統一教-繼承神的真愛

True Families:

Gateways to Heaven

Foreword

Peace-loving citizens of the global community.

It gives us great pleasure to bring you a few passages from a special message from Heaven that is truly historic and providential. The Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon, who at the young age of 16 received Heaven’s calling and set out on the path to bring salvation to the world, has devoted his lifetime of 90 years to the task of declaring this message from Heaven and educating all humanity on its content.

The teachings given to us by Rev. Moon have been published in various collections, now numbering over a 1,000 volumes. In compiling this booklet, we have taken material from Cheon Seong Gyeong, “Book Four: True Family,” chapters 3, 4, and 5, and “Book Five: Earthly Life and the Spirit World.”

Out of the many teachings imparted by Rev. Moon over the past decades, the contents of this booklet outline God’s original vision for love, in other words, love between a true man and true woman with true love at the center. The booklet also contains material on the standard for true families, the value of living a true life, and existence in the corporeal and incorporeal worlds, including how human beings live in the spirit world.

It is a collection of excerpts taken from speeches given over a period ranging from the 1950s to the present. Where excerpts containing similar content have been placed together, the reader may feel it is somewhat repetitious. When the delicate texture of each passage is savored, with an appreciation of its unique background of chronology and circumstance, however, we realize that these are words of profound truth whose exquisite taste and deep meaning radiate from even the most seemingly insignificant word. We can compare this to the way spring comes every year, but without any two spring seasons ever being the same.

This can be true for the passages collected here, because the words do not come from any human mind. Instead, Heaven’s truth is being declared through Rev. Moon’s mouth.

We sincerely hope readers will not let go to waste the great grace Rev. Moon has given us by permitting this booklet to be published so that it may illuminate the future of humanity that seems veiled in darkness. Rev. Moon, who has been anointed by Heaven as the True Parent of humanity, now bestows this volume as a gift given in parental love to the people of the world. Please read this booklet carefully to its conclusion, and let it point the way for you to live your lives. Those who wish to know more may obtain and study the books Messages of Peace, Cheon Seong Gyeong and The Collected Speeches of Rev. Sun Myung Moon to be enlightened of an even greater truth.

May the abundant grace of Heaven be with you, your families, and your nations.

The Editor

Contents

 Foreword

Chapter One

The Family Is the Central Model for the Kingdom of Heaven

Section 1. The Central Model for All Beings   

Section 2. A Place to Experience the Love of the Universe

Section 3. A Training Ground to Enter the Kingdom of Love

Section 4. A Textbook for the Heavenly Kingdom 

Section 5. Bringing Together the Love of Three Generations 

Section 6. A Training Ground of the Heart 

Section 7. The Eternal Original Hometown      

Section 8. Completing the Cosmos-centered Ideology    

Chapter Two

The Human Course Centered on Love

Section 1. Why Are Human Beings Born?

Section 2. The Love-Centered Original Vision for Human Life

Section 3. Love, the Nutrient for Eternal Life   

Section 4. What is God’s Love Like?  

Section 5. God’s Blessing to Inherit Love and Joy      

Section 6. Living in Search of the Center of Love 

Section 7. The Three Eras of the Human Course 

Section 8. Training to be in Rhythm with the Spirit World

Chapter Three

The Original Vision for Love between Men and Women

Section 1. Bringing Joy to God and All Creation   

Section 2. The Reason Men and Women Are Born    

Section 3. Men and Women Absolutely Need Each Other

Section 4. Love Comes from the Partner

Section 5. Men and Women Harmonize in Love   

Section 6. Enraptured by True Love   

Section 7. Love Happens in Completely Natural Settings 

Chapter Four

The Human Course

Section 1. The Purpose that We Desire

Section 2. Why We are Born

Section 3. The Importance of the Moment

Section 4. Infancy and the Three Orderly Stages

Section 5. Our Life Course

Section 6. The Original Homeland

Section 7. The Loftiest Path in Life

Section 8. Standards for Birth and Life

      8.1 The wrong standard of birth

      8.2 The standard of our life course

Chapter Five

The Corporeal World and Incorporeal Worlds

Section 1. Prayers Relating to the Life Course

Section 2. Understanding Death

Section 3. The Three Stages of our Lives

Section 4. The Central Point between the Two Worlds

Section 5. The Spirit World Clearly Exists

Section 6. How the Spirit World was Created

Chapter One

The Family Is the Central Model for the Kingdom of Heaven

Section 1. The Central Model for All Beings

When a person stands in a spatial context, there will always be a higher and a lower, a right and a left, and a forward and a back. This is how position is determined. You may appear in a variety of different forms, depending on whether you have properly set your higher and lower, left and right, and front and back.

