Children Need God, Too

Growth in the Child’s Sphere

God created the family as a school of love to naturally influence people to be other-centered and pull them away from their self-centerdness.

Each person is required to give up more and more the love of just self and give more to others in order to experience fulfillment.

The family school of love works step by step naturally to pull people out of self-centeredness into other-centeredness. This process begins in the child's realm.

A child learns to obey and control impulses, including the aggressive ones, out of love for their parents and a strong desire for their approval.

The child learns to take care of things, clean up, prevent messes, do their homework, and respect others and property.

As Fraiberg writes, “There are obligations in love even for little children. Love is a given, but it also

earned. At every step of the way in development, a child is obliged to give up territories of his self-love in order to earn parental love and approval.”

To relate well with his or her parents, children need to relate well and kindly to siblings and playmates.

A child learns that his good relationship with his parents depends in part how well he or she treats his or her brothers or sisters, classmates, and friends.

As they grow, the 'horizontal' relationship to their parents takes on a life and significance of its own, even though they are never fully separated in a relationship from them.

Adolescent Children

As children try to define their identities and emotional boundaries as they grow to adolescence, the relationship to please their parents may become stormy and difficult.

Influences outside the family hold sway as adolescence forge relationships to the larger society and world.

As their family's moorings loosen, children may become emotionally tossed around, and experience great highs and lows.

It is important for parents to continue to nourish and assert this main bond of parent/child and the values it represents and recognize the growing importance of their peers and their child's independent identities.

Parents should do this to the sacrifice of their child's peer's influence and some of their child's decision-making power. In order for them to continue to growing in the child's realm of heart this is necessary.

“Our son was succeeding academically and socially in public school,” recounts Mona, a mother of three. “It was the social success that worried us! He’s sweet and smart and a good athlete, and girls called him, asked him for dates, and to go steady with them.

“Our son knew our standard on early dating, and he tried hard to withstand the peer pressure, but it was definitely confusing for him during this vulnerable time of his life.

“When we told him we were enrolling him in a religious school where students’ families and the faculty shared our values, he was upset at first. But soon he underwent a transformation.

“He became more and more responsible and, in this supportive environment, his faith grew and grew. I thank God, for many reasons, that we as parents made that tough decision.”

One pastor, Dave, is in favor of parents taking a strong stand when their children may not be going in the right direction. “Taking a kid out of school and finding him a new one, grounding him or doing whatever else you need to do to pull him up short—that might look like shutting him down,” he says.

“But in fact, it’s giving him the possibility of a whole new life. In almost every case I’ve seen where the parents took a strong stand, it worked.”

Dave also commented that children will sense their parents deep love for them with such actions and respond with gratitude.

This is an illustration of the two points of the child's realm of heart shown during adolescence: First, it demonstrates that the relationship with parents is the primary one superseding. 

Also, directing relationships with peers and this vertical relationship with parents and their parents' values are crucially important to their growth.

Second, it shows that adolescence is a time when the young people mind questions everything and needs to be directed toward God.

When we look at adolescence from a spiritual point of view, there is more than the child forming a separate identity from one's parents in psychological terms. It involves expanding the sphere of children's love to include the ultimate Parent, God.

The fulfillment of the child’s realm of heart is to relate to God with filial piety.

This truly means to respond to God with love, faith and obedience like that of a loving, trusting, responsible child.

“We never know the love of the parent 'till we become parents ourselves.”

Henry Ward Beecher made this observation which highlights how filial love of a child evolves through growing and facing the responsibilities that come with being an adult.

A new understanding and sympathy for parent's roles come as sons and daughters become a spouse, a parent, the breadwinner, a middle-aged caretaker of others and a responsible community member.

As sons and daughters rise to the more advanced realms of heart, spousal and parental realms, they grow to appreciate those who had these responsibilities before which they now face.

When children expand to a higher level of heart, they will appreciate through understand and service to their parents.

The long accumulation of a child’s debt to his or her parents begins to be repaid with gratitude.

There may be the time when the child grows up and becomes his or her own parents caretaker.

Some parents become a child again and lean heavily on their sons and daughter's strength. At these times, they assume the parental role toward his or her own parents. 

 Changing their diapers, paying old debts, settling the family estate and becoming the patriarch or matriarch of the family while urging their parents to take a rest.

When parents become elderly, the child's world/realm of heart comes full circle.

As one woman said: 

"As a young Catholic I was inspired by the saints. I had always wanted to do things like work with Mother Teresa in India, but most of my life has not been so glamorous. After college I became a teacher in an elementary school. 

"And then my mother had a stroke and I had to drop out of teaching and help her for two years; bathe her, care for her bedsores, cook, pay the bills, run the house. At times I wanted to complete these responsibilities and get back to my spiritual life. Then one morning it dawned on me—I  was doing the work of Mother Teresa, and I was doing it in my own home.

A child's love which is mature may involve taking up tasks to fulfill their parent's unrealized dreams.

Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowsky, who created the portraits on Mt. Rushmore, accepted a commission in 1947 offered by Lakota chief Standing Bear to carve a massive tribute to the great Native American chief Crazy Horse out of a mountain in South Dakota.

Knowing how much the project meant to the Native Americans who had had their sacred Black Hills violated by the Mt. Rushmore project, he determined not only to do a bust, but to do a full figure of a man on horseback.

This bust was going to be ten times larger than his Mt. Rushmore project. He dedicated decades to the project, but left it unfinished after he died in 1982.

His children comforted him before his death and committed to bring his dream project to completion.

This is an example of children's love by becoming a person who makes his or her parents proud.

Confucius said, “True filial piety consists in successfully carrying out the unfinished work of our forefathers and transmitting their achievements to posterity.”

