True Family: Gateway to Heaven
Chapter 2: The Family Is the Model for the Kingdom of Heaven
Section 1. The Family is the Central Model for All Beings
When you stand in the world of space, you need top and bottom, left and right, and front and back. Only then is the status of your position stable. Your shape will vary depending on the position in which you stand: top and bottom, left and right, front and back. When dealing with matters that concern the relationships of top and bottom, left and right, front and back, and also problems in the family, nation and world, there is only one solution. Just as there has to be top and bottom, left and right, and front and back with the individual at the center, there also have to be parents and children, husband and wife, and brothers and sisters.
The same applies in a nation. With the leader of the nation at the center, all families should embrace the civilizations of east and west, and the civilizations of north and south, and all the people of the world as their brothers and sisters, and eventually establish a family model. This model is the same for all. You yourselves are the center of that model. This model represents a principle that requires that from you should come your family, which then expands to the nation, world, heaven and earth, and all the way to God. You not only want to be the center of the universe, you can be the center. In the same way, the family is the center of the universe. If you think of heaven as the parents, then earth represents the children. When considering east and west, the east symbolizes the man and the west the woman. So after marriage, the woman goes to the place where her husband is wherever it may be. This is similar to the west reflecting the sunlight that shines from the east.
It is the same with the relationships of brothers and sisters. When the eldest brother leads a task, the younger brothers and sisters will cooperate. Therefore each person should be in a parent-child relationship, a conjugal relationship and a sibling relationship. In other words, these three relationships must meet at one point. The central point is one. The centers for top and bottom, left and right, and front and back should not be different.
If their centers are different the relationships of top and bottom, left and right, and front and back will all be unbalanced. So top and bottom, left and right, front and back, and the common central point add up to the number seven. To form the number seven in this way means to be a family that is united in true love with God at the center and where all these things form a complete sphere bringing about harmony and unification. We often say seven is a lucky number. So when we hear this about the number seven it seems believable. As long as true love never changes, this central core will turn forever without changing, realizing the ideal of the true family.
Also since everything is connected to the core, then each position, one, two, three, four, five, six and seven from this central core are equal. If the grandfather and his sons and daughters want something and the grandchild is not against it, then all three generations will come to want it. The grandfather and grandmother, husband and wife, and sons and daughters all follow the center. In terms of love, we say that the parent-child relationship is one, the conjugal relationship is one, and the sibling relationship is one. They are one body. What are these relationships revolving around? They are revolving around the true love of God who is the center of love. Based on true love, the parents and children, husband and wife and brothers and sisters all become one. In this way the value of everything becomes equal. (299-114, 1999.2.7)
Section 2. The Family is the Textbook of Love Through Which We Can Connect with Universal Love
What is the universe? Everything in the created world is designed as a sort of training aid to help God’s beloved sons and daughters find the ideal of love. This is why everything exists in reciprocal relationships. Minerals are based on the reciprocal relationship of subject and object partners and so are atoms. Protons and electrons also exist based on the reciprocal relationship of subject and object partners. Without reciprocation they cannot continue to exist. Without give and take action they cannot exist eternally. Therefore, the universe is a world created in such a way that its center can only be reached through human beings. (137-59, 1985.12.18)
What is the universe? It is an expansion of the family. If you look at a family that has completely realized the ideal of family love, it has a top, middle and bottom (parents, husband and wife, and children), left and right, and front and back. This is the principle. So when we talk about top and bottom we mean the parents and children, when we talk about left and right we mean the husband and wife, and when we talk about front and back we mean the brothers and sisters.
Through what do they all become one? It doesn’t happen through power, knowledge or money. Then what can bring it about? It is love. This is an absolute truth. Otherwise the sphere cannot be formed. Then what are the top, middle and bottom in our family? They are a textbook of love. They are a textbook of love through which we can encounter universal love. Go out into society and put it into practice. How should we love? Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” How should we follow this teaching? We are not sure.