The same formula applies whether you are dealing with relationships of higher and lower, left and right, or front and back, or with the issues of family, country or the world.

In the same way that there is higher and lower, left and right, and front and back with the individual at the center, the family also will have parents and children, husband and wife, and brothers and sisters.

The same applies within a nation. With the leader of the nation at the center, all families embrace the civilizations of east and west and of north and south, and then embrace all the people of the world as their brothers and sisters. This will bring about a family model.

This model is the same for all. Each of you stands at the center of that model. This model represents a reasoning that says that from you should come your family, which then expands to the nation, world, heaven and earth, and finally to God. You do not merely have the desire to be the center of the universe; everyone has the potential to fulfill that desire. In this way, the concept of the family can be compared to the core of the universe. If we think of heaven as the parents, then earth represents the children. When considering east and west, east symbolizes the man and west the woman. So when a woman marries, she goes to wherever her husband is located. This can be compared to the way the west comes to have the same value as the east when it reflects the light from the sun.

The same is true with sibling relationships. When the oldest brother leads a task, the younger siblings start to help. So people need to be in a parent-child relationship, a conjugal relationship and a sibling relationship. In other words, these three relationships must meet at one point. There must be just one central point. There cannot be different central points for higher and lower, left and right, and front and back.

If the central points are different, the relationships of higher and lower, left and right, and front and back will be off balance. So higher and lower, 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 one in perfect true love with God at the center, and where all these elements form a complete spherical shape bringing harmony and unity. From this perspective, it makes sense that we often use the phrase “lucky seven.”

As long as true love never changes, this central core will rotate forever without changing, and the true family ideal will be realized. Also, because everything is connected to the core, each position starting with the core – one, two, three, four, five, six and seven – will possess equal value. If the grandfather wants something, the grandchild will not be against it, and the son and daughter will want it as well. Three generations will share a desire for the same thing. The grandfather and grandmother, husband and wife, and sons and daughters will all align with the center.

In terms of such love, we say that parents and children are one in their relationship and are of one body, that husbands and wives are one in their relationship and are of one body, and that siblings are one in their relationships and are of one body. They are one body. In what terms can we say that these relationships make us one body? It is in the terms of the true love of God, the center of love. With true love is at the center, parents and children become one, husband and wife become one, and brothers and sisters all become one. In this way, all come to have the equal value. (299-114, 1999.2.7)[1]

Section 2. A Place to Experience the Love of the Universe

What is the universe? Everything in the created world is designed as a study aid to help God’s beloved sons and daughters discover and understand the ideal of love. This is why everything exists in reciprocal relationships.

Even minerals interact in relationships of subject and object partners. The same is true with atoms. Protons and electrons also interact in relationships of subject and object partners. Without such interaction, they cannot continue to exist. Without motion, there is no permanence or continued existence. So the universe is a world created in a way that its central point can only be reached through human beings. (137-59, 1985.12.18)

What did I say about the universe? It is an expansion of the family. If you look at a family that has fully realized the ideal of love, it has higher, middle and lower (parents, husband and wife, and children), left and right, and front and back. This is the basic rule. So when we talk about higher and lower, we refer to the parents and children; when we talk about left and right we refer to the husband and wife; and when we talk about front and back, we refer to the siblings.

What can let all these become as one? It cannot be done with power, knowledge or money. What can do it, then? It is true love. This is an unmistakable truth. Otherwise, the family cannot become spherical in shape.

So what is the significance of higher, middle and lower in the family? They are study aids for love. We are supposed to put these into practice when we go out of the family and into the wider community.

How should we love? Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” What did he mean? It’s not clear. He meant that when you go out into the world and meet an old man, you should treat him as you would your own grandfather. Treat people as would your own mother, your own father or your own son. This is what we should do when we are in the world.