This was echoed by Thomas Macaulay, Western poet, when he wrote:

“And how can man die better than facing fearful odds for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods?”

The person the child becomes as an adult is a gift laid at the altar of his or her parents’ love.

A child's mature heart is reflected in his or her relationship with God.

“There is a common saying, 'What you are is a gift from God. What you become is your gift to Him.”

When we return appreciation and devotion to God for all He has done for us throughout our life and history this reflects His nature. 

 It also makes His dreams, concerns and tasks our own which are hallmarks of filial piety and a true child's heart toward our ultimate Parent.

Return for Tomorrow's Post:

This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook, "Educating for True Love" written by a team of writers to explain Reverend Sun Myung Moon's philosophy on family and love.

Where is the School of Love?

Why is it that something as love which is vital to human life as breathing, the ability to give and receive does not come to us naturally?

Rather, true love must be taught, learned and practiced. Humans spend many years as immature, dependent children who have to learn how to act in the world and then provide for themselves.

Schools, teachers, masters of trades and parents teach them skills, but there is no formal school or system that teach people how to love and be loved.

Left without instruction on the proper way to love centered on God, people are left floundering, having to learn about love through painful trial and error.

We have witnessed science and the arts flourish rapidly throughout the centuries, yet our wisdom about love and relationships grows slowly at best and unevenly.

Pitirim Sorokin, a sociologist at Harvard, expressed his chagrin at “our enormous ignorance of love’s properties, of the efficient way of its production, accumulation, and distribution.”

We are living the era to remedy all the love ails by studying about and educating for true love.

Even though to love and be loved properly is one of life's most daunting challenges =, it is essential more than any other aspect of life people work hard to achieve.

Psychiatrists have been visited by high-powered professional people who break down in their offices because they are at a complete loss when it comes to their most important personal relationships. 

Despite all of their qualifications and accomplishments politicians, business executives and celebrities find that their wealth, power and talent fail when they are faced with the demands of love.

Therefore, to study the true way of life begins with a life lived in true love. Only after people are well-versed in the nature and practices of true love will they find a path to follow that will satisfy the human longing for true love.

The most precious philosophy is to live for the sake of others.

—Sun Myung Moon

For people to live in love, they need to understand it.

It is utterly difficult to define love.

The ancient Greeks divided love into different categories, describing features of each.

For example, 'eros' was an impassioned romantic attraction; 'eunoia' stood for general benevolence or good will; 'xenlike' represented kindness to the guest or stranger; and 'agape' love which defined as an unselfish affection for others. 

Agape love became a keystone of Christianity. It is recognized by all the faiths of the world. Buddhism calls agape love 'compassion', Hinduism and 'human-hearedness' or jen in Confucian thought.

Additionally, there are all kinds of love found within the family:

There is devotion of parents toward their children, the children's affection which is reciprocated. Siblings care about one another in a unique special way, and there is the love between spouses which is a world in itself.

Grandparents have a profound regard for their grandchildren.

All these types of love have their distinct features.

There should be an all-around definition for love that encompasses all types of loves and form.

Reverend Moon states that true love is to live for the sake of other people. Within this definition, love that is not true is weeded out. Love that is deceptive and lead people to despair rather than joy are left out when defining what true love is.

True love is other-centered.

Why was humanity necessary?

We were created to completely fulfill His love. Love is the reason that humanity are the supreme creation.

True love only happens in relationship to others. Even God required an 'other' in order to fulfill His love.

God created humanity as His love partners who will share in the glory of His creation.

Even though God is almighty, He needed an object, someone to share in the creation with. God also needs a relationship in order to experience love fully.

If God is so, so must be His creatures.

As author Sherwood Anderson said, “Two oddly sensitive human atoms” find one another, cling together and think, “Here is this other.”

A love that satisfies is only possible when in the presence of another person. The Bible emphasizes the love others in the presence of others. The Old Testament testifies to the greatest commandments which were to love God and love one's neighbor as one loves themselves.

Jesus echoed this truth by telling his followers to not come to the altar of God if they quarrel with their brother in their heart. They had to set things right between their 'brother' before approaching God.

Jesus later pronounced that God only forgives those who forgives others.

Jesus told his people that when two or more were gathered in his name he would be present. He was implying the need for believers to seek communion not only with God, but with one another as well.

Loving others is always in couplet with loving God well.

The prophet Muhammad stated that on the day of judgment, God the most high will say, “Son of Adam, I was sick and you did not visit Me.” 

The son replied how could he visit the Lord when he was the Lord of the Universe. God replied, “Did you not know that My servant such and such was ill and yet you did not visit him? Did you not know that if you had visited him you would have found Me with him?”

Russian thinker Vladimir Solovyov said that love “forces us with all our being to acknowledge for another the same absolute central significance which, because of the power of our egoism, we are conscious of only in our selves . . . shifting the very center of our personal lives.”

Reverend Moon refers this shifting of center from self to others as a 'revolution'. He holds that such a revolution toward true love is necessary for happiness and peace in the world.

Modern culture says that love is a spontaneous feeling within a person's heart toward one another when in fact, ethics figure prominently in successful and loving relationships.

Upon further examination, it is shown that ethics enable true love and love that is based on feelings alone is dangerous.

If a man feels that he has truly fallen in love with another woman, he will leave his wife and children for her. He will leave emotional devastation in his wake in the pursuit of false feelings.

A teacher may feel that they are romantically attracted to a young student and end up causing psychological damage to the student for life when they approach them sexually.

Psychologist M. Scott Peck points out, “Many, many people possessing a feeling of love and even acting in response to that feeling act in all manner of unloving and destructive ways.”

In order to benefit the other, true love adheres to ethical principles.

Even though a truly loving person does not feel benevolent feelings toward another person, he will behave benevolently to someone based upon principles.

