4.3 The importance of the family and children's education

What kind of life should those of you seeking the original Eden live in the future? Modeling your lives after Jesus and searching for the elements of cosmic and heavenly happiness, you have to be a substantial body of glory before God; a true man and true woman who can introduce God's happiness, love and glory wherever you are; and at the same time be able to teach others to feel grateful to God. (2-251, 06/09/1957)

Everybody desires to have a wonderful son. To bring him up to be somebody great, how should you educate him? Some say they may nurture him in an area where there are many schools, from the kindergarten to university level. Education is required throughout a lifetime, though. You have to set up prayer conditions to raise him well. When you appoint your son to take charge of the family or clan as your successor, it is the usual custom to train him to acquire the same level of heart as yours and to follow your example. (24-256, 08/24/1969)

As parents, when you educate your own children, you should not teach them to love you only. You must tell them, "I'm a loyal citizen and patriot who deeply loves this nation. I wish to be a parent to patriots and loyal citizens." (26-294, 11/10/1969)

To accomplish His Will, you have to serve and attend God in your heart. A responsible parent must not haphazardly, but concretely, teach his children to walk the right path. (28-84, 01/04/1970)

Who will restore the lost original family? Every individual has to. You yourself have to be in unison with God and with your children. Finding and teaching your spiritual children, you have to raise them to be children of faith who can walk this path in your place. Only then will a perfect foundation for the Sabbath be established. If this standard is set in your generation, you can stand in a position greater than Jesus'. (371-195, 03/01/2002)

If parents teach their children that they cannot live apart from them, that family will perish. However, a family that teaches its children not to separate themselves from their society and nation will flourish. "Since I'm a butcher, I expect you to be one too when you grow up." "I'm a merchant, so you'd better be good at trading." A family dispensing such education will go to the dogs.
Every parent has to teach his child to be somebody great in his or her country. The world today is approaching us. The period of teaching your children to be famous in the nation has already passed. Now you have to teach them to be world figures. Live in this world! (28-190, 01/11/1970)

How do parents traditionally inculcate their growing children with their ideals and philosophies? That is the question. Toiling six thousand years for the providence of restoration, how does God pull His children out of the satanic world? Similarly, how do you teach your offspring in the fallen world? You have to deal with these two crosses. (29-269, 03/11/1970)

The highest level of public life is to labor for the heavenly cosmos. Our Unification Church is all about cheonju(cosmos)-ism, not cheonji(heaven and earth)-ism. Ju in cheonju connotes "house." The owner is not a person, but a house or family. (371-196, 03/01/2002)

The origin of the formation of a nation is not a person but a family. The world cannot be formed without families. Should families err, the nation will wane. Family education therefore controls the fate of a nation, which can receive blessings from now on. The more families abide by the righteous legal principles of a country, the more prosperous that nation will be. In contrast, the more families live by individual standards, the more detrimental it will be. (31-241, 06/04/1970)

The search for one nation has to begin from the individual. How much do we have to cherish him! When he establishes a family, and it takes the place of the nation and world, we have to dearly love his family and attach great importance to it.
Centering on your beloved children, you have to establish a new tribe separated from Satan. In a parental position, you have to establish a family that makes an all-out effort to elevate its fortune in relationships. With all your heart and might, you have to live a life of loving and teaching.
From the educational aspect, I live to show my son and daughter the way they have to go, to build a foundation of happiness for them and a foundation of welfare for the nation. Living for that higher purpose is something solemn and noble, and that becomes the origin of a new world. Our responsibility as God's children will commence only if we can regard that as more valuable than anything else in the cosmos. What a wonderful life it is! (34-61, 08/29/1970)

You must have your own educational materials for teaching your children this way, saying, "My beloved sons and daughters! Don't be indebted to your parents, brothers and sisters, and your neighbors. I have made so much effort not to owe anybody anything in my lifetime that my hands are crooked and the skin of my hands has become horsehide." Your son would be punished if he were to say, "Dad, your hands have become like this because you live for the sake of the neighbors and for others. I don't want to see them!" (85-132, 03/02/1976)

What must parents do? In addition to teaching their children to love their parents and siblings, you must also tell them, "I love my country as much as I love you, so you also have to love your country this much." They will understand it straight away. No other education is necessary. "Yes! As my father, my family and I live this way, all American families, American citizens and the American president live this way, too. My patriotic family lays the nationwide and worldwide foundation for our nation."
When the president says, "Our people now stand united. Let's beat up this enemy," you should be able to abandon anything if Americans have achieved oneness. You have to tell your children, "The president's words are higher than my command. In order to pledge our loyalty to our nation, you and I have to walk the path of death together if it encounters any difficulty. (95-48, 10/23/1977)

Since you have raised children before, you can love with the experience of being able to love all people regardless of age or sex through that family. Isn't this a world closer to a more rewarding ideal world instead of a world of relations where men and women can momentarily love each other? So the family is a training ground for introducing an ideal world. (109-287, 11/02/1980)

You give birth to and live for your children so as to learn to embrace and love the whole world. They are connected to the world and the future. Without them, there is no way to link to the future. You have to realize that God gives us children as a method of teaching that can link us to the future world. Next, your ancestors and grandparents are for teaching you about the spirit world. That system is established in the incorporeal world to educate you about the afterlife.
No matter how violent the waves are, you have to erect a dike that cannot collapse. No matter how strong the gale blows, you have to build a high mountain that cannot collapse. You have to lead the world with such educational materials, otherwise the world cannot survive. Rev. Moon thus founded worldwide organizations such as the Professors World Peace Academy (PWPA) and has strong ties with the world's leading scholars.
What kind of person is God? Becoming a loving servant, He descends to earth to embrace humanity. As humanity does not know this, God is teaching mankind. Satan frequently tries to destroy fallen men. Implementing a new educational system, God Himself is directly teaching men about His love. (135-121, 10/04/1985)

