Shimjeong

The word and its structure

Shimjeong (심정, 心情) is composed of two Chinese characters: 心 (shim) — meaning heart or soul — and 情 (jeong) — meaning feelings, emotions, or affection.

Together, they point to something that cannot be fully captured by any single English word. "Heart" is the closest approximation, but shimjeong carries a depth and specific quality that "heart" alone does not convey.

Rev. Moon explained the difficulty of translation directly:

"What we mean has a deeper meaning than is conveyed by the English word. It means to be loving, caring, sensitive." — Sun Myung Moon, New Hope: Twelve Talks

Shimjeong is not simply an emotion. It is the fundamental impulse of a being who was created to love — the inner drive toward connection, toward giving and receiving joy through relationship. It is the deepest layer of who a person is.

Shimjeong as God's nature

In Unification theology, shimjeong is first and foremost an attribute of God — and it is from God's shimjeong that all creation originates. God did not create the universe out of power or necessity, but out of the overflow of His heart: the desire to love and to be loved in return.

"Heart is the source of love. God has an ideal within Him, just as we have an ideal we long for within our hearts. God's ideal can be realized through man." — Sun Myung Moon, New Hope: Twelve Talks

This means that shimjeong is not something human beings invented or discovered — it is the substance that God poured into them at the moment of creation.

Humans were made in God's image precisely because God wanted beings who could resonate with His own heart, who could feel what He feels and love as He loves.

"You long for the love that deeply touches your heart. It is not humanistic love, pursued by man. It is heavenly love, desired by the original mind. You are longing for the kind of love that can sing for eternity and penetrate and move the eternal ideal and life. Thus, the whole of your thinking and movements should express the shimjeong of love." — Sun Myung Moon

God's shimjeong and the sorrow of the Fall

Because shimjeong is the deepest layer of God's being, the Fall of Adam and Eve did not merely break a rule — it broke God's heart. This is one of the most distinctive and emotionally powerful aspects of Unification teaching: God is not a distant judge who punishes disobedience, but a Parent whose children were lost, and who has been grieving ever since.

"God is understood not as a remote, all-powerful being, but as a Parent whose heart has been broken by the loss of His children — and who can be comforted and liberated by human love."

"God's grief is that humanity inherited false blood lineage. You inherited false blood. Satan is the origin of this. He always wants to play havoc with all creation. All humanity is the fruit of evil origin. How much distress God experiences in His yearning to save them!" — Sun Myung Moon

This understanding of God's shimjeong — His aching, longing, parental heart — is the emotional center of the entire Unification theology of restoration. It is not a theology of obligation or fear, but of love and the healing of a broken relationship:

"God, who is the subject of human life, ideals and love, has gone through a historical course of exerting all His mind and will for the sake of humankind... before humankind kept the commandment, God loved humankind with all His heart and character." — Sun Myung Moon

The four types of shimjeong

Shimjeong develops through the four central love relationships of human life. Rev. Moon taught that a person who has fully experienced all four types has, in that experience, come to know the full range of God's own heart:

1. Child's shimjeong — the pure, trusting, receptive love of a child toward its parents. This is the foundation of all other love, and the pattern of the human relationship with God. Without first developing a child's heart of dependence and gratitude, no other love can be fully healthy.

2. Sibling shimjeong — the love between brothers and sisters: horizontal, equal, playful, protective. This is the love that makes community possible — the love that extends beyond the family of origin to all of humanity, treating others as brothers and sisters rather than strangers.

3. Spousal shimjeong — the love between husband and wife: a love that is exclusive, total, and generative. In Unification teaching, conjugal love is the center of the four-position foundation and the most direct reflection of the relationship between God and humanity.

4. Parental shimjeong — the unconditional, sacrificial love of a parent for a child. This is the love that most closely mirrors God's own heart — love that gives without condition, love that cannot abandon even a fallen child, love that suffers to restore.

Rev. Moon taught that the great tragedy of the Fall was that all four types of shimjeong were lost simultaneously:

"Fallen men lost three hearts (shimjeong) simultaneously. They lost the heart of young, small children, and they lost the heart of brothers and sisters that was centered on God's love. Simultaneously, they lost the heart of children, the heart of husband and wife, and the heart of parents, which are the realms of heart within God's love." — Sun Myung Moon, Blessing and Ideal Family, Part 1

The realm of the heart — restoration of shimjeong

The purpose of the entire providence of restoration, in Unification teaching, is ultimately to restore these lost realms of heart — to rebuild the four types of shimjeong that were shattered by the Fall, and to reconnect humanity to God's own shimjeong through the True Parents.

"The problem of restoring these three hearts (shimjeong) and setting up the standard which God can recognize remains. First, we must restore the standard of loving God as true sons and daughters. Through that process and when the time comes, we should become husband and wife centering on God, bear children of goodness and form the four-position foundation that God desires." — Sun Myung Moon

This is why the family is so central in Unification teaching — not as a social institution but as the school of shimjeong. It is in the family that a person first experiences love as a child, then as a sibling, then as a spouse, and finally as a parent. Each stage deepens and expands the heart:

"Rev. Moon taught that the family is the training ground where people earn credits, all the way from an elementary school certificate to a doctoral degree. When you love your parents, your spouse, your children, and your siblings with true love centered on God, you are already living in the Kingdom — because you have learned to love in all four directions of the four-position foundation."

Shimjeong and the Kingdom of Heaven

Because shimjeong is the substance of God's nature and the goal of restoration, it is also the criterion of one's position in the spirit world. Rev. Moon taught:

"Your level of heartistic achievement in the spirit world will be determined by such intensity of love." — Sun Myung Moon

The Kingdom of Heaven — Cheon Il Guk — is therefore not primarily a place but a quality of relationship: a world in which every person has developed all four types of shimjeong and lives them fully in daily life. When this is realized across all families, communities, and nations, the Kingdom has come.

"God feels greater joy when He sees you loving each other more than you love Him. Don't shy away from adverse conditions or from smelly or ugly people; they are the ones who need you." — Sun Myung Moon

Shimjeong and true love

Shimjeong is the inner ground from which true love (참사랑, cham sarang) grows. True love — living for the sake of others — is not an external moral rule but the natural expression of a heart that has been fully developed. Rev. Moon taught that true love cannot diminish the more it is given — it grows. And the one who lives for others cannot be invaded by evil, because there is nothing in such a person for selfishness or resentment to attach to.

Shimjeong, then, is both the origin and the destination of the human journey: it is what God poured into us at creation, what the Fall damaged, and what restoration is working to rebuild — so that humanity can once again resonate with God's own heart and return joy to the One who created us for love.