Love alone is the core of human desire.
—Sun Myung Moon
Contemporary life is fraught with ambiguity, pain and disappointment.
All people enter this world hoping for happiness as individuals,
fulfillment in their relationships with others, and a
meaningful and rewarding role in work and society. The path to
these life goals might rightly be called the “true way of life.” Yet
such a path—if it exists—is not easily found. Discerning it requires
lessons that are not taught in any school.
Schools may do a fair job of training young people in the knowledge
and skills needed for career success. Yet even a six-figure
income can be for naught for people who fail to form lasting relationships
and establish healthy families. Today’s youth approach
marriage and family life with high hopes of love and happiness
only to find themselves incapable of living in the harmony they
dream of. Pessimism about family relationships abounds, leading
many young people to expect that their lives will most likely follow
a pattern of “Marry. Divorce. Marry again.”
Similarly, modern life has left the natural human longing for
community in a shambles. Relations between neighbors are often
cold and distant. Few are willing, or even asked, to watch out for one
another’s family or property. “All we want is peace,” neighbors tell
ESTABLISHING UNIVERSAL VALUES IN A RELATIVE WORLD
13
one another, yet they rarely take steps to foster genuine communities
of mutual help. Instead when there is a problem, citizens
blame one another, or blame politicians. Where there is a problem
at school, teachers blame parents and parents blame teachers.
Even in peaceful, prosperous, and well-functioning communities,
there is, or should be, the nagging awareness that not everyone
lives as well as they do. Can one community’s peace and happiness
be complete, knowing that others are suffering? A smug selfassurance
that others are simply not as meritorious, hard-working,
or deserving drowns out the voice of the conscience, which calls
people to help the less fortunate.
On the national level, partisanship divides national policy;
racism abounds, corruption festers, and issues seem unsolvable.
Nations act in their own self-interest rather than in the interests of
the world community. Quarrels between nations can escalate into
a cycle of revenge-retaliation-revenge, with each side claiming to be
evening up the score from the past. Even generous gifts of aid from
one nation to another frequently come with strings attached.
Humankind exists in disharmony with the environment; often
taking more than is given back, ruining delicate ecosystems, sacrificing
the long-term blessings that come with care and prudence
in favor of short-term profits. We are incapable of sharing equitably,
even with the natural systems that sustain us.
Where can we find answers to these problems? Can we find a
comprehensive approach that leads us to a true way of life, one
that generates positive results on every level? Philosophy and religion
have sought answers, but their answers have often created
more confusion. Political and educational programs have been instituted
in hopes of reform, only to flounder in the morass of halftruths
and superficial solutions that fail to touch the core of the
problem. In seeking objective truth, science has tried to dispel the
ignorance that pervades human life and makes it “nasty, brutish
and short.” While these efforts have helped the human situation
enormously, they are at their best when focused on narrow and
FOUNDATIONS OF CHARACTER EDUCATION
14
precise goals—curing disease, generating energy or improving communications.
They still have not effectively addressed the root of the
problems that plague human existence.
The Longing for Love
There is a yearning—a hunger—that all human beings have
felt but few have satisfied. Men, women, and children experience
it. Writer John Steinbeck described it: “You are warm enough, but
you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved,
but your yearning wanders in new fields.”1 King Solomon wrote
how he built palaces and gardens and strove for learning and other
accomplishments to fill the howling void inside only to find that, in
the end, “this too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind”
(Ecclesiastes 2.11). The Buddha felt it too, when as a young prince
he could not find any gratification in the pleasures of the palace, and
so set off on a quest for enlightenment.
Satisfaction always seems just out of reach, just over the
horizon, coming tomorrow, or next year or the next, when the ship
comes in. People think they will at last find fulfillment “When I
win the lottery,” “When I get a raise,” “When she finally loves me,”
“When the new house is finished.” Yet even when these things
happen, the yearning remains in force. Happiness eludes one like
mercury slips away from the pursuing fingertips. The Qur’an
affirms, “The life of this world is but the comfort of illusion” (3.185).2
Augustine said that the human heart is restless for God, and
will always be so until finding rest in Him. A modern-day preacher
said, “There is a God-sized hole inside of us. No matter how many
steaks, electronics, liquor, drugs, entertainment and sex we pour
down it, only God can fill the hole.”
