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1. What if parents have only one son and one daughter? Their son will need an older sister and an older brother. Their daughter will need an older brother and an older sister. They will also need younger brothers and younger sisters. Children require both older and younger siblings.
If they don't have siblings of both genders, they will be unhappy. God protects the family in which the younger brother and sister and the older brother and sister are all present and completely united with one another.
It's because such a family becomes the foundation for a clan, a tribe, a people, and a nation. The older brother and older sister represent the east and west; the younger brother and younger sister represent the north and south.
When these positions are perfected, they become three-dimensional. This is the love principle. The concepts of the Principle of Creation are rooted in the principle of love. Therefore, when the principle of love is secured, we will have the origin of peace. (020-040, 1968.03.31)
The standard of love in the family
2. Our parents desire that we love our siblings more than we miss our parents. Thus, if siblings fight in the name of filial piety, it cannot be regarded as filial piety.
The heart of parents desires that children care about one another more than they love their parents. Even if you are temporarily unable to serve your parents, if you say, “Mom, please wait. I will come to you after taking care of my younger brother first,” your mother will say to you, “My boy! You will grow up to be a good man.”
Those who want to love their brothers and sisters more than their parents will live eternally in heaven. Those who can't love their brothers and sisters as they would their parents will be excluded. When you understand the basis of this principle, it is simple. Yet because we human beings have not known this, we have been unable to love one another.
The question is whether we, as family members, can unite among ourselves. Thus, if you stand in a position where you cannot fulfill your filial duty to True Parents, you should instead offer the devotion you want to give True Parents to the members of your church family.
Heaven will accept your offering as having greater value than your filial devotion to True Parents. Those who practice this will surely be blessed.
(78-041, 1975.05.01)
3. Love your brothers and sisters in the church as you love God. Your path to heaven begins there. You love and follow me, yet I tell you, you should strive to love and help your brothers and sisters and work alongside them with the same heart.
Those who can teach you the quickest and best way to go to heaven are neither God nor me, but your brothers and sisters. If you strive to love them with a love greater than their love for their parents or spouse, you will be chosen as a supreme subject partner of love. (66-125, 1973.04.18)
4. You and your brothers and sisters are companions who share in the love of your parents. Therefore, you must not fight with your brothers and sisters. You are like your parents' body, so when you raise your right hand, it is as if you were raising your father's hand, and when you raise your left hand, it is as if you were raising your mother's hand.
Raising your right foot is like raising your father's foot, and raising your left foot is like raising your mother's foot. The family was made that way because of love. (106-080, 1979.12.09)
5. The more brothers and sisters you have, the better. No matter how many you have, if there is only one bowl of rice, you should share it with them. Siblings must not fight over a bowl of rice.
However, difficult life may be with many siblings, if they think with a loving heart, “Even if I starve, I'm going to give my portion to my sister,” all will be well. Would you want to wear good clothes and give the shabby ones to your younger siblings?
We need to think in a way opposite to Satan's world. Blessed children ought to think differently from the children of Satan's world. (112-195, 1981.04.12)
6. At the time of your birth, how difficult do you think it was for your mother to push you out of her womb? Why did God make birth so difficult? Would it not be better if giving birth were as easy as talking, as easy as eating good food, or smelling the scent of perfume, or smiling with delight and laughing?
Why, rather than being easy, does giving birth require the mother to labor on the verge of life and death? It is for us to experience radiant love.
(107-042, 1980.01.20)
7. Parents live for their children. Parents who assert that they live for their own sake cannot be considered parents. From now on, the principles of morality should be established based on the Principle of the Unification Church.
How should parents live? Parents should live for the children to whom they gave birth. Among the principles of morality, this is the first rule. No lengthy explanation is needed. It is simply because parents want to do so. The position of parents is a position in which they find happiness and joy in living for their children. (062-216, 1972.09.25)
8. You belong to both your parents and your children. Accordingly, parents belong to both their children and to God. However, your parents belong first to God, then to your children, and only after that can you belong to yourself. Only in this way can you reach perfection.