Such a person will be kind to a spouse even when the other is being surly because the person believes in kindness even when the other is not evoking such feelings.

Such a person believes in preserving and protecting marriage itself.

A person who helps a homeless man on the street is a person who believes in treating one's fellow human beings with compassion even if society does not see such a person as reputable.

To love a person who has harmed others means having a belief that all people can be redeemed, including the reprobate.

Return for Tomorrow’s Post: True Love is ...




This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook, Educating for True Love, Chapter 1 written by a team of writers to explaining Dr. Rev. Sun Myung Moon's thoughts on morality, society and Family.

Siblings Unite Based on Parents' Love

In my childhood, I would often look at bird nests. Once I climbed a tree to look into a nest, and the mother bird started pecking at me. She was desperate and willing to die to protect her nest, and not only once.

When I brushed her aside, she flew away, and then came back. Seeing this, we cannot deny the powerful instinct of animals to transcend their own lives to protect their offspring. It is similar with human beings. You should be able to invest your li
fe for the sake of love. That is the way of a true person. 

Reverend Sun Myung Moon



Truly good people are those who have established love as their root.

They try to protect their loved ones even at the cost of their own lives.

This is where goodness originates.  This is something that will never change.

Father Moon speaks about the magnificence of parenthood seen even in nature:

"When I was in Danbury prison, I witnessed an interesting thing. A slope was being bulldozed into a tennis court.  However, when the rainy season came, work had to stop for a few weeks until the weather cleared up.

During the delay, a water bird built a nest only three meters away from the path the inmates used for their exercise. 

The water bird was not easily noticeable as her colors allowed her to blend into the background.

Therefore, while she was guarding her eggs, no one realized she was there, even through they repeatedly walked right by her.

When the water bird curled up, she looked just like a round black stone from the side, but when her eggs hatched and the baby birds started feeding, they were pretty noisy and gave away their location.

Several of the inmates tried to mess around with the water bird, but she proved very capable of protecting her young. 

When she returned with food, she never landed close to her nest, but chose different locations, then slowly crept over to her chicks.

Every day she approached from a different direction in order to protect her young. This is how she protected them. 

As her chicks grew larger, she would make lots of noise and peck any inmates who came too close. She was clearly warning them to stay away."



Who could have taught the water bird to be like this?  It is the power of the universe.

All things in creation are on a level plane centering on God's love as the axis.   Even though each may hold different positions on that plane, their level of love and care is the same.

Even a honey bee cannot be separated from the taste of nectar from a flower.  It will not let go, even if its abdomen is torn off.  True Love is like this.

True love is not based on gain that can be calculated.   You can cast away your life for it.  Being able to forsake and disregard one own's life is the path of true love.  Parents walk this path.

Parental heart willingly goes the way of death for the sake of love. 

When we look at the case of parents, if their children are in mortal danger, parents will willingly die in place of their child.  This is true love.

Imagine a man that can boasts about all the accomplishments he has throughout the world.  He is extremely wealthy through his own hard work, sweat and tears.

But if his child is suddenly faced with a life-and-death situation or he is told his child has terminal cancer, none of those things will matter anymore.

He would sacrifice his own life and all of his wealth and possessions to save his child's life.

Parental Love Is Eternal

Since parental love is so sacrificial, do you think there is a limit to the parents' love for their children?

Parents not only love their children during childhood, but their love will continue through the child's entire life and even into eternity.

If the parent and child are able to establish a relationship that brings increasing worth and value, then infinite stimulation, then something new will arise within that relationship.

The parent-child relationship is the greatest gift God gave to us.

The love of a mother or father is one of the greatest forms of love in the human world. 

Even people who are in the highest positions in society are vulnerable to the needs of their children.

Parental love is the mother of all kinds of love.

Love toward children is unconditional and unlimited.  Therefore, those who grow up without receiving parental love thirst for it most of all.

Even though an orphan may have a house to sleep in and food to eat, they will always lack and long for something in their heart.

They long for the love of a parent.  Most of you were raised by loving parents.

Whether the children are young or old, their parents always love them.

Even when their children are seventy years old, they will still look at him the way they used to when they raised him long before; this is the parental heart.

As the children grow, the parents' heart continues to draw even closer.

The sense of responsibility toward their children increases.  The heart to live for the sake of the children deepens even further.

You can see this when we see how parents relate to their children in society.

Parents go through many difficulties for the sake of their children, but do not feel the hardship. 

This is because they love their children. After giving their flesh and blood to their children, do parents keep a record?

No.  They are rather pained at not being able to give their children even more.  The same is for mothers, correct?

When women breastfeed your babies, if they are unable to feed well you feel worried.

Isn't it true as you raise your children that they take away your flesh and blood?  In a sense, aren't children the greatest of all thieves?

Yet, mothers still feel anxious when their babies do not feed properly .

Why is it that parents love their children so much?

It is because this is the law of love.

A mother's touch when her baby is feeding at her breast is centered on love.  Also, when she holds her baby, the mother experiences a beautiful calm atmosphere.

This is because heaven and earth entered a state of peace.

This is why no matter how much trouble babies can be, mothers still have room in their hearts to accept and even encourage such behavior.

In one sense, we can think of a baby while he is getting his proper nourishment sucks out his mother's flesh and blood.

Yet, there is no loving mother who would stop giving her children in this sense.  There is no limit to the love parents feel for their children.  

Through raising a baby, this allows multitudes of chances of discovery of new things.  For instance, a baby stimulates new hope for the mother and father.  At such times, there are also new realizations.  This bond is unchangeable.

Parental Love Sets the Standard for All Forms of Love

Parental love is the highest.