When you go out into the world and meet a grandfather, treat him as your own grandfather. Treat people like your own mothers, like your own fathers or like your own sons. When you go out into the world you should all live like this. The people of the top, middle and bottom, front and back, and left and right are all displayed in the exhibition hall of the world. You should know that the world is an exhibition of people. If you can love everyone with such love, God will dwell in the midst of that love. (128-22, 1983.5.29)
What is the Kingdom of Heaven? It is the place where you love the people of the world as your own family, and people who do this are the people of the Kingdom of Heaven. Your grandfather and grandmother, your mother and father, your wife, your brothers and sisters, and your children — what are these four generations? They are the textbook through whom you can deeply experience love, the true love of the universe as people of the Kingdom of Heaven. The family is the foundation, a type of textbook that teaches you this love. (129-96, 1983.10.1)
We can not live without learning the love of the universe. God has prepared things such as a textbook or scripture containing promises which openly say, “Love your grandmother and grandfather. Your grandmother and grandfather on earth are sent as representatives of the grandmothers and grandfathers in the spirit world. Therefore if you love them, I will take it as if you had loved all grandmothers and grandfathers.”
Next God says, “Since your mother and father represent the countless mothers and fathers of the world, as a textbook and model of love, if you love them to the utmost, I will take it as a condition of you having loved all mothers and fathers. Furthermore if you as a man, representing all men, love a woman who represents all women, it will be a condition of having loved all women.” Next He says, “I will take your loving your sons and daughters as you having loved all sons and daughters.” Therefore the family is the training center to receive such training.
It is a training process for loving the world in accordance with the scriptures. We can ask the trainees if now they will go out to the world and love the grandmothers and grandfathers of the world in place of their own grandfather and grandmother, and if they say “yes,” this will save the world. (130-273, 1984.2.5)
Section 3. A Training Ground of Love for Entering the Kingdom of Love
God’s will is to realize the kingdom of love. If God’s will is to develop and globalize the ideal world of love, the family is the experimental ground where you earn credits, all the way from an elementary school certificate to a bachelor’s degree and PhD. The family expands to the world. If you look at the world carefully, you will see that it is a world where grandfathers and grandmothers live, a world where adults like your uncles and aunts live, a world where people like your elder brothers and elder sisters live, a world where youths live, and a world where children live. So these places where old, middle-aged, young people and children live are larger expansions of the family. (147-281, 1986.10.1)
The family is the smallest unit within the training center and is also a textbook for entering the Kingdom of Heaven. It has all the levels: the grandfather’s level, mother’s level, couple’s level and sibling’s level. These levels expand into larger groups of grandmothers and grandfathers, mothers and fathers, your own peers, and your sons and daughters, and together they form humanity.
Only families that can love all human beings as their own spouses and as their own parents, and serve them as their own sons and daughters, can inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. This is amazing. The right to inherit all the power and authority of heaven and earth created by God lies here. (143-285, 1986.3.20)
The family is a textbook of love through which at the time of death you receive the right to be registered at the Palace of Peace and the Kingdom of Heaven. The family is a training ground of love. The extension of this family is the world. The world is made up of smaller worlds: there is a grandfathers’ world, a grandmothers’ world, a world of fathers and mothers, there are husbands’ and wives’ worlds and sons’ and daughters’ worlds. When these combine we have the whole world.
Thus if you love the people of the whole world as you love your family and as you love God through the family, this will make a straight road to the Kingdom of Heaven. Thus the first commandment is, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” And the second commandment is, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If you love God and love humanity, everything will be accomplished. If you cannot do it, your spiritual training will have been in vain. No matter how great a religion’s spiritual discipline may be, if it does not know how to love God, humankind and the whole universe it will fail the test.
In the family you should deeply experience love by going through the official course of the training center which is an encapsulation of the whole universe and then expand this and love the world. You have inherited this from your family, your training ground, where you were raised with your mother and father. Therefore if you love your parents more than your wife, love your sons and daughters more than your wife, love humanity more than your wife, and love God more than your wife, everything will be accomplished. This doesn’t mean that you should abandon your wife. If you love in this way, all the recipients of that love will come to love your wife as well. Is there a more glorious place than this? If you want to love your wife, follow this way. (143-285, 1986.3.20)
Section 4. The Family is a Model for the Heavenly Kingdom
What kind of fortune should a person in the child’s position receive? They should inherit the fortune of the grandparents and parents. Why does one need grandparents? We need grandparents because they represent the living history of the past. The parents represent the present and the children symbolize the future. Children contain east and west and also north and south. They are also the center of the whole. The center of the grandparents, the center of the parents, the center of the children and the center of God — all these are founded on true love.
