one. Embodying the value of God's vertical love, they are bound together. (226-337, 1992.02.09)

Ideal conjugal love

2 True love travels along the shortest route. Vertical love travels to only one point, where the vertical axis meets the horizontal at ninety degrees. The shortest path is at 90 degrees, not 89 or 91 degrees. The vertical should go through that point. True love between man and woman should also go through that point. If you seek the shortest route, it will inevitably produce a ninety-degree angle. Love between siblings can also be expressed as a ninety-degree angle. No matter where you apply this principle, it works. No one loses out. In vertical, perpendicular love, heaven and earth become earth and heaven; father and mother become mother and father, and elder and younger brothers become younger and elder brothers. The ideal scene unfolds where everything can turn upside down, mingle together, and still fit perfectly. This explains why my grandparents love me, and why, as a testament to their love, I love my brothers and sisters. The home in which a husband and wife attend their parents and live together with their children is a home of love. A person who does not experience such a family home of love will not have such a home in heaven. (226-292, 1992.02.09)

3 The realization of a family kingdom of heaven will surely lead to the establishment of the kingdom of heaven on earth. Thus, Unification Church families need to realize the family kingdom of heaven. To experience it, you absolutely need a partner. Only through the stimulation you receive in your family and with your partner can you experience the ideal of the future heavenly kingdom in your daily life. Husband and wife need each other to learn this lesson and receive the stimulation that allows them to live eternally. Progress cannot come about without stimulation. Conjugal love provides the stimulation required to build the ideal kingdom of heaven. In other words, conjugal love pulls future joy into the realm of the present, provides stimulation, and supplies the driving force to bring the couple to that kingdom. Because that love contains love for the nation, love for the world and love for God, it can move freely and universally. (37-109, 1970.12.22)

4 A woman should love one man, but she should love him as a representative of all men in the world. That man represents her father, elder brother, and younger brother. A woman should think of her husband as her father, grandfather, elder brother and younger brother. Through loving her father, her grandfather, and her elder and younger brothers, a woman becomes eligible to receive a partner. A woman should have the attitude of love for all the men in the world, and she should embrace and love her husband as the representative and fruit of all men. This shows her love for humanity. With the heart to love her husband as her father, elder brother and younger brother, and by transcending all nations and borders, a woman can be considered a daughter of God. (83-219, 1976.02.08)

5 What is a true husband? A true husband is one who says to his wife, “I was born for your sake and so I will live for you and die for you.” The same applies to a true wife. If a husband and wife are responsive to each other, rise above their self-interest, and live for the sake of each other, their family will surely become an ideal family—a loving, happy and peaceful family. (77-106, 1975.04.01)

6 No matter how capable and talented a man may be, the purpose for his birth does not lie in himself. He was born for the sake of a woman. Conversely, no matter how beautiful a woman may be, even as a proud actress, she was not born for her own sake. Where, then, are the ideal husbands and wives of true love? When a husband thinks he was born for his wife, he will live for her and die for her, and he will appear as the ideal husband. The same is true for the wife. According to this principle, where can we find an ideal person—a happy, loving and good person? Such people cannot be found among those who live for their own sake, but only among those who live for the sake of others. (070-305, 1974.03.09)

7 Blessed families are to accomplish the standard that Adam and Eve failed to attain. They should connect with God’s love at their center. By this standard of living in resonance with God’s heart, have you accorded each other absolute devotion? You should have absolute devotion to and absolute love for one another. You should become one rooted in such love and become a center of harmony. While looking at a mountain, a husband and wife might ask for whom the mountain exists, and while thinking about the whole universe, they might ask for whom this universe was created. They would surely answer by saying, “It is for me, and at the same time it is for you.” This is what a married couple is like. The way for a husband and wife to unite is by valuing God’s central purpose and fulfilling the purpose for which this universe came into existence. The husband and wife communicate with each other based on heart, love and personal character, walking the same path. A country bumpkin married to a government minister walks the same path as the minister. Although that person may have graduated only from elementary school, everyone will need to bow before him or her as the minister s spouse. This is how a husband and wife go together. Between husband and wife, can there be one love for him and a separate love for her? For them, “Your love is my love, and my love is your love.” (29-142, 1970.02.26)