The world can be compared to an exhibition hall filled with people, with each person being in the form of higher, middle and lower, front and back, or left and right. The world is an exposition of all the different types of human beings. If you can love everyone with such love, God will dwell with you in the midst of that love. (128-22, 1983.5.29)

What is the Kingdom of Heaven? It is where you are able to love the people of the world as you do your own family. People who do this are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. Your grandfather and grandmother, your mother and father, your spouse, your siblings, and your children – what are these four generations? They are the family that is a study aid for you to deeply experience love, the true love of the universe as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. The family is a foundation that serves as a study aid for you to learn. (129-98, 1983.10.1)

We cannot live without learning the love of the universe. God has prepared textbooks and scriptures that teach us this way: “Love your grandmother and grandfather. Your grandmother and grandfather on earth are sent as representatives of the grandmothers and grandfathers in the spirit world. If you love them, I will credit you for having loved them all.” This is His pledge.

Next God says, “When you show exceptional love for your mother and father, it is because you hold them to be textbooks and models to be loved as representatives of the countless number of mothers and fathers in the world, so I will credit you for having loved all mothers and fathers. Also, when you as a man love a woman, I will consider that a man representing all men in the world men has loved a woman representing all women in the world.”

Then He says: “Since you have loved your sons and daughters, I will credit you for having loved all sons and daughters.” So the family is where we can be trained to do this.

We are trained to love the world in a process that relies on scripture. When a person who has received this training is asked, “Are you ready now to go into the world and love the grandfathers and grandmothers of the world as you would your own?” and the person answers “Yes,” then this person is capable of saving the world. (130-273, 1984.2.5)

Section 3. A Training Ground to Enter the Kingdom of Love

God’s will is to realize the kingdom of love. When we say that God’s will is to develop and globalize the ideal world of love, the family is the testing ground where people earn credits, all the way from an elementary school certificate to a bachelor’s degree and a doctoral degree.

Expand the family, and you have the world. Look closely at the world. There 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 young people live, and a world where children live. So this place where people of all ages – from old age to middle age, young people and children – live together is a family, only with much greater dimensions and larger numbers of people. (147-281, 1986.10.1)

The family is the smallest unit for entering the Kingdom of Heaven that acts as a training center and a study aid. It has all the levels: the grandfather’s level, parents’ level, husband and wife level and sibling’s level. Each level – such as the grandfather and grandmother level, the mother and father level, your own level, and your children’s level – can be expanded to include people in the world at large who are of similar age. This expansion will encompass all humanity. Only a family that loves all humanity as much as it does its own wife and its own parents, and lives for the sake of the world as much as it does for its own sons and daughters can inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. This is an amazing fact. The special 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 that lets us obtain the right to be registered in the Palace of Peace in the Kingdom of Heaven after we die. So the family is a training ground of love. The extension of this family is the world. There is a world that resembles the grandfather of the family, a world that resembles the grandmother, a world that resembles the father and mother, and a world that resembles the son and daughter. Expand the family, and you have the world.

So if you love the people of the whole world as much as you love your family, as much as you love God with your family at the center, this will become a straight road leading to the Kingdom of Heaven. This why 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.”

The second is, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If you love God and love humanity, everything will be accomplished. If you cannot do this, any spiritual training you may do will be of no use. No matter how great a religion’s spiritual discipline may be, it will fail all the tests if it does not know how to love God, humankind and the universe.

In the family, you should experience love in a formula course that is similar to a training center encapsulating the whole universe, and then expand this to love the world. The training ground you have inherited as a place where you can have this experience is the family where you were raised and where your mother and father live.

So 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 everyone this way, then everyone who received your love will love your wife. Is there a more glorious place than this? If you want to love your wife, this is how you should do it. (142-242, 1986.3.11)

Section 4. A Textbook for the Heavenly Kingdom

What kind of good fortune should a person in the child’s position receive? They should inherit the good fortune of the grandparents and parents. Why do we need grandparents? It is because they represent the past. Grandparents represent the living history of the past. Parents represent the present, and children symbolize the future. The family encompasses east and west and also north and south. It is 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 – in every case, true love is the center. When you love your grandparents and respect them, you do this to inherit the past completely and learn about the world that has gone by.

From your father, you learn about the present, and by loving your children you learn about the future. What do you inherit through your grandfather and grandmother, and mother and father? You inherit true love. You are saying: “Our grandfather and grandmother are old, but they are as one in true love, and our parents have become as one, too. So let’s be the same way and inherit the future.”