Thus, loving your grandparents and respecting them means to learn and to inherit all the past. You learn the present from your father and by loving children you learn about the future. What do you inherit through your grandfather and grandmother, and mother and father? You inherit true love.
Although your grandfather and grandmother are old, they are united in true love and so your mother and father are united. So you should be like them and inherit the future. We absolutely cannot inherit the future without becoming a true family. When we look at these three generations, it is like looking at the universe. The love of the universe resides in the true family that represents the present and future.
When we look at the animal world, male and female animals love each other, and this is a textbook from which we learn about the love of the universe. Without a grandmother and a grandfather we feel unstable. Only with them can we move straight to the Kingdom of Heaven. Grandparents, mother and father, and children will all go to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Those who have loved the true grandparents, the true parents, the true children, the true family, the true nation and the true universe will go to the Kingdom of Heaven. The model and textbook for all this is the family. (162-140, 1987.4.5)
The family is a type of educational material which teaches us how to establish the Kingdom of Heaven. It comes from heaven. If a person loves all the people of his grandfather’s age in the world as his own, he will go to the Kingdom of Heaven. If he loves the people of his parents’ age as his own, he will be able to travel freely throughout all the nations. He will have no boundaries even when he goes to the spirit world. If he thinks of the young people of all nations as his own sons and daughters, he will be able to travel freely within the Kingdom of Heaven even though there are twelve pearly gates and directions.
Therefore, the family is a textbook which shows us how to make a connection with the Kingdom of Heaven. When you apply it to the nation, you will become a patriot, when you apply it to the world, you will be a saint, and when you practice it in heaven and earth, you will become God’s children, or holy sons and daughters. People have such a desire. (137-77. 1985.12.18)
You should be able to embrace the sons and daughters of all races as well as their grandsons and granddaughters. In this way, you should stand in the position to become the owners of the family who, as true parents, love the people of the world with true love. By standing in the position to represent the family that practices true love and is connected to the original parents through God’s love, you can finally enter the Kingdom of Heaven. (176-209, 1988.5.9)
Section 5. The Family Brings Together the Love of Three Generations
The family encompasses history, the present and the future. So what is the ultimate point that God has sought for six thousand years? It is the family — the family where love is interconnected and where all are united in love. Everything that exists comes under its dominion.
We cannot cut our relationship with this absolute source of love. The establishment of such a family was the original mission that God gave Adam and Eve at the time of creation. God did not want them to merely end up as a man, Adam, and a woman, Eve, but instead dreamed of a new family where they would be united. This is the first starting point towards establishing men and women. Thus to be able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven safely, you have to find a family and within the realm of that family in this world, enter and live in a place where you can feel satisfied in God’s love. Only then can you go beyond this world as well. (30-85, 1970.3.17)
In order to form the family realm of love you have to be unconditional. The parents represent the past, the husband and wife represent the present, and the children represent the future. Loving one partner during your lifetime is the equivalent to God loving the world. It is a place where in oneness the parents, a couple, and the children offer their love as an example representing heaven and earth and tell their descendants to follow them. The original homeland of the heart, the place where heavenly affection is felt will be remembered in heaven and earth. (30-78, 1970.3.17)
What has God been looking for up until now? He has not been seeking a subject partner; rather He has been looking for an ideal object partner. He has been looking for those who resemble God and posses the inner and outer aspects of the world He created. What is the starting point that leads to such a result? It is the family. There is nothing that can represent the universe better than the family. To be one with the parents is for past and present to meet. Here, you can love the past by loving your parents, love the present by loving your partner, and love the future by loving your children. Therefore, you can deeply experience the love of three generations. The place where these three kinds of love are concentrated is the family. (30-80, 1970.3.17)
Then where does life in the Kingdom of Heaven begin? It is the family. It does not unfold somewhere else. The Kingdom of Heaven is just a three-dimensional expansion of the family and not something that goes beyond the family realm. Therefore when you embrace your husband or wife, you should think that this is a man of the world becoming one with a woman of the world. The place where you can make the condition of having loved mankind is none other than the family.