However, to many people God is an abstraction. Worse, He may
seem like a God of punishment with many rules and demands.
Worse still, people have done horrible things to one another in the
name of God, leading to division and hatred rather than unity and
belonging. Witness all the terrorist violence being done in the name
ESTABLISHING UNIVERSAL VALUES IN A RELATIVE WORLD
15
of God; witness the Inquisition, the Crusades. Religious and denominational
loyalties tend to keep believers apart rather than bring
them together.
Furthermore, in the post-Freudian era, religious yearnings have
been looked at as pathologies, crutches, or self-delusion. Religion has
even been seen as a tool of capitalist or colonialist imperialism and
exploitation. Given all these caveats about religion, how, then, can
we say that God is the answer to the universal human longing?
The apostle John said, “God is love” (1 John 4.8). What people
actually want is behind God and inside of God. They want the
essence of God, which is love. People want to know and feel pure
and selfless love, and they want that love to pervade all their relationships
and their world. Such love is the key to feeling filled and
fulfilled. Paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin said, “Love alone is
capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and
fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is
deepest in themselves.”3
Indeed, when people accomplish something, purchase something,
hope and dream about attaining something, what they are
really yearning for is to further their experience of love. In every
relationship, in every action and transaction, all day, every day,
people are seeking true love. The need is universal. It is found in all
people at all times and under all different circumstances. Mother
Teresa stated, “People throughout the world may look different or
have a different religion, education or position, but they are all the
same. . . . They are all hungry for love. The people you see in the
streets of Calcutta are hungry in body, but the people in London or
New York also have a hunger which must be satisfied. Every person
needs to be loved.”4
True love is so ultimately valued that it encompasses and
informs all other values. We may say it is the wellspring of value and
the standard of all value. So good, so satisfying, so ambrosial and fulfilling
is true love that Reverend Moon has said people are drawn to
it like bees to nectar. What is more, having tasted it, they will not let
FOUNDATIONS OF CHARACTER EDUCATION
16
it go. He says, “If a bee is sucking the nectar from a flower, you can
try to pull him away; but instead of letting go, his body will tear in
half. He will never stop sucking the nectar.”5 Selfless love is that
delicious, that desperately desirable.
Lack of Love
Yet as much as we yearn for love, it eludes us. We find precious
little, and what little we find is rarely true. We can identify this
absence of true love as the root problem which colors human life
with its dark and ambiguous hues. For instance, in family relationships,
it can be terribly hard to give and to give in to one another.
Without love, it is well nigh impossible to stifle the blame-assigning
remark, to refrain from sowing the seeds of resentment by arbitrary
and insecure power-grabbing. Being able to see the other
person’s point of view, to listen and really understand when opinions
and interpretations differ is almost impossibly difficult when
love is absent.
Spouses look at one another in pain and puzzlement as to where
the love they had imagined for themselves could possibly have
gone. It often seems like they had more affection at the beginning
of their marriage than they do further along. The honeymoon is
over, and the fond feelings have been replaced by something that
more closely resembles contempt. Disillusioned by their parents’
failing love, teenagers react and seek love among their peers, sometimes
in destructive ways of which their parents disapprove. Given
these and other situations, most people look at their family relationships
with at least some ambivalence, guilt, and regrets.
Lack of love robs us of community among our neighbors and
frustrates our desire for peace in the world. Without the true love
that sees our neighbor’s children as just as deserving of our attention
and care as our own children, we stand idly by while they
make mischief and are even afraid to intervene for fear of offending
their parents.
ESTABLISHING UNIVERSAL VALUES IN A RELATIVE WORLD
17
On the national level, patriotism can be beautiful and
ennobling; yet love of the nation above all others falls short of what
is required for peace. Nationalism is a form of self-love writ large,
which can take monstrous forms; Paul Tillich called it “a god who
certainly proves to be a demon.”6 Rare is the nation capable of giving
the balm of unselfish love that would make for lasting peace. To
resolve the conflicts that lead to war, terrorism, oppression of minorities
and ethnic violence, true love calls for sacrifice; yet rare are
the individuals who possess such love that they would put their
lives on the line to stand against the hatred.
Somehow, the pipeline of true love has been broken. Many religious
and cultural traditions would call it the “Fall of man”—the
entry of evil and sin into a once paradisiacal world where, according
to many traditions, man walked with God in oneness of heart.