8 If a loving husband and wife were asked how long they will be in love, and one of them answers, “As long as we are young,” would the other feel good about that? They actually want to love each other until they die, and then for eternity. Saying “until I die” means you intend to love by giving everything you have until death. But eternity represents the entire future and giving your whole self forever. Only with this commitment will your spouse be happy. When young women get married, they will surely ask their husbands, “Do you love me?” When their husbands say they do, they will then ask, “Do you love me completely or do you love me only a little?” Only when the husbands say they love their wives completely will they make their wives happy. It is the same with men. This is how things are in harmony with God. (37-024, 1970.12.22)

9 A husband and wife who love each other while forgetting God's Will should be ashamed in front of Heaven. A family that pursues only its own happiness, without considering the Will of God, will absolutely not develop. If something joyful happens in your family, you have to connect it to the nation, to the world and to God. Then that joy in the family will be a source of pride for the nation, for the world and for God. This is the way of life of a blessed couple. (30-182, 1970.03.22)

10 When you try to serve each other and work for the sake of others, the whole world of creation will follow suit and heavenly fortune will chase you faster than a speeding automobile in a car chase. When heavenly fortune comes your way, you will be able to fly. Because heaven and earth protect couples that follow the way of Heaven’s Principle and live for the sake of others, they will never decline. They will only succeed and prosper. That is Heaven’s law. Once you become a couple of true love, you need to plant the seed of true lineage. When they unite based on true love and have a baby, they connect with the tradition as a mother and father and reach the point of family settlement. A couple with God’s original nature of one mind, one body, one thought and one harmony, who become one with the principles of absolute sex based on eternal love, who display absolute faith, love and obedience, who invest and then forget how much they have invested, and who are a model of heavenly principles, will flourish even when things go poorly, and flourish even more when things go well. Satan cannot enter such a couple. (405-205, 2003.02.11)

Ideal parent-child relationships

11 Parents who have given birth to and raised children understand the desire to receive blessings and feel happiness through their beloved sons and daughters. If they can establish a foundation of happiness and blessings, they want to bequeath it to their offspring for eternity. Even fallen parents hope that their children will grow up as fine people whom all nations can follow, revere and praise eternally. The parent’s heart seeks to protect children from harm and is anxious about them day and night. Even fallen parents have this heart. A mother accepts the smell of her baby’s urine and feces. While nursing her child, she whispers and sings lullabies, while continually wishing for the child’s success in life. Every parent has such a heart. If a child is incompetent or lacking, or suffers from a disability, the parents’ hearts suffer to the point of breaking. If this situation is then resolved, their relief and joy goes beyond the pain they had felt. (20-209, 1968.06.09)

12 Unification cannot be brought about by force. If it could, the world would always be controlled by the one with the greatest strength. Nonetheless, when you talk about having love, the greater person is the one who gives greater love. The greater person lives for the sake of others. The person who is higher should serve the one who is lower. Unification occurs not by domination but through service. That is why all children go to their mother’s bosom when she is near. It is possible only in love. Parents who are suffering and in difficulty have their energy and stamina restored when their children come to hug them. We might think that a strong hug would cause more pain but, in fact, it generates more energy. Love and hugs are sources of happiness. A collision with love revives and reenergizes people who have become tired and worn out. (147-093, 1986.08.31)

13 From the viewpoint of a parental heart, a mother, no matter how attractive she may be, will feel happy if a passerby compliments her baby, saying, “Wow, he’s so much better-looking than his mother!” Even though this implies she is less attractive than her baby, no mother would protest and grumble, “What? Is he much more attractive than I am? Does this mean I am much less attractive?” Rather, she would be unable to contain her joy. This is an example of the maternal heart. Whose heart do you think this resembles? Mothers are resultant beings, not causal ones. A family that hopes that the son will achieve less than his father will decline. If the father is the president of his country but his son’s accomplishments fall short of his, and if this pattern were to continue for some generations, that family might gradually decline and end up in a miserable state. (41-283, 1971.02.17)