Those who were blessed to have been raised with true parental love become well-rounded people and understand the full dynamics of love.  Children will never forget their parents' love.

Therefore, the family is the school of love.  Therefore the full experience of parental love is impossible without parents.

We speak about the depth of parental love, but what should the love among children be like?

What should be used as the standard for loving?  Brothers and sisters should love each other just as their father and mother do.

We should learn about about brotherly and sisterly love from our parents.

They should be able to say to their parents, "Our mother and father are the greatest in the whole world.  They stand in the position of God."

When children witness their parents' unchanging hearts and see the love shared between their parents, they say, "Let us learn from this love and become united among ourselves as well."  This is an ideal family taking root.

When children grow up into adulthood, they will soon search for a partner with whom their mind and heart can be one.

This is only realized through marriage: when a man and woman thus totally respect each other and strive to establish the standard of love and heart.

You should have a family in which the mother and father can unite with God's heart and love.  Then the children take after their loving parents and also unite with God's heart and love.

This is the order of tradition of love: the elder brother, as a representative of the parents sacrifices himself and loves his younger siblings centering on the parents' love.  The position of elder brother brings with it the responsibility to suffer most among his siblings.

This is the same with the parents' position, who also suffer the most for the sake of the children.  If parents shed tears and sacrifice for the sake of their children, the children will naturally want to follow their parents.

When parents and children relate based on God as the center, then the children will express love to each other in many different ways.

The older child should love the younger sibling int he same way that the parents love him.

In a family that is united through such a love, the love within that family will continuously blossom.  Then it will become the love within a society and within a nation.

In this way the world becomes the world of love.

Why do you receive love from your parents?

It is because the father and mother's original motivation to rely on each other and love each other originates in you their child.

Therefore, when brothers and sisters love each other centering on that initial motivation, their love also will not change.

Similarly, when you think of your neighbor as if he was your own self, the right social environment will develop.

We must understand that the family is at the formation stage, society is at the growth stage and the nation is the completion stage.  You must go through each of these three stages.

All families then should be linked together.

Only then will love develop among the society and unity will be realized on the national level.  All of this stems from the love of a family.

Society is divided into many sectors.  Even though the company has one CEO at the head, how many heads of states does a country have?  It is just one, right?

One person is responsible.  In this way, there is a unified pattern that is established while the scale increases.  Becoming one, but also being divided into many parts is the essence of the four-position relationships within a family. (siblings, parents, spouse, centered on God)

Return for Tomorrow's Post: Having Family Brings Completeness

This post was rewritten and derived from the textbook, Cheon Seong Gyeong Book Four-True Family, Chapter Eight, Section 5-7

Life is a Classroom

Whoever truly practices public mind love for the nation shall become the leader and master of that nation. The same Principle can be applied to the world.

Why should this Principle be practiced on earth when not many people adhere by it throughout the world?  Why don't we just enjoy life and then practice such a true way of life once we enter into the spirit world much later?

This is a very clever idea!

This is the only classroom you have.  Therefore, this Principle must be practiced here on earth.

You have to go through elementary school before you can enter high school, correct?  No one can just skip any of the material.

When you enter college, you still use the same formulas you learned in your elementary and high school days.

No formula can change; all it can do is expand.

The spirit world is a higher realm that is completely Principle-oriented, public minded, and sacrificial.

If we do not practice this right way of life here on earth, then we cannot unite with the spirit world.  This is what is deemed as hell, where there is no movement or growth, just suffering.

Even though the spirit world and physical world have been divided after the fall, they both operate on one principle.  In order to enter the spirit world and practice that principle on a higher level or plane, you must first have practiced it here on earth.

You elementary work must be done on earth so you can continue in spirit world.

If you are unable to reach the level to feel the love of God on earth, you will not feel it once you reach spirit world.  Thus the Bible states, "What is loosed on earth, is loosed in heaven."

You enter the level of spirit according how you lived on earth. No one is sent anywhere, but is his own judge based on the level of his own immature or mature spirit.

What kind of temple do you think God would want?  We should each be the temple of God.  God dwells within each of us.  In true love, He would like to look, smell and hear through your eyes, nose and ears.  Your five sense become God's instruments.
Through them, God can perceive His way.

When the mind is fully contented in the love of God, the whole body will thus be contented.  When the mind has love, it becomes exuberant and ecstatic.

When there is love, therefore, there is freedom. Without love, everything is in slavery.

A person who takes drugs in America will think he has found freedom.

Actually, he cannot find freedom in drugs.  This person creates his own hell because no love dwells in him.  How does taking drugs bring about the purpose of the whole of world peace?  Can one bring about unity through such behavior?

All creation was made for God's love.  You become the temple of God when you live as a public person.  Look through your eyes in God's way; have God's hearing; God's smelling, God's voice, and God's touch.

If the brothers were to look at a beautiful woman in God's way, how would he think?

Would he look at her lustfully, thinking how he could get her to bed?  Does he think about how to make her happy?  How can he make her better and whole?

A brother would want to convey something with a public-minded love of God so that she becomes in turn public minded who is another beautiful temple of God.

If you find there is no love of God within a person, then you want to give love to him. 

How noble that is to give love to one who may have never experienced true love.

Naturally, when most women see a very handsome man, they wish that they could go on a date with him.  The godly vision is different from this fallen way.

Once you place God inside of you, your world concept changes.

Even though you may not have wealth, it does not matter.  As long as you practice love, you are the richest person under the sun.

You know that God dwells within you when you have a mind of Principle, a public mind, a sacrificial mind.  That is the place where God rejoices.  You must see that the moment you complain, become depressed, give up, God is leaving you.

You cannot afford to lose God.  So, you try to improve in order that He will stay.  As long as God stays within you and you think in God's way, there is no complaint. But once God leaves, you lose everything.