You should live your life this way. To love your parents is to connect history with the present and to pave the road for God to come to you. Therefore you have to love your parents. To love your parents is to connect the human beings of history with yourself as an inhabitant of the present, that is to unite the past and the present. Furthermore loving your children centering on yourself is to connect the present with the future. And the philosophy that practices and sings the praise of such love for a thousand and tens of thousands of years is Unification thought. (30-82, 1970.3.17)
Section 6. The Family is the Training Ground of the Heart
We cannot live separate from the heart. Even if you are the president of a country or possess global authority, you would not be able to live if you had no place to express your heartfelt joy. You would not be able to feel the deepest satisfaction from the people who are under your command, your officers or the people who follow you. You must feel it in your family. You should be able to return home and feel joy through your wife and children. In such a way you should be proud of this joy in front of others. This joy is a primal joy; not a secondary joy. It is the same with God. Even if He was to restore the whole world, without a family He would not feel joy. So we need our families after all. (25-85, 1969.9.30)
Parents should be the head of the family and teachers should be the head of the educational institutions which represent society. Parents raise you by giving you milk thereby assisting your physical development as well as helping you emotionally. Then what is school for? It trains you for your future life in society. If the family is the training ground of the emotions, then school is the experimental training ground of society.
But society is not where training ends. Where does it end? It ends with the nation. The nation has a president. Why is it that people miss the president and want to be near him? When they have experienced everything, from the family to the society, they go on to the next level. The president is the fruit of the third stage after the formation and growth stages. A seed divides, sends roots down and a shoot up, and then, through circulatory action, growth begins. After such division comes a synthesis when flowers and fruit are produced.
Schools raise the people needed by the nation by educating the qualified elite to serve the nation. They are training and experimentation sites. Training is not real life but a preparation stage. You should not make the wrong preparations. What is the family? It is a training ground for the heart. It is a place where you train your heart to love. This is why you should live affectionately like brothers and sisters at school and also live affectionately like brothers and sisters in the nation. Parental education is needed at school, in society and also by the nation. Parents should pass everything in the realm of heart on to their children. They should create a foundation of heart for their children by teaching them to follow their parents’ footsteps in living in certain ways in the family, the society, and in the nation. (180-130, 1988.8.22)
When you look at a family, it is not necessarily a good one just because it has a good house and a good environment. Conversely, no matter how bad a family’s environment may be or how shabby its house may be, if it offers you peace and you are able to connect all things in your life to it, then it is a good family. It has a foundation of heart upon which the parents and children live for the sake of each other. This is the original homeland for our memories and the source of motivation for all living. Therefore it becomes the basis for determining our happiness in life. (29-16, 1970.2.15)
Section 7. The Family is Our Eternal Original Hometown
Family, the family is a good place. Why is it good? It is a good place because my mother and father are there. It is a good place because my elder sister and elder brother are there. It is a good place because my younger brother and younger sister are there, and it is a good place because my relatives are there. Thus, human beings feel nostalgia for their hometown and the land of their original hometown. They feel more deeply about their hometown than they do for the nation. The place you long for even when you live in the Republic of Korea is your hometown.
What place do you long for even though you like Korea, even though you want to live in Korea, and even while you are living in Korea? It is your hometown. Hometown, what kind of place is your hometown? It is a place where your heart is lifted up in four directions and three dimensions. What is that heart? It is a place where you are tied up by love. Upward, your mother and father are tying you up; left and right, the bond between husband and wife is tying you up; downward, your sons and daughters and relatives are tying you up tight with three dimensional love. This is the original hometown.