14 What is the source and motivation of parental love? The love between a man and woman is changeable, but parental love toward the children born of conjugal love is unchanging. Why? Parental love, which is unchanging love, does not originate from the horizontal conjugal relationship. Parental love originates from a certain vertical flow. Who is the source of that vertical love? It is God. We need an absolute subject partner of unchanging love in the original position with whom we, as object partners, can establish a steadfast relationship. Vertical love is not the kind of love that a husband and wife can enjoy for their own pleasure. Vertical love does not adjust to your self-centered desire to love or not love. But even if you try, you cannot sever it. Your horizontal position affords you no power to change it. Thus, the love of parents toward their children never changes. (48-155, 1971.09.12)

15 The moment a baby’s umbilical cord is severed, a loving heart naturally arises in the parents. Every life form, whether on a high or low level, is created such that it cannot resist loving and protecting its young. Because the act of loving inspires parents to invest and offer their lives as foundation stones for their children, it is clear that parental love is the closest to eternal and unchanging love. This does not mean that parental love can match that absolute nature. It cannot become absolute. Nonetheless, it can serve as a foundation for humankind. It can become a firm foothold in this world, an eternal foothold. Where did parental love come from? It is not learned from the advice of one’s father or the admonition of one's spouse, and it does not come from one’s own decision to love. It happens naturally. Love is something that comes naturally. (48-156, 1971.09.12)

16 As a child, I would often observe bird nests. Once I climbed a tree to look inside a nest and the mother bird started pecking at me. I brushed her aside. She flew away but returned repeatedly, desperate and willing to die to protect her nest. Observing this behavior, we cannot deny the powerful instinct of animals to risk their own lives to protect their young. The same can be said of people. You should be able to invest your life for the sake of love. That is the way of a true person. Which people are truly good? They are those who establish love as their root and try to protect their loved ones even at the cost of their own lives. (186-018, 1989.01.24)

17 What is the limit of parents’ love for their children? Parents love their children beyond their childhood years, through adulthood, and even into eternity. If a relationship is established between a parent and child, through which both feel increasing worth and value, then infinite strength and infinite stimulation—something infinite and new—will arise within that relationship. (32-013, 1970.06.14)

18 What is the origin of love? Love comes from your parents, not from you. There can be no result without a cause. Because you know that you are not the owner when it comes to love, you should not impose your will on others. When you come before your parents, you should say, “Yes, mother and father, you are right.” When your parents remind you, “No matter how great your reputation or power, you cannot do things that deviate from your duty to your parents,” you need to reply, “Yes, yes, yes, mother and father, you are right.” This is based on love. It is because parents are the subject partners and children are the object partners. The subject partner serves the object partner and the object partner follows the subject partner. This is the principle of heaven. Because he is born in accordance with heavenly nature, even an ignorant or uneducated person has a basis for understanding this heavenly principle. Therefore, even the mightiest champion needs to bow his head before his parents. If this principle is violated in a family, that household will lose all its value, and collapse. (050-135, 1971.11.06)

19 Parental love is the first love. We learn of the love between father and mother through our parents, and children who observe their parents’ love for each other feel incomparable joy. Children who have been raised with the empowerment of true parental love become well-rounded people who understand the dynamics of love. They experience receiving one-to-one vertical love when loved by their mother or father, and receiving two-to-one vertical love when loved by both parents. This unique inheritance is possible only through parental love. (62-016, 1972.09.10)

20 Children should be able to say, “My mother and father are the best in the world! They are representatives of God.” When children see their parents’ unchanging hearts and minds, they should think, “We must emulate our parents’ love and unite with each other.” When they can say that, the ideal family is right there. Our mind and heart seek an object partner with whom to unite. If this unity does not occur in a marriage, we lose everything. Thinking seriously about and striving hard to achieve this oneness is the proper way for both men and women. For this reason, we need to build families in which the father and mother are united with God’s heart and love, and in which the children resemble their parents in their unity with God’s heart and love. (97-277, 1978.03.26)