Prior to social or national education, there should be family education. Prior to family education, personal education is necessary.
The primary personal education is not knowledge; neither is it authority or money. What is something great that can move history and the world, but that cannot be bought with money? True love. You have to be a prince and princess who can become the absolute, indispensable part of true love. In front of true love, the more you become a servant or a slave, the more excited you will be. (175-117, 04/10/1988)

What is the privilege of your children? Who is higher, the father, mother, son or daughter? Of course the father is. Between the mother and son, who is higher? This problem will be a historic problem for the world in future family education. In the Eastern tradition, a woman has to excuse her presence when her husband and son are discussing national or world affairs. When told to leave the room, how annoyed she must feel. This is Oriental philosophy. Why does she not stage a demonstration? The man is the seed and the woman is the field. The father, and not the mother, is connected to the seed. Therefore, when the seeds meet to discuss important matters, it is not a right of the field to lend a helping hand. (177-325, 05/22/1988)

All parents like to treat their children equally. It is a greater sin to hate your brothers than to hate your mother. Are American families like that? Is this the first time you have heard this? This is Article 1 of family education. (184-62, 11/13/1988)

The origin of the heavenly kingdom is the family. You have to turn the family the other way round, based on true love. Even in the family, the second generation has to get into action. Young people are being destroyed by the day. They have been cornered in a hotbed of drugs. Shot by the devil's arrows, they indulge themselves with abandon in premarital sex. Gathering from every village, young people will band together to assist the police in the elimination of evil gangs in the community.
If scoundrels appear in the village, the time has come for the second generation to shoulder the responsibility to drive them away and to educate the villagers, together with their parents. Your family now becomes one of hope. Those preparing to meet the coming of an ideological world where the foundation of peace can be expanded from your own family to the world are sagacious citizens who can receive abundant blessings in the future. (208-301, 11/20/1990)

The universe is the expansion of the grandparents, parents, couple and children to the North, South, East and West. The family is an ideal paradigm that unifies all love, so it is like a textbook. You have to enlarge all concepts of love to the world that apply to the family. (209-232, 11/29/1990)

To the world's elders, who are about the same age as your grandparents, you have to show respect as you would your real grandparents, regardless of race. To people who are about the same age as your parents, you must extend your love as you would to your own parents at home. That type of person can possess and inherit the territory of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth and in heaven.
Just as a couple mutually loves each other; you must equalize the heart of loving all men and women, and equalize the love for your children worldwide. The person who can appropriately apply the educational method through which his or her family is as a textbook to the entire world becomes a prince or princess of the love of God, the center of the world. (371-196, 03/01/2002)

Thanks to Rev. Moon, you have become heavenly citizens. In the same way, in order that your sons and daughters can become the citizens of Heaven, you have to educate them to be people whom you can take along to heaven and live together with, even at the cost of your lives. They are your assets. Systematizing that, you have to teach your children. Only then will they go to the same place as you. (215-183, 02/17/1991)

The way to heaven for a person who has the heart of attendance, such as serving his grandparents in his family, is not blocked. The textbook is necessary for the unified educational foundation and behavioral unification of all nations. It teaches us to think of the aged as our own grandfathers and grandmothers. (215-122, 02/06/1991)

When you see an old man coming into an eating house at lunch who looks as if he has no money on him, you should be kind and treat him as well as your own grandparent. That grandparent has lived longer than you. If he owes you a debt, he will surely repay you. Therefore, if you live for others, you will be blessed, for there is no loss in investing, based on love. (371-199, 03/01/2002)

Looking from the vertical standard, your grandfather stands in God's position, Adam and Eve stand in the father's position and you represent the future prince. You have to serve your grandfather who appears horizontally in the family in place of God. This is the principle of family education. (221-215, 10/24/1991)

The family has to be strict. Parents have to be responsible for taking care of and educating their children so that they are not influenced by the satanic world in any matter.
Free sex, homosexuality and lesbianism are rampant in America. They are Satan's plots and snares. You have to expose Satan's territory in the final showdown. You have to turn the tide by going in the exact opposite direction, for that is the heavenly way. It is natural for a person like me to face the world's antagonism. (248-79, 07/01/1993)

What sets a man apart from a woman is his genitals. God and True Father have the same thing too. Do not use them blindly. Your sexual organs have to recognize who their rightful owner is.
It goes the same for a woman. She possesses a set of reproductive organs which God and True Mother have. From this day onward, it becomes a tradition to teach about this. Other forms of education can be supplemented subsequently, but this has to be explained prior to marriage. You can see how important family education is. (263-125, 08/21/1994)

Parents' teaching that their children are the sons and daughters of God, not just a filial son and daughter, a loyalist or a saint, is the highest form of education. You should say, "In the ideal nation where we can all live, you have to fulfill the son's obligation to keep the traditional court etiquette, based on the people of that nation." This is the supreme way one can go in heaven and on earth. (267-194, 01/08/1995)

In the earthly and heavenly kingdoms, your grandfather is an ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary; your parents are the king and queen; and you are the prince. Your grandfather loves his grandchildren more dearly than he loves his children. As I have become a grandfather myself, I find it so very true. Establishing my own educational foundation, I have to send my grandchildren to my own school. If I fail to do that, I cannot fulfill my entire mission as a grandfather, and my grandchildren will call me to task on every matter twofold or threefold.
They have to be parents who begin the recreation of the earthly and heavenly Kingdom of Heaven. Thus, I have to be a grandfather and an ancestor who fulfills all my missions so that they can stand in that position. (371-150, 02/25/2002)