Many good-looking American brothers ask Father to match them with a Korean or Japanese fiancee.  Why?  Because Father, who is from Korea, represents the whole Oriental culture, and through him and his teachings, you have had a taste of heavenly love.

No one can take that love away from you.

An elderly Korean woman who has been a member ever since the beginning told father that she must see him three times a day or she would become crazy and could not live.

She said that her life was hell because she could not see him everyday.  He never showed her any special treatment in the past and he always treated all the members the same way.

She said, "I feel shy to say this, but I love you, Father."  Father did not show any grand miracles, but there is something within him that touches everyone's heart.

It is the love of God.  It is like electricity, it is not visible, but you know that the current is flowing when you have been touched by it.

God is a super person, but He works exactly the same as you do.

You are specially attached to the clothes you wear, even your eyeglasses.

If we are in the image of God, do you think God's mind works that way?  Would He feel a certain attachment to an object or a person?

Since God uses our body as a dwelling place, would He have a certain attachment to us?

God lets us suffer as people of faith, but that is the fastest way to welcome Him within us.  God enjoys the love that is public-minded and sacrificial.  You are going to resemble God.  When you go inside of God and He comes within your heart, you have total freedom.

You have no strange feeling at all when this occurs.

If God dwells in you, but you still have selfish, sinful thinking, then you feel as though you are choking.

This is God saying, "You're wrong.  Change your mind."

Unless you live the public minded way, God wants to chop off the hand or limb that disobeys His principle.

There is no way that He can stay within you otherwise.

To keep God within you, and to make Him happy, you have to practice the three points explained in the previous post.  You must be a principled person, you must be public-minded, and you must be sacrificial.

Within God, there is no national boundary.

That is why this love can extend even to your enemy.  Then, true unity between mankind and God will be created.  True unity between the spirit world and the physical world can be created.  God is that catalyst.


Within your heart I have planted a small seed of God's mind. That seed must germinate and grow bigger and bigger, reaching out to your family, society, nation and your world. If you have a difficult task ahead of you, go after it.


By going this way, you are not asking for an easy way out or looking for a clever way.

While you are tackling this difficult mission, there is no room for complaint.  When you are truly trying to practice everything within love, how can you complain about the difficulties you encounter?

You cannot complain against love. 

God will be within you while you are searching after that love with a grateful heart to give glory and praise to God.

Since you want to be the dwelling place of God, you should be serving and praising Him all the time.  If God is within  you, you want to make Him happy, so you practice the Principle way and become public minded.

To truly have God live within you for eternity, you must be sacrificial.

When you practice this way of life, you cannot go wrong.

Automatically, when someone is nasty to you, you may want to fight back.  But then you think that for the sake of God you must win him over. That is how you change your fallen mind toward the more public mind.

God loves love and wants to dwell in love. 

The church is not the dwelling place of God.

He doesn't want to dwell in the church, but in me and you.  The church is merely an organizing systematic way of teaching the Principle way.  Don't think you are only a part of the Church; the Unification Church is for you. It is at your service.

The work you do for God's will is for you.  The church is only an instrument to merely come to assist you to go to heaven.  How thankful you should be.  If the church is here to serve you, then how can you complain?

You must know clearly that the church, God and the Messiah are mobilized for your sake.  Now you clearly know who God is and who you are.  Did you forget?  You are the dwelling place of God.

Then your eyes shall become whose eyes?  Once your eyes becomes God's eyes and your ears are God's and so forth, God would feel they are working for Him.  Then once you hear something, you know immediately if it is a satanic sound or a heavenly sound.

If a European was here for the workshop, he may want to go back to Britain where he thinks the job is easier.  On the contrary, they must think that the job is not hard enough.

What place would be the hardest work for God's will?

Africa, or South America?

Even though a person and his family may not welcome the idea of moving to Africa, it does not matter.  They will go anyway.  Is this wrong?

Now you understand that suffering creates a larger shopping bag for you to hold the love of God.

That fragrance of that love is so wonderful that black, white, and yellow people will feel heaven in it.  Through your God-centered suffering, that kind of container is created, and you want to give that package of love to the world.

If people reject you, you do not lose.  That package of love is then passed down to your own children.  You do not lose anything.  One way or another, you are a winner.

Be thankful as you live this way of life.  Digest everything so there is nothing stuck in your stomach.

Is there anything harder than a marriage of two people from enemy nations or other countries who do not speak the same language?

If you are able to unite these two extremes in marriage, you can digest anything.

When you can serve a strange husband or wife, you know that you are just sampling the difficulty that is ahead of us as we travel this pathway toward world peace.

When you serve in your home, you should be principled, public minded and sacrificial.  That way of life will grow like a snowball rolling down the hill and will cover the world.  That world will become the dwelling place of the infinite love of God.  Amen.



Return for Tomorrow's Post:  Life of Faith Toughest School



This post was rewritten and derived from the speech given by Rev. Sun Myung Moon Who is God and Who Am I?

The Family is the School of Love

"The Kingdom of Heaven is a world of love, a world that exists for the sake of God, where people live for the sake of God." 

"The family is an encapsulation of history. It is connected to history, with its origin in God. You inherit the family vertically. However, inheritance must take place in a perfectly vertical manner, at a ninety degree angle.

The grandfather and grandmother, representing God, have already inherited this." 

Your grandfather and grandmother are the encapsulation of your ancestors.  When you think about it, your grandfather is an heir to the traits and bloodline of all the different ancestors who lived at different times in history.  Then he is God's heir who, centered on God, connects us to that history.

The family unit encompasses all of human history.  It connects to history with its origin in God.

The grandfather and grandmother are representatives of the past, the bygone ages, and the mother and father represent the present age. The sons and daughters represent the future. 