People cannot help but long for their original hometown because they look upon this starting point of happiness based on love as the best. Then, what kind of place do you think God’s original hometown is? What do you think God’s land of original hometown is on this earth? We should think about these questions. If God is the God of love, He must surely have prepared a starting point for living on this earth, and where is this starting point? To know this, we must understand how God has prepared that starting point. What kind of place can become the starting point of the original hometown where God’s family can be created? It is none other than a place where a son dwells who understands God as his real father. In other words, it is a place where the son, the only-begotten son who can monopolize God’s love, exists. Also it is a place where such a daughter dwells. It is a place where such a son and a daughter marry and form a complete family. (23-151, 1969.5.18)
Then who should be in the original hometown? Those who you miss should be there. Your parents should be there and your brothers and sisters should be there. And those who you long to meet should be there. When you want to live with them there, would you be satisfied if you just saw them for a moment? Would you be satisfied if you met and just saw them for a short time? When meeting and living with them, you should not be tired even if you live with them for eternity. You should go and find such a place. This is the Kingdom of Heaven that today’s religions pursue. (23-80, 1969.5.11)
Today, the reason we long for the land of our original hometown is that in that hometown there are parents, brothers and sisters, and relatives, who are closer to us than anyone else. They always guide us; they welcome us as they did in the past whenever we visit them, and they sympathize with us, console us and receive us with joy when we are having difficulties. Without this welcome though, even if you longed for your original hometown and returned there, your desperate longing heart would vanish, and you would go back with feelings of deep regret. You should know this. In the original hometown there have to be people who will welcome you. (23-80, 1969.5.11)
Section 8. The Family Is the Final Standard for Completing the Cosmos-centered Ideology
Everything divides from one into many, which eventually merge into a larger whole. In other words, one divides into many and then unites again into one. From here it divides again and becomes something even larger. Families exist within this larger created object. These families all have the same form as each other. The family is the place where the relationship of husband and wife is established and the place that unites the husband and wife. The tribe is a place that unites families, and the race is a place that unites clans. Races combine to form one nation. Here families play the central role. (26-189, 1969.10.25)
When the family is expanded, it becomes the horizontal world. This is why no society can manage without the family. If families cannot be restored, the world cannot be restored. Next we must realize the cosmos-centered ideal through these families. The word cosmos combines heaven and earth. Heaven and earth are like a person’s mind and body. The mind and body must become one. Just as a subject partner needs an object partner, one man needs one woman. The union of a man and a woman leads to a family. God’s foundation of love will not be attained without working through this family. (26-189, 1969.10.25)
The cosmos-centered ideology is a philosophy that unites the mind and body forming a family as the main body of love, and connects that idea to the spirit world and physical world. The character ju of cheon ju (cosmos) means a house. This is why we are using the word cosmos-centered ideology. Cosmos combines the spirit world and the physical world. What relationship does it have with us? We need a family. If you fail to be at one in your family, you have nothing to do with the cosmos-centered ideology. The family serves as the final standard for completing the cosmos-centered ideology. Those who cannot sing songs of peace and sing praise for happiness here will become miserable people either on this earth or in the spirit world. (26-189, 1969.10.25)
From where is the Kingdom of Heaven realized? It is realized from our families. Then what kind of ideology do we have? We have a family-centered ideology. The word cosmos-ism (cosmos- centered ideology) contains cheon meaning heaven and ju meaning house; so it means the ideology of heaven’s house. Only then does the meaning of the cosmos (cheon ju) become clear. The sixty-six books of the Bible are filled with words that desire an ideal family. Furthermore what is it that all men desire? It is to have an ideal wife. Also the greatest desire of a woman is to meet an ideal husband. No matter how proud and famous a woman who has a doctorate may be, her desire is to meet an ideal man, an ideal man she can love and with whom she can have her beloved sons and daughters. This is the root of happiness. The ideal of the Unification Church does not lie somewhere else. The beginning is the family and the conclusion is the family. (26-102, 1969.10.18)
What kind of ideology is the cosmos-centered ideology? It is the true parent-centered ideology. After all, these are both ideologies upholding parents. This is the ideology of our house, the ideology of our nation, and the ideology of your individual self. Had human beings not fallen, whose ideology would rule the world? It would be the Adam-centered ideology. This ideology is none other than the way of true parents. It is the ideology of the mother and father. There cannot be an ideology higher than this. Hence the Unification Church should link matters of the heart with heavenly ideology through the way of true parents within the boundary of the original ideal family. As long as families that have internalized such an ideology remain, the Unification Church will not perish. (26-201, 1969.10.25)