21 There was a time when I was praying deeply in a mystical state, seeking to understand the original foundation of the universe. I received this answer from God: “It is the relationship between father and son. It is father and son.” We understand that our parents gave us birth, but where is the highest meeting place between parents and children? They meet at the central place where love, life and the ideal intersect; then love, life and the ideal are in one location. At that place, God is love, and so are we; God is life, and so are we; God is the ideal, and so are we. The first avenue through which these things can be established is the parent-child relationship. We are all born through the unity in love of our mother and father and their mutual relationship. Thus, in that environment of love, at the junction where two lives are united, our life emerges. A husband and wife should not dislike each other; rather, they should view each other as ideal. When a couple unites in love, conjugal love is fulfilled. At that time, a husband’s love becomes his wife’s love, his life becomes her life, and his ideals become her ideals. (069-079, 1973.10.20)

22 God’s seeds, the seeds of the ideal of creation, are children. No matter how loving a husband and wife may be, their conjugal relationship lasts only one generation if they have no children and thus do not experience parenthood. Without a man, a woman cannot learn to love a man; she cannot know the meaning of love. A man or woman cannot know what love is without a partner. To know love, we absolutely need a husband or wife. The hope of God, too, has been to see His object partners. Are there men or women who want their spouse to be worse than they are? Are there parents who want their children to be worse than they are, or children who want their parents to be worse than they are? We all want our subject and object partners to be more wonderful than we are. (401-229, 2003.01.07)

Section 3. Ideal Parent-Child and Sibling Relationships

1 What are children? Through our children, God educates us and lets us feel how much He loves us. Through our children, we can also understand the joy God felt when He created Adam and Eve. When our children are born, we feel love and joy, and we come to know how God felt when He created our human ancestors. Because we need to learn how to love children the way God does, we need to have children. (142-119, 1986.03.06)

Why we should try to have children

2 We should strive to raise our sons and daughters as princes and princesses. Likewise, we should attend our father and mother as king and queen. That is a family principle in the heavenly world. In such a family, there can be no fighting. With one command, anything can be quickly achieved. The fundamental principle in such a family is to live for the sake of others. Otherwise, there will be no peace. (218-263, 1991.08.19)

3 Originally, Adam and Eve should have been a prince and princess. God’s sorrow is that He could not teach His prince and princess how to lead their lives. We need to resolve God’s sorrow, which originated from this lost opportunity to teach them. Adam and Eve were a prince and princess. Originally, the boy was a prince and the girl was a princess. Those who can enter the kingdom of heaven are those who have experienced the heart of a prince or princess. Without that, no one can enter the kingdom of heaven. God could not teach Adam and Eve, as His son and daughter, to become a prince and princess. They were never taught to be brother and sister. If they had been properly taught, the whole world could have been united based on the bonds between brothers and sisters. Originally, human beings would have experienced the hearts of a prince and princess and the realm of the royal family in the heavenly palace. Consequently, they could have entered the kingdom of heaven. (226-130, 1992.02.02)

4 Children are meant to inherit the kingship of the future. You should have the attitude that you are raising the king’s descendants to be dispatched themselves as kings and queens of great nations. You should educate your children because you want them to rise in the world. When children are born, every parent and nation hopes they will become true parents, true teachers and true owners. Children are the kings and queens of the future. (221-025, 1991.10.20)

5 Sons and daughters are the third manifestation of God. The first manifestation of God is your grandfather and grandmother, the second is your parents and the third is your sons and daughters. We must love our sons and daughters as we love God. Even worldly parents do that. Parents want their children to love each other, without fighting, more than they love their parents. While receiving parental love, children should love each other with even more love. We should match our father and mother’s standard in our own lives, and think we will live even more admirable lives than they have. We should try to lead happier lives than our ancestors did. This is the standard. Those who lead their lives in this way can go to the kingdom of heaven. In the Garden of Eden, there were no means of instruction. However, we now have the original texts by which to teach the heavenly way. Unless we become the royal family of the kingdom of heaven, we cannot enter that original kingdom of heaven. The family is the living environment and platform upon which we can teach the contents of the original textbook. (236-150, 1992.11.04)