Therefore, your grandfather and grandmother are the past, your mother and father are the present and the children are the future.  Then when it is our turn to have children we inherit the past, present and future and pass this down to another generation.  These three set of parents and three ancestors must connect their three loves and love the four generations.

The Fall represents God not being able to see or have a direct relationship with His grandson.

The Kingdom of Heaven starts from the family. 

How is this?  The grandfather represents God, the mother and father represent the present, and the sons and daughters are the future. In this way, the past, present, and future are all condensed in the family.

In the family, the grandfather represents God, the mother and father represent the present and the children the future.  In this way, the past, present and future are all in your family.

Thus, the mother and father represent the world, with the grandmother and grandfather in the position of the past God, the mother and father the present God and sons and daughter are in the position of the future God.

However, through true love, they are all equal.

When the central core is living for the sake of others in true love, they are able to develop a view of essential oneness and equal value.  When the four different directions meld into one, we will be able to live eternally as God's love partner based on this logic of true love because that place is eternally protected by the fortune of God's love.

What is the family? It is a training ground through which we can inhabit the ideal nation and world with love. Furthermore, it is a training ground through which we can even occupy the heavenly kingdom and God.

Wouldn't it be precious to experience the direct relationship with God as our love partner?  Right now only through the Messiah or aid of angels do we communicate with God, but we must return to the state of Adam and Eve before the Fall.

The reason we seek the truth is so we can perfect our families and feel infinite love and happiness when we are there.

If we have not given true love here on this plane, we will choke once we are in spirit world - they will not be able to breathe.  Only true love is the air.  We are to live our earthly life as a training ground that prepares us to breathe in the next world.

Your family is the textbook of love. 

When you see someone of your grandfather's age, you should think that you will love him even more than your own grandfather. 

When you are out in town and you come upon someone who is your grandfather's age, you should think to love him even more than your own grandfather.

The same with if you come upon someone who is the same age as your father or mother, you should welcome him or her whether he is black or white or of a different nationality.  When you see a young person, you should love and relate to them as if they are your own son or daughter.

Imagine a world full of men and women who think of others in this context.

What is the Kingdom of Heaven?

It is the place where you can love the people of the world as you love your family, and such people are the people of the heavenly kingdom. What do the four generations of your grandfather and grandmother, your mother and father, your wife, brothers and sisters, and your children make up? 

It is a place full of people who love strangers as if they were a member of their own family.  Such people are people of the heavenly kingdom.


There are four generations in your family. The grandfather/grandmother, your mother/father, your wife/husband, brother/sisters and your children.  What do they make up?

They make up your family which is a textbook how to relate to the people of the world with true love of the universe as a person of the heavenly kingdom.  This family textbook is the foundation in which you receive such a teaching.

God's love manifests itself in the things of creation. 

Parental love appears in children.  Also, where there's a husband, the wife's love will appear, just as when we can witness the parents' love by looking at their children or seeing the wife's love by looking at the state of her husband's clothes.

What about God?  We can see His love by looking at the things that He created in this world for His children you and me. 

God's love appears in order: First is parental love, next comes conjugal love, children's love and then the love of brothers and sisters.  This is also known as the Four-Position foundation centering on the love of God which creates the kingdom of heaven on earth.

If you only have love, then you can be friends with God and also have him as our Father.

There is a saying that earthly life is just a journey and we are just travelers.  During this journey, we should strive to experience vertical and horizontal love.  After creating a family based on the love of true parents, husband and wife, true brothers and sisters and true sons and daughters, we should expand this foundation on the horizontal plane throughout all families in all directions.  

Then this model of a true family should be expanded to the tribe, nation and world level.  Then this world of true love will connect to God and we call this the Kingdom of Heaven.

God's love opens the gate of salvation.

We must inherit God's true love, true life and true blood lineage which we lost due to the Fall.  We should know that there is no salvation of mankind without this inheritance.  

The worst of all sins is to break something and scatter the pieces in all different directions.  The worst and most hated of all enemies is one that has destroyed love.  There is no devil as bad as the one that causes children to despise their parents and destroys a couple's relationship keeping them from loving one another as husband and wife.

Because of the Fall of our first human ancestors, we first lost brother and sister's love, then conjugal love, then lastly children's love. Without restoring this lost love, we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Due to the Fall we lost the four-position foundation: we first lost brother and sister love, then conjugal love, then lastly children's love. This four position begins in the family which we learn how to relate with the world centered on God.

Imagine going to the local cafe and being able to sit with any family of your chose which you never met before and speak to one another like brothers and sisters.  Without having true love as a possession, we will never be able to enter the Heavenly Kingdom.

We must still prepare for this day even if it comes ten thousand years from now.

Since God is the original substance of true love, when we are connected to true love, we all become one. The parents represent God as a living God in their own right. 

Since God is the origin of true love, if we all possess true love then we are connected and become one.  The parents represent God as a living God in their own right representing one aspect of God's divided nature.  The son's and daughters are seen as an additional God.

This family unit built by three generations through true love is the foundation to build the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

If we do not establish this true standard within the context of the family, we will never realize the Kingdom of Heaven and go beyond Paradise.

The family is the center of the universe.

The perfection of the universe depends on the perfection of the family.  Then, if you love in the universe just as you love in the family, you will be able to travel freely anywhere in the universe.   God, in this case, stands at the center of all love as the parents of the entire universe.  This is the formula for the family.

The basis for an original, God-centered family includes all the love of men, women, sons, daughters, parents and God.

When you love your parents, your husband and your sons and daughters in this place of unity, it will be like living in the heavenly kingdom.  So where does this heavenly Kingdom start?

It starts in every family. It does not magically unfold somewhere else.  The heavenly kingdom is just the 3-D expansion of the family.