However the origin of the problem is conceived of, it remains
unsolved. There is not enough love. And where it exists, it is rarely
true love.
The Centrality of Love
The desire for true love dominates human life. Philosopher
Erich Fromm noted that love “is the most powerful striving in man.
It is the most fundamental passion, it is the force which keeps the
human race together, the clan, the family, society. The failure to
achieve it means insanity or destruction—self-destruction or the
destruction of others. Without love, humanity could not exist for a
day.”7
Every cell within human beings responds to love, yearns for
love, and drives them to seek for love. The human face is meaningless
in isolation; it is meant to communicate with others in love.
From the arched eyebrows that rise in conveyed interest, to lips
capable of smiles and words of affection, the old song rings true:
“You were meant for love.” As Benjamin Disraeli observed, “We are
all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end.”
Teilhard described love as a force, mysterious yet binding, even
FOUNDATIONS OF CHARACTER EDUCATION
18
on the molecular level. Within each entity in nature, from the most
sophisticated and complex to the simplest, he found an observable
attraction to other entities. Teilhard said, “Driven by the forces of
love, the fragments of the world seek each other.”8 He saw the entire
universe as bound together, molecule by molecule, by the force of
love: “We do not get what we call matter as a result of the simple
aggregation and juxtaposition of atoms. For that, a mysterious identity
must absorb and cement them.”9 That “mysterious identity” is
true love. The yearning for unity with another and others—yearning
for oneness in love—is the glue that binds the universe together.
Love is thus the core of human striving and the raison d’etre of
the created world. Therefore, in searching for the comprehensive
principles that might delineate a true way of life, there is no better
place to begin than with the study of true love.
Love motivates sacrificial and virtuous acts of all sorts. Who
has not felt that he or she could give all—risk all—for the sake of true
love? It is what prompts a mother to run barefoot over glass to save
her child. It is what moves the older brother to say nobly to the
teacher, “It is my fault,” to take upon himself the punishment his
frightened younger brother has incurred.
Love is a healer. No matter how deep the hurt, how intractable
the trauma, no matter how profound the alienation or how deep
the sin, love can seep in and penetrate like cleansing warm waters
to ease the pain, salve the wound, and restore wholeness.
Psychologist M. Scott Peck said that issues of love were at the bottom
of all the problems his patients struggled with. He asserted, “The
essential ingredient of successful, deep and meaningful psychotherapy
is love.”10 Dr. Karl Menninger, a towering presence in
medicine, observed, “Love cures people—both the ones who give it
and the ones who receive it.” Health experts are finding that feeling
loved is far more predictive of long life and good health than even
such important factors as diet, exercise, and abstinence from
smoking.11
Love is a sustainer. As Viktor Frankl recounted of his life in a
ESTABLISHING UNIVERSAL VALUES IN A RELATIVE WORLD
19
Nazi concentration camp:
I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world
still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the
contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation,
when man cannot express himself in positive action,
when his only achievement may consist in enduring his
sufferings in the right way—an honorable way—in such a
position man can, through loving contemplation of the
image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.12
Love makes life on earth worthwhile, and it presages life in
the next world as well. Philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote, “In the
union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring
vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined.” “Death,
where is thy sting?” Romeo inquired when he realized that his love
for Juliet went beyond her demise. “Death, be not proud,” penned
poet John Donne, for love lasts beyond death. Many widows and
widowers continue to love, talk to, and pray for their deceased partners,
cherishing hopes of meeting again on the other side.
The ultimate experience is that of divine love. “Man is meant
to be intoxicated by the love of God,” Reverend Moon has declared.
“Since humanity lost this original capacity, people seek unnatural,
artificial intoxication—getting drunk on alcohol, marijuana, or other
drugs. The perfect individual, however, is created to be intoxicated
in God’s love. There is nothing that can go beyond this feeling of joy.
Every cell in your body will explode with joy. Your eyes and ears,
the tissues in your face, your arms and legs—everything will be
newly alive in a rapture of joy.”13
It is impossible to properly orient ourselves and educate our
children for the good life without giving priority to questions of
love. If we can understand this fundamental reality, this value of
values, we begin to gain a clear perspective with which to address
any issue of life. The breaching of distances, the resolution of opposites,
the dissolving of disparate complexities into an integrated
FOUNDATIONS OF CHARACTER EDUCATION
20
whole—all this comes through true love and that alone. To paraphrase
Saint Paul, no power, no principality, not even the gates of
hell, can prevail against it. Inevitably, then, our search for the true
way of life will take love as its major theme.