6 We learn to love the world by giving birth to sons and daughters and caring for them. Our children link us to the world and to the future. Without children, we cannot connect to the future. Children are given to us so that we can learn how to connect to the future. Our ancestors and grandparents are a source of education about the spirit world. Through them we learn about the spirit world. (135-121, 1985.10.04)

7 When I return home from traveling, I kiss my children. That is my custom. When my children greet me, they always kiss me too. Before they go out, they come and tell me where they are going. When they have good news, they come and tell me. We have to raise our children with this kind of etiquette. God will then look down at us with joy. We must raise our children for God and for the world. Your children should go this way. We have children because of God. We should raise our children for the sake of the world. (47-170, 1971.08.28)

8 In the Bible, there are many stories about love. The more parents love their children, the happier both parents and children become. The more you live for the sake of love, the more love you can capture. This is the universal principle. That is why if you devote yourself to God, you will drink in God’s love. (33-331, 1970.08.23)

9 Those who have many children may work harder than others, but they also experience joy that is not felt by those who do not have their own children. Those who have children understand what I am saying. Let us compare those who have raised children with those who have not. Those with children have to endure a lot of noise and complicated situations, but they feel that their lives are worthwhile. Those without children cannot feel the same way. Through their children, people feel the value of their life. The environment of such parents is complicated, but this does not mean that they are unhappy. Their hope for tomorrow is engrafted there. The more children they have, the more hope they have, because their children develop uniquely in all four directions. Such parents can overcome all those circumstances. (35-283, 1970.10.25)

10 Having many children is a blessing. How is this so? How is it that raising many children can bring more blessings? Your realm of heart grows that much bigger, bringing you higher and closer to the standard of the heavenly kingdom. Having many children will mean you have more descendants and family lines. Each of them has the right to inherit all of God’s blessings, and God surely will bless them. When God says, “I give you my blessing,” they will receive blessings. Such is the authority they command. (171-021, 1987.12.05)

11 If a couple has no children, everything is over in one generation. Since they do not have ideal relationships of above and below, front and back, and left and right, everything ends with them. Thus, when those without sons and daughters go to the spirit world, they feel out of place. God is at the central point, but they have no foundation to relate with it. Those who raise many children are insulated from sin. They cannot hate anyone. If you raise twelve children, you will be living with people of all twelve types of personalities, and you will understand the motivation behind all that they do. (400-313, 2003.01.11)

12 Why is it that people are not satisfied with just the intimate marital relationship, but also want to have children? Which is better, having more children or fewer? The more you think you are a good, noble and valuable person, the more descendants you want to have with the same qualities. That is our original human nature. (064-167, 1972.11.01)

Ideal relationships between brothers and sisters

13 A family includes parents and the children growing up under their care. Each child has his or her own unique character. Since the children share a common root in their parents’ love, each of them can express a unique perspective. Even the youngest child can assert an opinion and not be ignored by the older brothers and sisters. Why can’t they ignore the younger one? It is because their assertion is based on their parents’ love. Since even the youngest child is united in love with his or her parents, the elder siblings need to acknowledge his or her opinion. They should support that child so that his or her opinion is welcomed. This is family life. (170-064, 1987.11.08)

14 In a family, though the opinions of the elder brother and elder sister may differ, they should honor their parents’ will. The will of both the brother and sister should be connected to their parents’ will. This connection gives them each the authority to express their unique will when they discuss their different opinions. When an older brother asserts his will, if it is recognized by his parents, he receives the authority to represent them. He can then assert his opinion from that position. The sister gains such authority in the same way. Even the younger brother, if he asserts his opinion while united in love with his parents, has the right to participate in a position equal to that of his parents. (170-064, 1987.11.08)

15 Once you are united with God, things begin to turn, and they produce all sorts of forms and shapes. For example, the love of elder children for their younger siblings will follow the model of their parents’ love for them. When a family is united in love in that way, love within the family blossoms. That love then becomes love within the society, and it expands to become love within the nation. In this manner, it later becomes the love of the whole world. (28-170, 1970.01.11)