It is not outside the family.

When you think of embracing your spouse, you should think that you are a man and a woman becoming one on behalf of the world.

The family is the place where you substantiate your love for humankind through action. 

We should have respect for our own flesh and blood and respect our parents and grandparents as the owners of our house who represent the heavenly right of kingship.  But we despise them because they are old.

There is the old saying the "generation gap" that has created a division between the different generations of the family.  Did God invent such a word?  No, Satan created this word.  Can love dwell in this phrase "generation gap"?

Do we live the way people lived within a family a thousand years ago?  Was there a different way to love then?  The ways are the same and the means of loving are the same.  What has changed are the inner aspects.

If we had not Fallen, the formula for love would have remained unchanged for a hundred million years.  Even if Heaven turns upside down as long as the three generations of grandparents, parents and children strongly unite the same as an iron fortress, then they will be able to bring about the heavenly kingdom anywhere they go.

The fundamental source for the seed of God's love and the seed of life is this lineage. 

If we cannot establish this, then there will be no hope for the heavenly kingdom on earth, the heavenly kingdom of peace or the world of happiness and freedom.

We talk about paradise or the heavenly kingdom, but it is not a place you can go alone. How much peace can you have if your husband is in hell and you are in paradise?

If you have seen the movie "What Dreams May Come", you see it illustrates this very point of a husband who went to hell to bring his suicidal wife to heaven and all of his children back together to live forever.

The Kingdom of Heaven is a place where you go together with your parents, brothers and sisters - your family.  First we learn how to live united in love on this horizontal plane.

What is the heavenly kingdom? You talk about going to paradise or the heavenly kingdom, but you cannot go alone. The Kingdom of Heaven is a place where you must go together with your parents and brothers and sisters. 

Return for Tomorrow's Post: We Come From One Root

Today's text was rewritten and derived from the Textbook: Cheon Seong Gyeong Book Three - True Love Chapter Four - Love and Family written by Dr. Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

Don't Look For Love, Give It

God is our Parent. Then why did He create us? God’s creation of humankind started from the place participating  in love. Humans started from God’s mind, growing up in God’s bosom of love, becoming mature in
God’s bosom, and making the family which can connect with the love of the world. Through that, they come to return to God’s bosom.

—Sun Myung Moon


You don't have to look for love ever, there is already an abundance all around you.  God has given us love directly on the physical plane where no human should ever be alone, ever.  If you were to look at nature itself, you should never be without love even glancing at a tree or a leaf for it itself is looking for love from humans. 

This is how God created all of creation, for the love of humans.  Then to look at the people all around you that you encounter everyday, you may not like any of them, but there is an wealth of love in even the most evil person waiting to be awakened.

Have your ever thought that a baby is not born knowing automatically how to love others?  Just like a baby has to learn to walk, True Love must also be learned.  Each person must cultivate his or her capacity to love truly.

How?  What environment lets love grow and flourish?  How does one practice the true way of love while on the earth.  Is it performed through just being nice or acts of kindness?  Is there a blueprint we can all follow that helps us lead a true life of love in which all men seek

There is one easy step for all of us to learn how to love.

In order to get love, we must give it, time and time again and forget that we had even given...then give again.  This is the 'secret' which all the saints, great leaders and those who sacrificed throughout the centuries used to help change the world one footstep at a time.

Jesus was the ultimate person who exhibited true love and sacrificed his life for those in his time and generations thereafter even though those in his time did not know the quality of the person they were persecuting.

Fortunately, many sources suggest that the cultivation of true love over a lifetime may be broken down into three essential pursuits:

1. Attain individual maturity
2. Through experiencing family and close relationships
3   Contribute to the world

These three pursuits are the fertile ground to cultivate true love.  They serve as direction, give purpose and are a framework for a life lived for the sake of others -  a life rich in true love.  One's life does not diminish when they sacrifice to love and live for others, rather they obtain a unique higher quality and gain more while giving of themselves.


God's Three Great Blessings

The Three Great Blessings  are gifts granted by the Creator for the fulfillment of human life.

Reverend Moon notes their Biblical derivation from the three orders given to Adam at the beginning of the world and again to Noah, when God had hopes of beginning the world anew: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” (Gen. 1.28 KJV).

Just like the earth, the Blessings Adam and Eve were to receive once they had establish unity with God are to be founded forever.  Billions of generations later were to acquire these gifts.  These Blessings are the universal and enduring pattern for human life and are the means by which we all become true humans who can relate directly to God.

These Blessings is what separates man from the animal and other kingdoms.  They endow us with the potential for a lordship of love.

The Three Great Blessings may be summarized in the following way: The first, “Be fruitful,” may be interpreted as the exhortation to achieve mature character, to become a well-integrated, Godly person capable of loving others. Just as an immature tree cannot bear fruit, so an immature person cannot bear the “fruits” of a loving spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5.22-23).

When God gave the second blessing to multiply, it meant to create a warm united marriage and family and to multiply His Godly lineage.  The third blessing was to "replenish and subdue" the earth and to "have dominion over it".

This does not mean to destroy the earth as a master, but to care for the creation God labored to invested for His children.  This last blessing gives you and me the responsibility to create a prosperous world where all humanity and the creation do not suffer, but flourish in a reciprocal relationship.

First Blessing: Mature Character

True love requires a good and mature character as its foundation. 

Although love is often thought of merely as a warm, pleasurable, sweet feeling that arises spontaneously, it is easily seen that various loves depend upon character. Well-developed character enables love; poorly developed character disables it.

For instance, for one to be a patriot with a love for country, one is required to have the virtue of self-sacrifice when their nation calls.  Love of  a friend requires one to be selfless and have consideration of others.