Unless we become an absolute true family, we cannot inherit the future. When we look at the three generations of a family, it is like looking at the universe. The love of the universe exists in the true family that represents the present and future. In the animal world as well, the male loves the female and the female the male. This is a textbook teaching us about the love of the universe.

If the grandmother is away, there is a feeling of uneasiness. The same is true when the grandfather is not there. It is the same for either one. Only when both are together can they move just as they are into the Kingdom of Heaven. Only when the grandparents, mother and father, and children are all there can the family go as it is into the Kingdom of Heaven. The person who has loved the true grandparents, the true parents, the true children, the true family, the true nation and the true universe can enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The model and textbook for the Kingdom of Heaven is the true family. (162-140, 1987.4.5)

The family is a study aid that enables us to establish the Kingdom of Heaven. It is a study aid created by Heaven. If a person, no matter where he may be in the world, can love as he would love his own grandfather every old man he sees who is about the same age to his own grandfather, this person will go to the Kingdom of Heaven.

If a person can love as he would love his own parents everyone he meets who is about the same age as his parents, this person will be welcomed anywhere. It will be the same in any country. He will face no boundaries, even when he goes to the spirit world. If he can have a heart that thinks of all the young people of world as his own sons and daughters, he will be able to travel freely within the Kingdom of Heaven, even if there are twelve gates of pearl and directional quadrants. So the family is a study aid that shows us how to connect ourselves to the Kingdom of Heaven. When we apply this to the nation, we become patriots. When we apply it to the world, we become saints. When we apply it with heaven and earth at the center, we become God’s sons and daughters, that is, His divine sons and daughters. This is a desire shared by every person. (137-78, 1985.12.18)

You must be able to embrace the sons and daughters of all races, as well as their grandsons and granddaughters. You must stand in a position where you, as a true parent with God’s true love, are the owner of a family who has loved all the world’s people. You can only enter the Kingdom of Heaven when you stand in a position to represent the standard of a family of true love within a relationship with the original parents with God’s love at the center. (176-210, 1988.5.9)

Section 5. Bringing Together the Love of Three Generations

The family is capable of encompassing past history, the present era and the future. So the ultimate point that God has sought for six thousand years is the family – the family connected through love and united in love.

Everything that exists comes under the dominion of true love. We cannot cut ourselves off from a relationship with a love that is causal and absolute. The original mission given to Adam and Eve at the time of creation was to establish such a family.

God did not want Adam and Eve to become no more than an individual man and an individual woman. He looked forward to the new family they would form through their union. This is God’s primary point of origin in creating men and women. So it is only when we establish true families, and live in this world in a position where we feel fulfillment within the realm of that family with God’s love at the center that we will be able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven without any problem. This is the only way we can transcend this world. (30-86, 1970.3.17)

To form the family realm of love you must be absolute. The parents must be able to represent the past, the husband and wife must be able to represent the present, and the children must be able to represent the future. For you to love one partner in a particular age is equivalent to God relating to the world. In this place, husband and wife, and children, having become as one body, are able to represent the cosmos and tell others to take their love as an example to follow, and tell their descendents to follow in their path. The place where they can make such statements both to themselves and to others, the place where the heart of heaven is communicated, is the homeland of the heart that will be remembered by all heaven and earth. (30-80, 1970.3.17)

What has God been seeking all this time? He has not been seeking a subject partner; rather He has sought an ideal object partner. He has been looking for those who resemble God and possess 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. Nothing represents the universe better than the family. To be one with our parents is to bring the past and present together. Here, you can love the past by loving your parents, love the present by loving your spouse, and love the future by loving your children. You can experience the love of three generations. The core unit 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 in some other place. The Kingdom of Heaven is nothing more than a three-dimensional expansion of the family; it does not exist separately from the family. So when you embrace your husband or wife, you should think of this as creating the union of all men and all women in the world. This is how the family is where you can set the condition for having loved all humanity. This is the type of path that you should follow in your lives. To love your parents is to connect past history with the present era; it is to pave a road that will let God come to you.

This is the reason you must love your parents. To love your parents is to connect everything in the past to yourself as an inhabitant of the present, that is, to bring together the past and the present so they become as one. Also, loving your own children is to connect the present reality with the future.

