The central model for all beings
Each of us exists in a world of space and position. We need those who are higher and lower, those to the right and left, and those in front of us and behind us. Our position is determined in this way.
Whether we properly engage in relationships with those higher and lower, to the right and left, and in front and at the back will determine the various roles we fulfill in life.
The same formula applies whether we are dealing with relationships of higher and lower, right and left, or front and back, or with issues within our family, nation, and world.
According to this same pattern of higher and lower, right and left, and front and back, with the individual at the center, a family consists of the relationships of parents and children, husband and wife, and brothers and sisters. The same also applies within a nation.
With the leader of the nation at the center, all families embrace the civilizations of East and West and North and South, and then embrace all the people of the world as their brothers and sisters. This will substantiate a family model on the world level. This model applies to everyone.
Each of you stands at the center of your model, your family, which then expands to the nation, world, heaven, and earth, and finally to God. Everyone has the desire to be the center of the universe, and 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 consider heaven to be 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 position as the East when it reflects the light from the sun.
The same is true with sibling relationships. When the oldest sibling begins a task, the younger siblings start to help. 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, right and left, and front and back.
Sun Myung Moon
If the central points are different, the relationships of higher and lower, right and left, and front and back will be unbalanced. Higher and lower, right and left, 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, a family in which 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.
Furthermore, because everything is connected to the core, each of the seven positions, starting with the core, 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 all will 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 relationship and are of one body.
They are one body. How can we say that these relationships make us one body? It is in terms of the true love of God, the center of love.
With true love 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 equal value.
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. The universe is a world created in a way in which its central point can be reached only through human beings.
What did I say about the universe?
It is an expansion of the family. If you look at a family that has realized the ideal of love fully, it has higher, middle, and lower (parents, husband and wife, and children), right and left, and front and back.
Sun Myung Moon
This is the basic rule. So when we talk about higher and lower, we refer to the parents and children; when we talk about right and left, we refer to the husband and wife; and when we talk about front and back, we refer to the siblings.
What enables all these to become as one? It cannot be done with power, knowledge, or money. What can we do, then? It is true love. This is an unmistakable truth. Otherwise, the family cannot become spherical.
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 are we supposed to love?
Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself’ What did he mean?
It may seem unclear. He meant, when you go out into the world and meet an old man, you treat him as you would your grandfather. Treat people as you would your father, your mother, or your son.
This is what we ought to do when we are out in the world. The world can be compared to an exhibition hall filled with people, with each person representing higher, middle, and lower, front and back, or right and left.
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 amid that love. What is the kingdom of heaven? It is when you can love the people of the world as you love your family.
People who do this are citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Your grandfather and grandmother, your father and mother, your spouse, your siblings, and your children from four generations.
What are these four generations?
They are the family that is the study guide for you to deeply experience love, the true love of the universe, as citizens of the kingdom of heaven. The family is the foundation that serves as a study guide to help you learn.
We cannot live without learning the love of the universe.
God has prepared textbooks and scriptures that teach us this way: “Love your grandfather and grandmother.
Your grandfather and grandmother on earth are sent as representatives of the grandfathers and grandmothers in the spirit world.
If you love them, I will credit you with having loved them all.” This is God’s pledge.
God also tells us, “When you show exceptional love for your father and mother, it is because you hold them to be guides and models to be loved as representatives of the countless number of fathers and mothers in the world, so I will credit you with having loved all fathers and mothers.
Sun Myung Moon
Furthermore, when you, as a man, love a woman, I will consider that a man representing all men in the world has loved a woman representing all women in the world.”
God then as: “Since you have loved your sons and daughters, I will credit you with having loved all sons and daughters.” The family is where we can be trained to do this.
We are trained to love the world through a process that relies on scripture. When a person who has received this training is asked, “Are you ready now to go out into the world and love the grandfathers and grandmothers of the world as you would your own?” and the person answers, “Yes,” this person is capable of saving the world.
A training ground to enter the kingdom of love
God’s Will is to realize the kingdom of love. In other words, God’s Will is to develop and globalize the ideal world of love. Thus, the family is the training ground where people earn credits, all the way from an elementary school certificate, to a bachelor’s degree, and finally a doctoral degree.
Expand the family, and you have the world. Look closely at the world. This 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 world is a place where people of all ages, old people, middle-aged people, young adults, and children live together as one family, a family of great dimensions and a vast number of people.
This expansion encompasses all humanity. Only a family that loves all humanity as much as it does its members, in whom the parents live for the sake of the world as much as they do for their sons and daughters, can inherit the kingdom of heaven.