Love of a child requires one to devote themselves and be consistent over a long period of time.  Love of a brother or sister requires one to be caring, supportive, dependable and have honesty as their basic quality.  These love all call for the virtues of a good character.

Romantic love is one of the most confusing loves of all.  It would be rare if a woman thought her man loved her if he was always sitting on the couch watching television or playing video games.  If he refused to pick her up from the train station and told her to get a cab instead, she think he did not love her.

It would be hard for an elderly couple to have stayed together for 50 years without some admiration or appreciation for each other's internal qualities. Especially to have patience and understanding of the other's fault and still love.  In this day in age when beauty, youth and sexual attraction are highly rated for a couple, when these qualities fade with time, character continues to shine.

"Love flounders without the underpinnings of character strengths or virtues."

Author Don DeMarco said:

Love would be impotent if it were not for the various virtues that withstand attendant difficulties and deliver their message of love where love is needed .

"What would the world be like with a soldier who did not possess courage, a doctor without care, a teacher without patience, a parent without prudence, a spouse without fidelity, a priest without faith, a leader without determination, a magistrate without integrity and a friend without loyalty are all partners to futility, not because they lack love, but because they lack the virtue to express it."

Love and a person's character are connected.  A relationship benefits more with people of mature character supplemented with a moral identity and who contribute to the world than those who are immature, selfish and are conflicted within.

The person who lacks a mature character spends many hours of dissatisfaction\ and inner struggle. The person’s relationship with him- or herself is a disharmonious and uncomfortable one, often leading to strife in relationships with others.

An immature person is mostly dissatisfied in every situation and is always in conflict with relationships with others and with themselves.  They live a disharmonious life and are always uncomfortable and make other's life just as uneasy to live.

"Mature character is a prerequisite for joy and peace. Only those of mature and virtuous characters are able to enjoy and share fully the fruits of true love."

Reverend Moon said, “It is when the divine soul or mind becomes the master of the human body that a person’s love can become God-centered. It is as if God’s mind were coming to dwell within that person.”

Reverend Moon calls this state of character maturity “mind and body unity.” Such integrity is the ultimate requirement for true love to flow.

Second Blessing: Multiply Love

The second blessing to multiply sometimes is only noted to have more children.

There is more than just extending the lineage through marriage and children.  It means to embody one's love and on an internal level multiply to others the love that one has cultivated in their life.  To one's horizon of love unselfishly.  A world based on the culture of heart is heaven on earth.

The way to spread one's mature love is through marriage.  Marriage provides one to have a primary person in which to share the fruits of their love, one who is different emotionally, physically and spiritually yet can be their counterpart in love.

Reverend Moon claims that love cannot be complete without a member of the opposite sex. He says:

"You men here are wonderful, proud people, yet . . . in reality your love cannot be seen or proven until you meet a woman. A woman is the one who will awaken your love.  You can insist that you have love and try to prove it, but no one will see that love until the day it is sparked by a woman."

When a couple decides to marry, this pure love will inspire the couple to have children and care for them expanding their parameters of love to embrace yet more 'others'.  When one establishes loving relationships between their family members, they are growing closer to God through living for the sake of others beginning with their family.

As Jack Kornfield, a student and teacher of Buddhism said:

“The sacrifices of a family are like those of any demanding monastery, offering exactly the same training in renunciation, patience, steadiness, and generosity.”

A good family life is the first place where one cultivates the capacity for warmth, care and commitment.  Every human thrives on the joy which is inherent in loving relationships of every kind. The warm concern of a mother's love, the friendship of siblings and the sexual intimacy shared between a couple in marriage.

To learn how to love others in a true way, they must first learn through the loving interaction of family members first.

This is labeled the four realms of heart within the four aspects of the family: child's realm of heart for the parents, sibling's realm, spouses realm and the parents' realm of heart for the children.

These four realms of heart is the basis which affect a person's future relationships with others outside the context of the family. This is how one multiplies the level of the first love found in within the family to the others in society.


The Third Blessing: Prosperous World 

The desires to make a contribution to society and to appreciate and care for the natural world are outgrowths of humankind’s endowment of the Third Great Blessing to make a prosperous world.

Using Biblical language, the third blessing is to have dominion and authority over another.  In the true sense, this blessing is to exercise a caring leadership over the creation which is yet another way to give love to others.

Nature is the 'other' to be loved in this blessing so that future generations will benefit from the earth's precious resources.

The author of the Divine Principle and speeches which this blog is based upon, urges people to think of future generations in their everyday use of water, disposables, and money. Conservation, he says, is a way of loving others who are not yet born

In return of humanity nurturing the earth, it nurtures us.

"Martin Luther King once said that due to the inventions, innovations, sacrifices, and genius of people the world over, we are indebted to many:

Whether we realize it or not, each of us is eternally ‘in the red.  We are everlasting debtors to known and unknown men and women . . . When we arise in the morning, we go into the bathroom where we reach for a sponge which is provided for us by a Pacific islander.

We reach for soap that is created for us by a Frenchman. The towel is provided by a Turk. Then at the table we drink coffee which is provided for us by a South American, or tea by a Chinese, or cocoa by a West African. Before we leave for our jobs we are beholden to more than half the world.

Feeling grateful and responsible to the world makes us consider the best use of precious resources, ways to more equally distribute wealth, food, and health care, and ways in which to bring our unique gifts to bear on the world’s problems.

These are God’s concerns, for, as Jesus said, when we do not feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned, we are ignoring him.

The third key purpose brings us closer to a kingdom that includes all that lives and which returns the gifts and talents human beings have been endowed with to benefit the world as a whole."


Return for Tomorrow's Post: What is True Love?

This text was rewritten and derived from the Textbook: True Love, Chapter "Love and Life's Purposes".