Tuesday, 9 July 2013
Monday, 24 June 2013
PROBLEMS IN LIFE HAS BEEN LIKE A MAZE
Let us say you live up to eighty years of age. If you subtract the hours you spend sleeping, you are left with about fifty years of life. Would you say you are alive when you are asleep? When
you are asleep, you are as good as dead, because you
are inanimate. Sleeping is the same as being dead the whole time. The number
of hours you labor each day to make a living is about half of the
twenty-four hours in a day. Now deduct the time you spend eating. From whatever time
is left subtract the time spent visiting, going to friends’ parties, attending
the sixtieth birthday celebrations of village elders, attending funerals and wakes, and
being bedridden. In short, if you were to exclude all the days you lose for
whatever reasons that might arise, you cannot claim to have actually lived very
much. Would it even be half of your entire lifetime? When I calculated this
recently, it came out as roughly seven years. Even so, of those seven years,
how many days could you claim to have truly lived? (49-336,1971.10.24)
Life passes by very quickly. After attaining maturity
and coming to know the affairs of the world, doing things here and there, you
will find yourselves crossing the forty-year mark, and soon
after that, the fifty-year mark. A decade will fly by
in the twinkling of an eye, and in what will seem like only seconds, you will
be sixty years old. Then very soon you will be seventy, but only for a
minute before you age again. When you think about it,
the saying, “Life is but a fleeting dream,” has never sounded so true.
(188-38, 1989.2.16)
A person’s fortune stretches and shrinks like an
elastic rubber band. If someone who is born with fortune valued at 100 spends
120 in the course of his life, his descendants will perish. If he spends only 80, he can bequeath the remaining 20
as a blessing to his descendants. (78-332, 1975.6.10)
You can change your fortune, but not your inherited
destiny. Can you change your homeland? Can you change your parents? However strong
a nation’s sovereignty and customs might be, it can
never change the fact that you were born as the son or
daughter of your parents. As can be seen, the path of restoration is also a
destined path. (172-55,
1988.1.7)
When you make a wrong start, you end up in a totally
unexpected place. Hence, when a ship sets out into the great ocean, it should
chart its course and follow the compass from the moment it first sets sail from
port. Then, what is the port of departure for human life? People do not know.
Where can we find the direction and guiding compass to reach our
destination in the world beyond? People have not been able to find this, so
they have been wandering about back and forth. However much they try, they are not able to overcome their human limitations.
(172-28,
1988.1.3)
====Rev. Sun Myung Moon (CSG) =========
Sunday, 24 March 2013
THE PURPOSE OF MARRIAGE
관리자 *.162.3.250 조회 1606 2010.05.17 15:36
The Purpose of Marriage
Ladies and gentlemen, why should we get married? It is to restore the
position of an owner. A man or woman alone can only be one half of the whole. That is how God created us. For that
reason, He has interchanged the owners of the sexual organs, the love organs. The owner of the wife’s sexual organ is the husband, and the owner of the
husband’s is the wife. Only when
each is rooted in love for the other can they stand in the position of the
owner of their spouse. We marry to secure this position of the owner.
Then what
are we trying to achieve by restoring the position of the owner? It is to
fulfill and embody God’s love from that position. God is the subject of the
three great loves. As the Owner of the universe, He is the teacher, owner and
parent of true love. This is the genuine “three great subjects” principle. All
such teachings and truths are created based on the life of true, model
families, and once they expand, the society, nation, world and even heaven and
earth can be transformed into the peace kingdom of the model ideal family.
Distinguished
leaders, you are now living in the most blessed and exalted time in history. I
now proclaim the launch of the era of a new heaven and earth, an era after the
coming of heaven, long-awaited and yearned for by billions of your ancestors in
the spirit world who have come and gone throughout history: this is the era of
the kingdom of the peaceful, ideal world. Not only the four great religious
founders but also billions of good ancestors have come down to earth at this
point to guide you on the heavenly path. The age in which the fallen and corrupted
world plays havoc on people’s lives, allowing those who are evil to live better
than others, is passing away.