This is a wonderful fact. The special right to inherit all the power and authority of heaven and earth created by God is derived from this.
The family is the 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. This 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 can 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, then this will become a straight road leading to the kingdom of heaven.
This is 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 realized. If you cannot do this, any spiritual training you may have will be of no use.
No matter how great a religious person’s spiritual discipline may be, that person will be unsuccessful if he or she does not know how to love God, humankind, and the universe.
The family is meant to provide the formula course that trains us to experience love that encapsulates the whole universe, so we can go out and express that love to the whole world.
Sun Myung Moon
The training ground you were meant to inherit, where you experience this kind of love, is the family where your mother and father raised you.
If you love your parents and your children more than you do your spouse, if you love all humanity and even God more than you do your spouse, everything will be realized. This doesn’t mean that you abandon your spouse.
If you love everyone this way, everyone who has received your love will love your spouse. Is anything more glorious than this? If you want to love your spouse, this is how you do it.
A textbook for the heavenly kingdom
What kind of good fortune does a person in the child’s position receive? They inherit the good fortune of their 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.
It is 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 to learn about the world gone by.
From your parents, 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 father and mother? You inherit true love.
You are saying: “Our grandfather and grandmother are old, and 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 a 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 a 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 each of them. Only when both are together can they move just as they are into the kingdom of heaven. Only when the grandparents, father and mother, and children are all there can the family go into the kingdom of heaven.
The family is a study guide that enables us to establish the kingdom of heaven. It is a textbook created by Heaven. No matter where you may be in the world, if you can love every old man you see, as you would love your grandfather, you will go to the kingdom of heaven.
If you can love everyone you meet from your parents’ generation just as you would love your parents, you will be welcomed everywhere. It will be the same in any country. If you are like this, you will face no boundaries, even when you go to the spirit world.
If you have a heart that thinks of all the young people of the world as your sons and daughters, you will be able to travel freely within the kingdom of heaven, even if there are twelve gates of pearl and four directional quadrants.
The family is a study guide 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.
Sun Myung Moon
This is a desire shared by every person. You must be able to embrace the sons and daughters, as well as the grandsons and granddaughters, of all races. You must stand in a position where you, as a true parent with God’s true love, are the owner of a family who loves all the world’s people.
You can enter the kingdom of heaven only when you stand in a position to represent the standard of a family of true love, through a relationship with the original parents who have God’s true love at their center.
Bringing together the love of three generations
The family can encompass history, the present era and the future. The ultimate point that God has sought for six thousand years is the family that is connected through true love and united in true love.
Everything that exists comes under the dominion of true love. We would not want to cut ourselves off from a relationship of love that is absolutely true. 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 remain merely individual men and an individual woman. He looked forward to the family they would form through their union.
This is God’s primary purpose in creating men and women. It is only when we establish true families and when we live with a sense of fulfillment within true families centered on God’s love that we will be able to enter the kingdom of heaven without any problem.
Sun Myung Moon
This is the only way we can transcend this world. To form the family realm of love, you must be absolute. The grandparents 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.
When we truly love people from each age group, we allow God, through us, to relate to all humankind. With this kind of love, husband and wife and children, having become as one body, can represent the cosmos; they may hold up their love as an example for others to follow and tell their descendants to follow 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.
What has God been seeking all this time?
He has not been seeking a subject partner, but rather an ideal object partner. God has been looking for those who resemble Him and possess the inner and outer aspects of the world that He created.
What is the starting point that leads to such a result?
It is the family. Nothing represents the cosmos better than the family. To be one with our parents is to bring the past and present together. We love the past by loving our parents; we love the present by loving our husband or wife; and we love the future by loving our children.
Thus, we experience the love of three generations. The core unit where these three kinds of love are concentrated on the family.
Then, where does life in the kingdom of heaven begin? It is in 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 ought to think of this as creating the union of all men and all women in the world. Only in this way can families set the condition for loving all humanity. This is the path you need to follow in your lives.
Sun Myung Moon
To love your parents is to connect 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, thus bringing together the past and the present so that they become one.
Furthermore, loving your 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.
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.
The desires of your heart would not be fulfilled through the people under your command, through your ministers of government, or your followers. Only in your family could you experience such fulfillment.
When you return to your family, you and your spouse feel joy through each other and your children. You ought to be proud of this. This joy can be experienced only directly, not secondhand. 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.
In the family, parents are at the center. In educational institutions that represent society, teachers have to be at the center. Your parents raised you from the time you were breastfeeding 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 for emotions, then school is the place where you can practice and train for your future life in society.
However, 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 of a nation 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 represents the fruit of the third stage, following the stages of formation and growth.