16 What is the reason you receive parental love? It is because you are the reason your mother and father love and support each other as a couple. Their motivation is for you. When the love between siblings operates with the same motivation, the love between them will never change. When you extend that love to your neighbors, regarding them as one body, and to society, a sound social environment will unfold. Based on the family as the formation stage, the society represents the growth stage, and the nation is the completion stage. (26-153, 1969.10.25)

17 Centering on parental love, the tradition and order of love for the person in the position of the elder brother is to sacrifice himself for and love his younger siblings, as his parents’ representative. The eldest brother’s position comes with the responsibility to suffer more than any of his siblings, for the sake of his parents and siblings. That is the eldest brother's situation. The parents suffer for the sake of their children more than the children do. They do so because of their love. The parents will not give up, even when they are drenched in tears. They will continue along that path of tears. (113-117, 1981.05.01)

CHAPTER 4 The Education of Children and the Kingdom of Heaven in the Family

Section 1. The Meaning of Education

1 We 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. (076-289, 1975.03.07)

The true meaning of education

2 In 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. (136-198, 1985.12.29)

3 For 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. (208-101, 1990.11.17)

4 The 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. (111-173, 1981.02.15)

5 Everyone 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. (109-264, 1980.11.02)

6 Of 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. (220-345, 1991.10.20)

7 Education 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. (144-178, 1986.04.24)

8 Schools 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. (270-288, 1995.07.16)

9 When 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. (106-139, 1979.12.24)

10 You 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. (72-304, 1974.07.14)

11 A 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. (93-191, 1977.05.29)

The principle and practice of true love and the purpose of education

12 To 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. (205-022, 1990.07.15)

13 God 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. (204-120, 1990.07.01)

14 To 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. (222-043, 1991.10.27)

15 The 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. (263-302, 1994.10.27)

16 What 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. (195-051, 1989.11.03)

17 What 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. (263-299, 1994.10.27)

18 What 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. (186-151, 1989.01.31)

Section 2. The Family Is the Textbook of God's Kingdom

1 The 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. (118-234, 1982.06.06)

2 The 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. (137-078, 1985.12.18)

The family is the school of love

3 Parents 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. (180-130, 1988.08.22)

4 Do 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. (36-057, 1970.11.15)

5 Parents 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. (194-132, 1989.10.17)

6 The 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. (224-268, 1991.12.15)

7 The 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. (225-224, 1992.01.20)

8 The 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. (247-312, 1993.06.01)

9 Earthly 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. (254-246, 1994.02.13)

10 The 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. (45-216, 1971.07.01)

11 If 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. (53-069, 1972.02.09)

12 The 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. (271-080, 1995.08.22)

The importance of prenatal education and children's education

13 You 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. (34-023, 1970.08.29)

14 Where 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. (044-106, 1971.05.06)

15 Reflect 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. (74-012, 1974.11.10)

16 When 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. (224-152, 1991.11.24)

17 We 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. (28-084, 1970.01.04)

18 God 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. (28-086, 1970.01.04)

19 Parents 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. (28-192, 1970.01.11)

20 How 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. (29-273, 1970.03.11)

21 The 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. (31-243, 1970.06.04)

22 If 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. (34-061, 1970.08.29)

23 We 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. (109-287, 1980.11.02)

24 The 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. (208-301, 1990.11.20)

25 Those 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. (215-122, 1991.02.06)

26 What 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. (221-215, 1991.10.24)

27 Parents 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. (248-079, 1993.07.01)

28 The 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. (295-243, 1998.08.28)

Section 3. Parents' Love and Responsibility

1 When 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. (29-096, 1970.02.25)

2 The 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. (162-286, 1987.04.17)

3 Parents 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. (016-172, 1966.03.13)

4 Parents 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. (29-099, 1970.02.25)

5 Parents 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. (31-268, 1970.06.04)

6 If 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. (31-270, 1970.06.04)

7 Children 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. (21-087, 1968.11.03)

8 As 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. (139-077, 1986.01.26)

9 Children 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. (47-331, 1971.08.30)

10 In 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. (48-074, 1971.09.05)

11 In 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. (103-033, 1979.01.28)

12 Love’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. (48-182, 1971.09.12)

13 Parents 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. (95-152, 1977.11.11)