Unification Thought is the philosophy that extols such love and teaches how it can be practiced throughout eternity. (30-83, 1970.3.17)

Section 6. A Training Ground of the Heart

We cannot live separately from the heart. Even if you were the president of a country or possessed all the authority in the world, you could not live without a place to express the joy in your heart. Your heart would not be fulfilled with the people under your command, your ministers of government, or your followers. Only in your family could you experience such fulfillment. You return to your family, and you and your spouse feel joy through each other and through your children. You should be able to boast to others about this joy. This joy can only be experienced directly, not second hand.

The same is true for God. Even if He were to restore the whole world, without a family He could not feel joy. So we must have families. (25-86, 1969.9.30)

In the family, parents should be at the center. In educational institutions that represent society, teachers should be at the center. Your parents raised you from the time you were breast feeding, and helped you develop physically and emotionally. What is school, then? It is a place where you are trained for your future life in society. If the family is the training ground of the emotions, then school is the place where you can experiment and train for your future life in society.

But society is not the ultimate end. It all comes back to the nation, and the nation has a leader. Why is it that people want to see the president and to be near him? Once people have learned all they can in the family and then in society, they have a desire to go on to the next level.

The president is the fruit of the third stage, following on stages of formation and growth. Once a seed is planted, it begins a cyclical action and divides. Later, it comes together again to produce a flower and bear fruit. In the same way, schools need to raise up people who will become important pillars of society, talented people who are needed by the nation.

What is the purpose of our studies in school? It is training. The school is a place for training and experimenting. With training, you are not in the actual situation. It is a preparation stage. Be sure to prepare well.

What is the family? It is place to train the heart. You train your heart with love at the center. So, in school, you should relate to others with affection as would your own siblings. In the nation, too, you should relate to others with affection. The education you receive from your parents will be important for you in school and in the nation.

Parents should pass on everything having to do with the heart to their children. They should create a foundation of heart for their children, and teach their children to live as they have lived, giving specific guidance on how to live in the family, in society, and in the nation. (180-130, 1988.8.22)

When you consider the family, a family is not necessarily good just because there is a nice house and an affluent environment. Conversely, even if a family may live in a poor environment and a humble house, it will be a good family if it offers peace and its members are able to connect all aspects of their lives to it. In this family, parents and children will have a relationship of heart that lets them live for each other. This family will be the original homeland of our dreams. It will be the source of our motivation in all that we do in life. This means it will be the basis for determining our happiness in life. (29-17, 1970.2.15)

Section 7. The Eternal Original Hometown

Family. The family is a good place. Why is it good? It is good, 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 all my relatives are there. This is why every human being feel a yearning for his or her original homeland. People feel more deeply about their hometown than they do about the nation. A Korean will love the nation of Korea and want to live in Korea. But what is the place that he will yearn to return to, even when he is in Korea? It is his hometown. Our hometown!

Then, how can we describe our hometown? It is a place where our hearts are lifted up in their entirety, in four directions and in three dimensions. What is that heart? It is the ties that bind us in love. Above us, we are bound to our mother and father; to our left and right, we are bound to our spouse; and below us, we are bound to our sons and daughters. Then we are bound in love to our relatives on these three dimensions. This is the heart of the original homeland.

People consider the point of origin of their happiness, where true love is at the center, as more important than anything else. This is the reason they cannot help but feel a yearning for their original homeland. Then, where is God’s original homeland? Where do you think God’s original homeland is on the planet Earth? This is a question we need to consider.

If God is the God of love, He must surely have prepared a starting point on earth where He could reside. So where is this starting point? To answer this question, we need to understand how God prepared that starting point.

What kind of place can become the starting point of the original homeland where God’s family can be prepared? This must be the place where a son of God dwells who truly understands that God is his Father. In other words, it is a place where there is a son, God’s only-begotten son, who can be a receptacle for all of God’s love. Also it is a place where such a daughter dwells. It is a place where such a son and a daughter of God marry and form a completed family. (23-151, 1969.5.18)

Then who should be in the original homeland? All the people you miss should be there. Your parents should be there and your brothers and sisters should be there. And the people you have wanted to see should be there. These are not people you would want to see just for a moment. They are people with whom you could spend eternity and never grow tired of them. This is the type of environment that we need to establish. This is the Kingdom of Heaven that religions pursue in this age. (23-81, 1969.5.11)

We long for our original homeland, because this is where we find the people who are closest to us: our parents, our brothers and sisters, and our relatives. These people will always guide us. Whenever we visit, they will welcome us just as they did in the past. When we face difficulty, they will show sympathy, console us and receive us with joy. It is important to realize, however, that though you may return to your original homeland with a heart of longing, if people do not welcome you on your arrival, then your intense heart of longing will vanish and you will turn back with feelings of deep regret. You need to have people there who will welcome you. (23-80, 1969.5.11)

Section 8. Completing the Cosmos-centered Ideology

All things start from one, divide into many, and ultimately come together again as something larger. In other words, one divides into many and then unites again as one. From here, it divides again and is integrated into something even larger. This process is repeated continuously.