Once a seed is planted, it begins a cyclical process by dividing. Later, it comes together again to produce a flower and bear fruit. In the same way, schools need to raise 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 learning and experimenting. During training, you are not in the actual situation. It is a preparation stage. Be sure to prepare well.
What is the family?
It is the place in which to train the heart. You train your heart with love at the center. In school, you learn to relate to others with affection, as you would your siblings. In the nation, too, you can then relate to others with affection. The education you receive from your parents will be important for you in school and the nation.
Parents have to pass on everything having to do with the heart to their children. They need to create a foundation of the 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 the nation. A family is not necessarily good just because it has a nice house in an affluent neighborhood.
Conversely, even if a family may live in a humble house in a poor neighborhood, it will be a good family if it provides peace and love to all its members. In this family, parents and children will have a relationship of the heart that urges them to live for each other.
Sun Myung Moon
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.
The eternal original hometown
The family is a good place. Why is it good? It is good because my father and mother are there. It is a good place because my elder brother and elder sister 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 feels a yearning for his or her original homeland.
People feel more deeply about their hometown than they do about their nation. A Korean will love the nation of Korea and want to live in Korea. Then, where is the place to which he will yearn to return, 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 in their entirety, in four directions, and three dimensions. What is that heart? It is that which binds us in love.
Above us, we are bound to our father and mother; 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 in these three dimensions. This is the heart of the original homeland.
People value the point of origin of their happiness, where true love is at the center, more 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 surely must 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 come to exist?
Sun Myung Moon
This must be the place where a son of God dwells who truly understands that God is his Parent. In other words, it is a place where there is a son, God’s son, who can be a receptacle for all of God’s love. This is also the place where such a daughter dwells. It is a place where a son and a daughter of God marry and form a family.
Then, who will be in the original homeland?
All the people you miss ought to be there. Your parents need to be there, and your brothers and sisters need to be there. And the people you have wanted to see need to be there. These are not people you would want to see just for a moment. They are people you could be happy to be with for eternity.
This is the type of environment that we have to establish. This is the kingdom of heaven that religions predict will eventually come about. 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 although 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 feeling deep regret. You need to have people there who will welcome you.
Completing the cosmos-centered philosophy
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 there, it divides again and is integrated into something even larger. This process is repeated continuously. Families also come to exist through this process of integration, and the structure of the family never changes.
The family is where the relationship of husband and wife is established, the place where one man and one woman become as one. The clan brings families together as one, and the tribe is a place that brings the clans together as one. Tribes combine to form one nation.
The family, however, is always at the center. The horizontal expansion of humanity comes about based on 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. The 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.
The “cosmos-centered philosophy” is a teaching that promotes the unity of mind and body, the formation of families as God’s main body of love, and the connection between the physical world and the spirit world through these families.
The character ju in cheon-ju (cosmos) refers to a house. That is why we use the term “cosmos-centered philosophy.” 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 one in your family, you will have nothing to do with the cosmos-centered philosophy.
The family serves as the final standard for completing the cosmos-centered philosophy. Those who cannot sing songs of peace and happily praise their families will be miserable, whether they are on earth or in the spirit world.
From where does the task of bringing about the kingdom of heaven begin? It begins in our families. Then what kind of teaching must we have? It is the family-centered ideal.
In the term cheon-ju ju-eui (cosmos-centered philosophy), cheon means heaven and ju means house, so this is referring to the “philosophy of the heavenly home.” Only then does the meaning of cheon-ju (cosmos) become clear.
God’s Word, throughout the sixty-six books of the Bible, is an expression of His earnest desire for the ideal family. Then what is the earnest desire of every man? It is to have an ideal wife.
Furthermore, 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, yet her deepest desire will be to meet an ideal man.
She will want to meet an ideal man whom she can love and with whom she can give birth to sons and daughters filled with blessings. This is the root of happiness.
The ideal of the Unification Church is nothing apart from this. It begins in the family and ends in the family. So what kind of teaching is the cosmos-centered principle? It is Cham-bu-mo ju-eui, or the teaching centered on True Parents.
This is the ultimate principle, and it applies to parents. This is the philosophy of our home, the philosophy of our nation, and the philosophy each of us must have as individuals.
Had human beings not fallen, whose thought would have ruled the world? It would have been Adam’s thought. This is the same as the teaching centered on True Parents. It is the father-mother principle. No teaching can be higher than this.
The mission of the Unification Church is to link matters of the heart with heavenly thought through the philosophy of True Parents within the framework of the original ideal family.
When all families have internalized such a philosophy, the Unification Church will have accomplished its purpose.
Sun Myung Moon