1.1 The true meaning of education
How should you raise your children? You should raise them like God, to have beauty and excellence, as God did when He created Adam and Eve. This is the standard of education.
What is the person like who resembles God? He or she would not be someone with a big face, great life force and power like God. For this, you just have to be a complete person and learn to love like God. We desire to resemble God and, to do this, we must stand in the position of having loved like God.
Then, what is God's love? If you analyze it, it is manifested through parental love, conjugal love, and filial love. There is nothing more. There are only those three kinds of love. This is why children love their parents, husbands and wives become one, and parents love their children. The three generations, must be one (76-283, 03/07/1975)
When you study at school, you do not study for your own sake, but in order to grasp God's world of heart by deeply realizing the beauty of His Creation. How wonderful this is! By knowing God, we can both elevate and deepen our love. Even if your teacher treats you roughly, you must understand that he seeks to enable you to absorb the love of Heaven and of nature and to establish you as a central figure and master of love. Also, when you go out and work in society, having to sail through heavy wind, you should think that this is for the sake of realizing love and manifesting its true value. (106-139, 12/24/1979)
You cannot acquire ability in a moment. You can only become good at something by actually being actively involved and getting down to the nitty-gritty of the problem. The reason you go to school and study is to learn from the experience of other people. In order to inherit their achievements and make them yours, you have to walk the paths they trod. You will acquire ownership only after having understood and putting that understanding into practice. (72-298, 07/14/1974)
Everybody walks the path of learning, and for what purpose? It is in order to proceed to a higher world of goodness and to attain greater value. We know that people pursue this purpose in order to connect with a center of higher dimension, directly or indirectly. (109-264, 11/02/1980)
Our teachers' love and guidance serve as a bridge to connect us with the world. The teacher's stamp of approval symbolizes his love. The teacher is in a position distinct from that of our parents. A parent's declaration, "Our children are great!" doesn't mean much to the rest of the world; whereas a certificate signed by the teacher carries greater weight. School is the first gate of entry into society. We go there to do our best in conforming to our teachers' expectations and through that we experience a love relationship not found within the family. The love between students and teachers represents that within the community, the greater society and ultimately the world. That is how schooling ought to be: students should be motivated and inspired by the care and concern of their teachers. Through schooling we should grow in our concern and love for society and the world. This is how beautiful and valuable school life is meant to be. (130-210, 01/22/1984)
Education is necessary for our salvation. Our ancestors fell out of ignorance. Adam and Eve, who were supposed to grow from the Realm of Indirect Dominion to the Realm of Direct Dominion, were ignorant. They were still juveniles. They were growing without understanding the full significance of God's Will. Thus they fell without knowing what the Fall signified. They fell while being in a state of ignorance. Since they fell in ignorance of their original path, successive generations could not surmount that depth of ignorance. This is why we must proceed to lead mankind out of that ignorance. (136-198, 12/29/1985)
Education needs to be strengthened all the time. This is why I have always invested in education no matter what opposition or difficulties came my way. Whenever I had the money, I would put it into education. Even now we provide public education through our Victory Over Communism (VOC) activities. We provide instruction, thus strengthening the resolve of those who attend and thereby raising them to a higher dimension in their thinking.
As such, you should not cause harm in any way. Wherever you go, there must be progress and no retreat. Retreat does not reinforce education.
In daily encounters with people, you should encourage and empower them. You should influence them every day. Through this, you motivate them to resolve to bring good results tomorrow. This is how education is strengthened.
Education is not just teaching with books from a podium. Every single word and deed of yours is education. It is also the case with women's clothing. Though you may not be well dressed, what you wear is a reflection of your character, our body being a reflection of our mind.
When our entire life is connected with the realm of education, it can stimulate everybody. The strengthening of education in our own life is the beginning of social development and the source of new hope for the world. (144-178, 04/24/1986)
What you should concern yourself with is not money or power. The problem is people - how to educate them and who can raise them well. This will determine whether a country can be saved by its organizations or by its citizens. (147-13, 08/20/1986)
Originally, education does not just mean science. Science must be taught, but it is not the most important thing. Education should serve to create a person. Parents should be able to say, "Do such and such things because your parents have done the same." Parents do not tell their children to steal. Rather, they will say, "You work for the sake of others, heaven and earth, and humankind." This is the heavenly way. (151-272, 01/06/1963)
At school, people receive education from childhood until they enter society as adults. Universities educate them through their undergraduate and post-graduate programs until they enter society; and in society, it is the media that educate them. This jeopardizes everything. The media do all kinds of things to maximize their profits. You should take pride in being able to influence the social morality of the world. (270-288, 07/16/1995)