This is the context in which families exist, but the form of the family itself is not changed in the process of integration. The family is where the relationship of husband and wife is first established and the place where these two people become as one. The tribe brings families together as one, and the race is a place that brings the clans together as one. Races combine to form one nation. The family, however, is always at the center. The horizontal world comes about by expanding the family.

This is why no society can do without the family. If families cannot be restored, the world cannot be restored. The next step is to fulfill the cosmos-centered ideal through these families. The cosmos encompasses heaven and earth. Heaven and earth can be compared to a person’s mind and body. 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 unless such a family is at the center. (26-189, 1969.10.25)

The cosmos-centered ideology is a philosophy that unites the mind and body, then forms a family as God’s main body of love, and connects that idea to the spirit world and physical world. The character “ju” (宙) in “cheon-ju” (cosmos) refers to a house. That is why we use the term “cosmos-centered ideology.” The cosmos is a combination of the incorporeal world and the corporeal world.

What does this have to do with us? Everyone needs a family. If you cannot be as one in your family, you will 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 in there families will be miserable, whether they are on earth or in the spirit world. (26-189, 1969.10.25)

From where does the task of bringing about the Kingdom of Heaven begin? It begins in our families. Then what kind of ideology do we have? It is a family-centered ideology. In the term cheon-ju ju-eui (cosmos-centered ideology), cheon means heaven and ju means house; so it means the ideology of heaven’s house. Only then does the meaning of cheon-ju (cosmos) become clear.

Everything in the 66 books of the Bible is the word of God expressing His earnest desire for the ideal family. Then, what is the earnest desire of every man? It is to have an ideal wife. Also, every person born as a woman has an earnest desire to have an ideal husband. A woman may earn the highest academic degrees and speak words that influence world events, but her deepest desire will be to meet an ideal man. She will want to meet an ideal man she can love and with whom she can give birth to sons and daughters filled with blessing. This is the root of happiness. The ideal of the Unification Church does not lie anyplace else. It begins in the family, and is concluded in the family. (26-103, 1969.10.18)

So what kind of ideology is the cosmos-centered ideology? It is cham-bu-mo ju-eui, or true parent-centered ideology. Ultimately, these two are ideologies upholding parents. This is the ideology of our home, the ideology of our nation, and ideology of each of you as individuals.

Had human beings not fallen, whose ideology would have ruled the world? It would have been Adam’s ideology. This Adam ideology is exactly the same as true parent-centered ideology. It is the father-mother ideology. No ideology can be higher than this.

This is the reason the Unification Church must link matters of the heart with heavenly ideology through the philosophy of true parents within the framework of the original ideal family. As long as connections remain to families that have internalized such a philosophy, the Unification Church will not perish. (26-201, 1969.10.25)

Chapter Two

The Human Course Centered on Love

Section 1. Why Are People Born?

If we ask the question “Which came first, life or love?” the answer can be argued either way. But which do you think really came first? Love came first. The fundamental core of the universe must disseminate love prior to originating existence. Otherwise, the value of existence cannot come into being. (143-277, 1986.3.20)

When we examine the origin of life, we must ask whether life or love came first. Until now we have not been able to discern this clearly. It was not life that came first. It was love. Because what came second must fall in line behind what came first, it is natural that we offer our lives for the sake of love. This is how we should understand it.

This then lets us understand how to live our lives in a way that is true. We conclude that since love gave birth to life, we must walk the way of love and die for love. The purpose of human life is to establish a love that can be welcomed by the macrocosm, not the microcosm. It is to be born, to love and to die in the midst of the great universal love that is acknowledged by God, creation, our parents, and the angelic world. (83-164, 1976.2.8)

Human beings do not choose to be born. Then, are we born by our parents’ desire? No. We are born by God’s desire. We are born through the love of our parents, which represents God’s love. Each of us was created as a new life by means of the love of our parents, representing God’s love.

