4.1 The family is the best place to learn true love

The family is an educational "textbook" for building relationships with the heavenly kingdom. When applied to a nation, patriots will rise. When applied to the world, saints will come forth. Centering on heaven and earth, we become saints as well as God's sons and daughters. All humanity has that desire. (371-192, 03/01/2002)

Our parents at home and our teachers at educational institutions ought to be at the center of society. Parents breast-feed and rear us, that is, both physiologically and emotionally they guide our development. Similarly, schools train us as preparation for our social lives and futures. If the family is the training ground for our aesthetic sentiments, the school is the training ground for experiments in society.
The family is the place for training our hearts. Therefore, we have to love and live together with our brothers and sisters in schools and in the nation. Education from parents is education for the school, society and nation. Parents have to bequeath all emotional aspects to their children and successors. They have to lay the emotional foundation for their offspring by demonstrating how they should live in the family, in the society, and for the nation, just as how the parents have been living. (180-130, 08/22/1988)

Parents who do not sleep out of love for their children are near heaven. Establishing an absolute foundation for the family, they declare that their family is a production base for manufacturing a heavenly family. You have to protect and educate your children in such a way that they too go on to manufacture such a happy family. (194-132, 10/17/1989)

A model foothold for building the earthly Kingdom of Heaven is the family. The fact that God could not make a textbook for teaching humanity to become His true sons and daughters has always been His deep sorrow because man fell.
When could He teach humankind to be His true children? You have to understand this has remained as an unrealized hope. Next, the fact that He could not write a manual for teaching mankind to erect a world of love is also a cause of bitterness. The guidebook on how siblings should live was not produced.
Born as His children, Adam and Eve should have grown up as brother and sister, and made a textbook for their siblings. Subsequently when they became man and wife, they should have made another textbook for married couples. After they became father and mother, they should have made yet one further book on traditions for parents. They failed to do that, so there are no such handbooks at present. There should be a total of four textbooks. (224-268, 12/15/1991)

The family is a place for both education and training through true love. Children must be grounded in the fundamental teachings. Then the siblings, couples and parents must also receive the appropriate education. These are the Four Great Principles. (225-159, 01/12/1992)

What is the system of an ideal world? Its basic unit is the family. The family is the base of the heavenly kingdom, and the cornerstone for building the heavenly kingdom. No matter how large the population of citizens is, a person who confronts his nation with a love that extends beyond the family can travel freely in the heavenly kingdom. You must have a mind like such a person, to receive education at home as in the textbook.
The grandparents, parents, couple and children live in the family. If these are extended to the world, there will be people in the same age groups as the grandparents, parents, couple and children.
Hence, a person who has experienced love in his family, as in the textbook, faces no hindrances anywhere in the world. He is qualified since he has lived according to the book. Such a man has no need to worry about food or lodging in any house. Such a time will come if only this kind of education is carried out.
I seem to be speaking of the remotest possibility. Try it, and see whether I am just telling you a fairy tale. I am teaching you to adapt yourselves to that world. The family is therefore the elementary textbook. If you live as taught in the family, there won't be international borders or any other types of obstacles blocking you. With that heart, even closed doors or blocked walls will heartily welcome you with outstretched arms by opening themselves up. Grassland will respond to you in the same way. I sound crazy, don't I?
It is the same for God. If He tries to teach His children, saying, "Since the ideal of love is so great, you must love everyone and everything more than your own lives!" They will reply, "How about you, God?" Then God must be able to say, "You have to do that, just as I have." The reason is that He cannot teach us something that He cannot fulfill Himself.
When He says, "I myself have endeavored to be absolutely obedient to love, so your couple must be submissive to love even at the cost of your lives, and walk a path of helping and living for others!" If they answer in the positive, contradictory logic on the front, back, left, right, up and down will be utterly resolved. Thus, God is also unconditionally submissive to love....
The restoration of the elder son's right, the parents' right, and kingship is first. After having restored the elder son's right, you become the citizen of a new nation. Centering on the family, you have to experience, with your heart, the educational content of the four great textbooks.
Next, based on the system of the ideal world, if a person applies the living environment of the family to the nation, the living environment of the nation to the world, the living environment of the world to the cosmos, and the living environment of the cosmos to God, nothing will ever block him. He will receive a red-carpet reception in the physical and spiritual worlds. (225-224, 01/20/1992)

The family is a place for training us to be a perfectly qualified candidate in the afterlife. Who is the owner of the family? He is the one who loves his family members most. Likewise, who is the owner of today's world? Taking heaven as a large family, he must be the one who loves all humanity living on this earth most. Don't the white people think they alone are the superior race? That is not right. If only the West exists without the East, it is tantamount to saying there is no West. The East and the West are relative and complementary to each other. (247-312, 06/01/1993)

You have to be cognizant of the fact that the family is the main training ground. When my wife and I got married, we promised each other not to cry in front of our children. Children are innocent. No matter how indignant or mortified we may be, when our kids come to greet us the next morning, we have to wipe off the tears from our eyes as soon as we open the door, and put on a smile on our faces like the previous day. The children's mother must hug and make them kiss her, and then ask them to kiss their father. Are there women who can do that?
Children come first to their mother's bosom. She must not hesitate to embrace them like yesterday and make them kiss her, and then tell them to kiss their father. Or both the parents may kiss their children while hugging them. That kind of education is necessary in the family. Do Unification Church members do that or not? Unless you can hardly see your children in a lifetime, you must not shed tears before them, and leave behind an indelible trace or a heartrending countenance in their impressionable mind. If there is such a likelihood, everything will return to nothingness. (251-98, 10/17/1993)

What are earthly families? They function as factories to re-create men for the heavenly kingdom. Children will pick up things and know God naturally. Due to the human Fall, humanity became ignorant of the fundamental truth and has to be taught about God and His existence. (254-246, 02/13/1994)

The smallest unit of the fruition of God's love is the family. It therefore becomes man's expectation of happiness, ideal and life. This is also the reason why I have been speaking about family values and holding international marriage blessing ceremonies for the sake of ideal families throughout my life.
The family is the most significant school of love. Through education in love and heart that parents can give their children within the sphere of the family, their hearts grow in depth and breadth. The family is the foundation stone for building the character of our children, and the school for teaching them love and virtue. Receiving education on the intellectual, physical and technical aspects on the foundation of emotional and normative education is the heavenly way. (271-75, 08/22/1995)

Our family has to be located in the root holy ground. As it is situated at the world's central position as well as the root holy ground, we can shout, "The owner of the root holy ground is my family! The owner of the original holy ground and the holy ground of victory is also my family!" This is possible owing to God and our succeeding to the vertical and horizontal victorious foundation restored through True Parents' indemnity and toil. Based on all relationships and the family education for the tribe, nation and world, the time to start organizing the world's tribes and the time of hope for the world has come at last! (303-140, 08/08/1999)