14 There 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. (101-201, 1978.10.30)

15 You 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. (71-019, 1974.03.24)

16 Unless 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.” (21-087, 1968.11.03)

Section 4. Children's Education

1 What 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. (51-172, 1971.11.21)

2 Whether 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. (51-172, 1971.11.21)

Love, original sexuality, and education for the Blessing

3 Becoming 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. (316-169, 2000.02.11)

4 Blessed 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. (12-134, 1963.01.25)

5 Needless 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. (31-283, 1970.06.04)

6 Toward 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. (047-220, 1971.08.28)

7 Parents 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.” (95-052, 1977.10.23)

8 You 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. (148-127, 1986.10.05)

9 You 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. (148-131, 1986.10.05)

10 As 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.” (85-136, 1976.03.02)

11 A 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. (198-063, 1990.01.21)

Parents must show the example

12 Brothers 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. (30-087, 1970.03.17)

13 Parents 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. (30-113, 1970.03.17)

14 You 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. (23-322, 1969.06.08)

15 Personal 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. (163-034, 1987.04.18)

16 When 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.” (125-106, 1983.03.13)

17 As 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. (260-297, 1994.05.19)

18 The 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. (251-098, 1993.10.17)

19 Where 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. (243-170, 1993.01.03)

20 You 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.” (283-080, 1997.04.08)

21 As 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. (90-123, 1976.12.21)

22 Your 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. (165-094, 1987.05.20)

Section 5. The Path that Children Must Follow

1 When 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. (120-314, 1982.10.20)

2 If 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. (120-327, 1982.10.20)

3 Your 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. (100-102, 1978.10.08)

4 In 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. (100-118, 1978.10.09)

5 When 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. (120-314, 1982.10.20)

6 It 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. (100-122, 1978.10.09)

7 In 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. (279-078, 1996.07.24)

8 If 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. (279-073, 1996.07.24)

9 We 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. (279-073, 1996.07.24)

10 God 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. (183-087, 1988.10.29)

11 In 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. (183-086, 1988.10.29)

12 Those 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. (263-110, 1994.08.21)

13 After 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. (133-139, 1984.07.10)

14 What 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. (133-140, 1984.07.10)

Section 6. The Kingdom of Heaven in the Family

1 Where 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. (23-167, 1969.05.18)

The course we must go for the restoration of the family

2 Due 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. (20-082, 1968.04.28)

3 God 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. (270-238, 1995.06.07)

4 Due 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. (270-243, 1995.06.07)

5 What 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. (270-243, 1995.06.07)

6 All 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. (35-277, 1970.10.25)

7 The 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. (20-335, 1968.07.14)

8 Every 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. (100-276, 1978.10.22)

9 A 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. (21-051, 1968.09.01)

10 The 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. (21-044, 1968.09.01)

11 What 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. (21-051, 1968.09.01)

12 The 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. (32-198, 1970.07.15)

13 Throughout 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. (30-218, 1970.03.23)

14 Until 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. (34-359, 1970.09.20)

15 The 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. (34-328, 1970.09.20)

True families and God's kingdom

16 Our 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. (20-308, 1968.07.14)

17 Culture 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. (21-331, 1969.01.01)

18 Godism 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. (21-331, 1969.01.01)

19 To 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. (51-169, 1971.11.21)

20 Unification 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. (59-149, 1972.07.16)

21 The 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. (158-299, 1968.02.04)

22 The 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. (26-201, 1969.10.25)

23 Where 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. (26-103, 1969.10.18)

24 God’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. (101-086, 1978.10.22)

25 What 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. (101-085, 1978.10.22)

26 Where 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. (92-088, 1977.03.20)

27 In 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. (12-258, 1963.05.22)

28 The 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. (90-083, 1976.12.19)

29 To 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. (129-267, 1983.11.13)

30 In 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. (159-174, 1968.05.10)

31 How 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. (96-030, 1978.01.01)

32 The 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. (26-057, 1969.10.18)

33 What 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. (43-324, 1971.05.02)

34 Again, 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. (22-334, 1969.05.11)

35 Tribes 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. (23-063, 1969.05.11)

36 Only 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. (37-110, 1970.12.22)