Reverend
Moon, who received the seal of Heaven, has come as the True Parent of humanity
and the King of Peace. I will be true to my promise to God.
I will bring
to fruition the era of the kingdom of the peaceful, ideal world on this earth,
without fail. Therefore, please bear in mind that all of you gathered here
today are the central figures in establishing the kingdom of the peaceful,
ideal world on this earth, in attendance to the king and queen of peace, the
True Parents.
Under the
banner of the “Abel-type UN,” let us sweep away the absurdities and the evil of
this world through true love power. Let us become the proud “peace kingdom
police” and “peace kingdom corps” of the Universal Peace Federation, and
protect the blessed families of the world. Let us fulfill our roles as the
sentinels watching over this blessed land that is our planet.
I pray that
the blessings and grace of God may be with all of you leaders representing
different areas of responsibility, whose presence has elevated this historic
occasion.
I ask you to
devote your best efforts, as True Parents have, toward the development and
success of the Universal Peace Federation, and toward creating God’s ideal
family, ideal nation and the peace kingdom.
Please
become true princes and princesses who can attend and live together with God,
the eternal peace king, as the true parent of humanity. Let us each live up to
the standard of a true, devoted child, a patriot, a saint, and a member of the
family of the sons and daughters of God, in order to create the glorious
kingdom of peace and prosperity.
Trackback :
Saturday, 16 March 2013
TO LOVE IS TO GIVE AND FORGET
The family is the only institution created by God. It is the School of Love where people can learn how to Love each other and live together in peace, and it is the training center where we practice how to build a palace of peace in the world. It is where we learn how to become a husband or wife that will live for the sake of our spouse and how to become a husband and wife that will travel on the eternal path of love. The family is the base camp for world peace, and it must be that the children will say " We have never seen our mother and father fight"
We come up against all sorts of things in life. Even the most loving couple can have times when they may bicker with each other, become angry and raise their voices. When the children come into the room, however it all must stop immediately. No matter how angry a spouse may be, he must relate to his spouse in peace when the children are present. The children must grow up thinking that their family is filled with joy and that their parents always love each other.
Parents are like a second God to their Children. If you ask your young children, "Who do you like better -- God or Mommy and Daddy?" and they say they like Mom and Daddy better, that means that they also like God. The most precious education takes place in the family. The family is intended to be the Kingdom of Heaven. it would not matter if a person possessed incredible wealth and fame, or even possess the whole world. If all is not right with the person's family, then he cannot be happy. The kingdom of Heaven begins in the family. If a husband and wife are bound together in true love and they build an ideal family, this would connect directly to the world.
I saw something interesting when I was in Danbury prison. We were using a We were
using a bulldozer to level a slope and make a tennis court. When it rained, we would wait for it to stop, and start up again when the sun came out. This process of starting and stopping went on for months. We
had a stretch of rain for one period, and we couldn’t work for twenty consecutive days. When the rain cleared and we went out to start the work again, we found that some kind of waterfowl had created a nest
where there were some water weeds. It was a place not more than a few meters from where the prisoners would walk for exercise. At first, we didn’t even realize that the bird was there. Its camouflage
was so perfect that the bird’s feathers could easily be mistaken for the water weeds. Once the bird laid its eggs, though, we could see there was a bird in among the grass. The bird was sitting on some eggs that looked like pieces of black gravel. Once the chicks hatched, the mother would go find some
food, bring it back to the nest, and put it in the beaks of the chicks. When the mother was returning to the nest with food, however, she never flew directly to the nest. She would land a little distance from the nest and then walk the rest of the way. Each time, she approached the nest from a different direction. This was her wisdom to make it more difficult for others to find out the location of the nest where the chicks were.
The chicks ate the food their mother brought them and grew larger. Sometimes, when a prisoner would walk near the nest, the mother would fly out and chase him away with her sharp beak. She was afraid
the prisoner might harm her chicks. The waterbird understood the true love of parents. True love is willing
to give up its own life, and there is no calculation there. The heart of the bird that was willing to sacrifice its life, if necessary, to protect its offspring was true love. Parents go the path of love, no matter how difficult it becomes. A parent is prepared, if needed, to bury his life for the sake of love, and this is true love.