Love has the power to create the whole. Each of us was born as a central being of the entire universe, receiving all the love in the universe. The highest purpose of life is to be born through love, be raised in love, live by love, and to leave a legacy of love when we die. Nothing can be of greater value for a person than to live out his natural life within his own family as a life of love that is the center of the universe. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I - 1063, 1978.9.21)

It is important to understand why people are born. We are not born for the sake of knowledge or power. We are born because of love and from love. Then what makes love so great? It is because love is the fountainhead of life.

You were born in the midst of your parents’ love. You are not born from your parents’ desire for monetary profit or pursuit of knowledge. Because you were born in love this way, you should bear fruit in love. This is why you need to have children.

A husband and wife become complete when they become as one with each other and come to have sons and daughters as their partners. Human beings cannot exist apart from love. So we can say that each of us lives on the foundation of love. Everything in creation has the origin of its existence in God’s love.

Since the existence of all things has love as its foundation, so it is undeniable that human beings, as the center of the created universe, must also have begun in love. Since human beings begin in love and mature through love, we are beings that cannot live apart from the standard of love. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I -1062, 1988.8.20)

Section 2. The Love-Centered Original Vision for Human Life

What is the cause of human existence? The cause originated in love. Then, where do you think the purpose of human existence lies? The purpose of our existence is to fulfill the ideal of love. Human beings came into being through love, so our purpose is to perfect love by forming a foundation of love, and then expand and connect it so that it becomes complete.

Because the beginning is love, the purpose must also be reached through love. For this, a man and a woman in a partner relationship must become as one in love and connect forward and back, left and right, and higher and lower. Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I – 1064, 1986.1.3)

Even if a person becomes an absolute being, or establishes an absolute purpose, it will be of no use unless this person is joyful. Our daily lives should be joyful.

We live for the sake of a certain purpose. When we achieve this purpose, something new comes into being that is greater than the original existence itself. What is this? What is most precious for a man, or a woman? It is love.

Only love can be the key element of happiness connecting this to joy. No matter how lofty a person’s purpose may be, if he fails to establish the authority of love that stands in the subject position over his purpose, he will have to pursue a different purpose. The limitation of purpose is that it cannot stand above love. (29-130, 1970.2.26)

What are you living for? There will be some who say they live to eat. Others will say they live to work, and still others who say they live without a purpose.

What do human beings live for? If someone says he lives for the sake of love, what a wonderful answer that would be. Human beings are born as the fruit of love, give love during the course of their lives, and eventually return to the eternal love of God’s bosom. This is the original vision of human life as created it. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I -1064, 1982.4.26)

We are born in love and raised in love. Then, we connect to a love of another dimension, meaning that we leave the love of our parents and seek out a love that is with a partner. We can say that our parents love is formation stage love and that conjugal love is growth stage love. No matter how much a couple may be in love, they cannot see the completion of their love until they have children. This is why they want to have children. This is completion stage love. So the process of going through parental love, conjugal love, and children’s love is the fundamental basis for how we lead our lives, and the fundamental path leading to the love ideal as God created it. (48-12, 1971.8.31)

Love gives birth to life. We are born of love, raised in love by the love of our parents, meet a loving wife and love her, and then die in that love; this is the course of human life. So the original vision for human life was that there would be no sorrow or pain. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I -1065, 1982.10.29)

Originally, the fundamental position of the universe would be a love-centered standard where everything converges simultaneously in a union that is comprehensive, encompassing both the vertical and horizontal. Here, parental love, conjugal love, and children’s love would create such a union. This becomes the point of focus for the entire universe, the directional orientation of all cells in the universe. All the spirits in spirit world would be focused on this point.

Moreover, they would protect this position so that no one could invade it. If this place were destroyed, it would be catastrophic. For it to be protected and preserved, it needs to taken on some kind of structure. In the teachings of the Unification Church, this structure is called the Four-Position Foundation. (Blessed Families and the Ideal Kingdom of Heaven vol. I -1066, 1982.10.29)

[1] For passages originating from The Collected Speeches of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the citation is given in parentheses at the end of each passage in the order of volume number, page number and the date of the speech. Dates are in the order of year, month and day