The essence of love is to cast aside any thought of having others live for one’s self; it is to live for the sake of others and give for the whole. Love gives, but then forgets even the fact that it has given and continues
to give without ceasing. This is a love that gives in joy. It is the heart that a mother feels when she takes her infant in her arms and lets it feed from her breast.
Parents will suffer for their children until it seems their bones are going to melt away, yet they never feel that the work is difficult. That is how much they love their children. True love begins with God
and comes to us from God. So when the parents say to their married children, “When you like each other, it is because of the grace of your parents,” the children must be able to respond, “If you had not found
such a spouse for me, I don’t know what I would have done.” The family is a bundle of love. When we go to the Kingdom of Heaven and unpack that bundle, a wonderful father and mother will jump out. Beautiful children will jump out. A benevolent grandfather and grandmother will jump out. This is the bundle of love. The family is the space in which God’s ideal is realized and the place where we can see the completion of God’s work. God’s will is to bring about a world in which love is made real, and the family is the place where God’s love overflows.
We only need to hear the word family for us to begin smiling. This is because the family is overflowing with true love that truly lives for the sake of all members. True love gives love, then forgets even the fact that
it gave, and then gives again. The love that has parents living for their children and grandparents for the grandchildren is true love. The love that lets a person give up his or her life for the country is true love.
- Rev. Sun Myung Moon : PLGC -
We come up against all sorts of things in life. Even the most loving couple can have times when they may bicker with each other, become angry and raise their voices. When the children come into the room, however it all must stop immediately. No matter how angry a spouse may be, he must relate to his spouse in peace when the children are present. The children must grow up thinking that their family is filled with joy and that their parents always love each other.
Parents are like a second God to their Children. If you ask your young children, "Who do you like better -- God or Mommy and Daddy?" and they say they like Mom and Daddy better, that means that they also like God. The most precious education takes place in the family. The family is intended to be the Kingdom of Heaven. it would not matter if a person possessed incredible wealth and fame, or even possess the whole world. If all is not right with the person's family, then he cannot be happy. The kingdom of Heaven begins in the family. If a husband and wife are bound together in true love and they build an ideal family, this would connect directly to the world.
I saw something interesting when I was in Danbury prison. We were using a We were
using a bulldozer to level a slope and make a tennis court. When it rained, we would wait for it to stop, and start up again when the sun came out. This process of starting and stopping went on for months. We
had a stretch of rain for one period, and we couldn’t work for twenty consecutive days. When the rain cleared and we went out to start the work again, we found that some kind of waterfowl had created a nest
where there were some water weeds. It was a place not more than a few meters from where the prisoners would walk for exercise. At first, we didn’t even realize that the bird was there. Its camouflage
was so perfect that the bird’s feathers could easily be mistaken for the water weeds. Once the bird laid its eggs, though, we could see there was a bird in among the grass. The bird was sitting on some eggs that looked like pieces of black gravel. Once the chicks hatched, the mother would go find some
food, bring it back to the nest, and put it in the beaks of the chicks. When the mother was returning to the nest with food, however, she never flew directly to the nest. She would land a little distance from the nest and then walk the rest of the way. Each time, she approached the nest from a different direction. This was her wisdom to make it more difficult for others to find out the location of the nest where the chicks were.
The chicks ate the food their mother brought them and grew larger. Sometimes, when a prisoner would walk near the nest, the mother would fly out and chase him away with her sharp beak. She was afraid
the prisoner might harm her chicks. The waterbird understood the true love of parents. True love is willing
to give up its own life, and there is no calculation there. The heart of the bird that was willing to sacrifice its life, if necessary, to protect its offspring was true love. Parents go the path of love, no matter how difficult it becomes. A parent is prepared, if needed, to bury his life for the sake of love, and this is true love.
The essence of love is to cast aside any thought of having others live for one’s self; it is to live for the sake of others and give for the whole. Love gives, but then forgets even the fact that it has given and continues
to give without ceasing. This is a love that gives in joy. It is the heart that a mother feels when she takes her infant in her arms and lets it feed from her breast.
Parents will suffer for their children until it seems their bones are going to melt away, yet they never feel that the work is difficult. That is how much they love their children. True love begins with God
and comes to us from God. So when the parents say to their married children, “When you like each other, it is because of the grace of your parents,” the children must be able to respond, “If you had not found
such a spouse for me, I don’t know what I would have done.” The family is a bundle of love. When we go to the Kingdom of Heaven and unpack that bundle, a wonderful father and mother will jump out. Beautiful children will jump out. A benevolent grandfather and grandmother will jump out. This is the bundle of love. The family is the space in which God’s ideal is realized and the place where we can see the completion of God’s work. God’s will is to bring about a world in which love is made real, and the family is the place where God’s love overflows.
We only need to hear the word family for us to begin smiling. This is because the family is overflowing with true love that truly lives for the sake of all members. True love gives love, then forgets even the fact that
it gave, and then gives again. The love that has parents living for their children and grandparents for the grandchildren is true love. The love that lets a person give up his or her life for the country is true love.
- Rev. Sun Myung Moon : PLGC -
Saturday, 9 March 2013
THE FOUR POSITION FOUNDATION
God’s will towards human Beings is to fulfill the purpose of creation
and realize the ideal of creation. The realization of the ideal creation does
not end merely by men and women getting married and uniting through Love. After
this, they must experience having sons and daughters, because heaven and earth
are formed from a principle wherein everything is linked in relationships of
high and low and front and back. If there is yesterday, there is today; if
there is today, there is a tomorrow, everything comes to have a meaning. If
husband and wife are the higher position, then there must be children in the
lower position. If there is no lower, there is no meaning. The principle of
Heaven and Earth includes the relationship of high and low and left and right;
husband and wife make up the left and right.
Therefore, parents think that they have fulfilled their responsibility
when all their sons and daughters have married. When a husband and wife become
parents and when their children get married, the higher and lower relationship
is realized for the first time. Only when this higher and lower relationship is
realized is the ideal manifested. A husband and wife in a left and right
relationship become united, but it is only when they become parents with
children, forming an upper and lower relationship, that the horizontal and the
vertical are linked and they can realize the universal, ideal spherical world.
Furthermore, when brothers and sisters become linked to this, at last a sphere
is realized. In order to complete the realization of the ideal, we must be able
to form a circle in which the vertical and the horizontal are linked. When a
man and a woman each come to feel this double realm of the realized ideal, they
are able to live the ideal. What does this mean? This is what the Unification
Church calls the Four Position Foundation. Therefore we can say that to
complete the ideal of creation means to complete the Four Position Foundation.
A person should not be concerned with himself. Starting from “myself”, a
person must pass through three stages. These three stages are: myself,
reciprocal partner, and child. The relationship of myself, reciprocal partner,
and child, centering on God, is the Four Position Foundation. Completion of
this Four Position Foundation is God’s purpose of creation.
GOD'S WILL
Many people are talking about God’s will. This terms seems very simple, but when we are suddenly asked: “What is God’s will?” it is extremely difficult to answer.
Until
today, many Christians have prayed; “Oh God! May Your will be done”. And we are
at present living a life of faith in order to fulfill God’s will. However it is
somewhat contradictory that we are living a life of faith for God’s will and
praying for its fulfillment at the same time.
I would
like to give a definition of God’s will: God’s will means “to fulfill the ideal
of creation”.
Then what
does “to fulfill the ideal of creation” mean? It means to fulfill the ideal of
man and woman. In other words, centering on Adam and Eve, the whole creation is
to become united into one, fulfilling the ideal of Adam and Eve. In the words
of the Unification Church Divine
Principle, God’s will means to complete the Four Position Foundation.
The Four
Position Foundation is the Foundation of the Family Centred on God, in which
God-centred Adam and Eve become an Ideal Couple, inseparably and completely
united, and multiply Children. When this Four Position Foundation is formed,
Adam and Eve become one United through the love of Husband and wife centering
on God and they are unable to leave God’s realm.
**********************************************************************************
What was
God’s purpose of creation? It was not just to watch Adam and Eve. The reason
for creating man and woman was not just for each of them to age and die. God’s
purpose of creation was for Adam and Eve
to grow and when they recognize their feelings towards the opposite sex,
to create humankind’s true heaven on earth, making a place of love centering on
God. Here, the male Adam would represent Heaven, and female Eve would represent
earth. Then as Adam and Eve became united horizontally, centering on Love,
heaven and earth would automatically have united.
More
Important to God than the moment of creating Adam and Eve was the precious
future they were to realize by completing the Four Position Foundation
centering on Love.
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