This is why the norms of showing respect to parents remain on this earth and in human life. The saying, “Respect your parents and love your children,” is derived from these norms.
The reason an orphan, a child without parents, is pitiable is because we human beings need to receive love from our parents. Furthermore, we need to love our children. This is how we learn to position ourselves in the four directions, knowing who is above us and who is below us. (18-209, 1967.06.08)
9. The way a father should relate to his children is to become their best friend. Then even when his children are playing with their playmates, they will run to him as soon as he appears.
Furthermore, a father should become his children's best teacher. His children must be able to say, “My Dad is better than the president; he is the best and is second only to God,” and, “I will never exchange my father for any friend. I will never exchange my father for any teacher. And I will never abandon my father, even if it means losing my loving wife.” (57-282, 1972.06.04)
10. When I come home late at night, I always caress the sleeping faces of my children. It is difficult to become a good parent. Yet, this tender gesture naturally leads my children to think, “I want to love my sons and daughters as my father loves me.”
Furthermore, through expressing such love to my children, I should be able to let my children feel, “My father is the best in the whole world!” (097-311, 1978.03.26)
11. Everyone wishes to have great children. So how should we raise our children to become great? Some may think that giving their children an excellent education, beginning from kindergarten to university, will achieve this objective.
However, we parents are the ones who should educate them, and we should do so continually throughout their lives. Parents should constantly devote themselves to their children.
Then, when the time comes for the parents to bequeath their entire household to their children whom they raised with devotion, their children should be able to unite with them in heart, follow their parent's footsteps, and become their parents' successors who represent their heart. Raising children in this way should become a common practice. (024-257, 1969.08.24)
12. My concern is not to leave a legacy that honors the name “Unification Church.” Rather I am concerned about how I can leave behind successors who will carry on the tradition I have upheld. That is why I have been educating you to take tradition seriously. (35-116, 1970.10.04)
13. The important issue is how your blessed families can live in accord with me through three generations, including those of your children and grandchildren. If the three generations accumulate merit together, your family will become most admirable and praiseworthy.
Have you ever thought about this? Therefore, from now on, you should offer conditions of devotion to your children and educate them to fully understand your heart and thoughts. (51-271, 1971.11.28)
Courtesy between husband and wife
14. A husband and wife should always be together as one. Whenever they go somewhere, they should sit together, not separately. They should be able to resonate with each other at any time, day, or night.
Other than married couples, no one else can have such a relationship. Should a man and a woman who are not married sleep together in the same room? This would not be right. In the ideal world to come, when married couples walk together happily side by side, all single people will have to greet them with respect. That time is coming.
We must create a social atmosphere in which husbands and wives who have attained complete oneness are honored and praised. It should be so, especially for couples who are blessed. Wherever they go in the society, people should respect, honor, and praise them. (67-061, 1973.05.20)
15. Man symbolizes heaven while woman symbolizes earth. This is why Jesus has been bestowing the grace of salvation upon human beings from the spirit world, while the Holy Spirit has been doing so on earth. By doing so, they have been laying the foundation for the family.
In laying the family foundation, if a wife can align herself with her husband's heart, she will be blessed. If the husband can do likewise with his wife, he will be blessed. If the children unite with their parents, they will be blessed. We are now living in the age of family-level salvation. (12-261, 1963.05.22)
16. When you blessed couples embrace and love your babies, you should keep in mind the purpose for which your children were born. You need to understand they were born for God, out of your relationship with God.
Even though you may be intimate with your precious husband or wife and share secrets, your relationship is not of your design. You were brought to each other while walking on the public path of the heavenly Principle. God was involved in tying you together. Hence, if you are miserable, God will be miserable as well.
(67-293, 1973.07.22)
17. When a husband enters his wife's room, he steps into the chamber of the only queen in heaven and on earth. Likewise, when a wife relates to her husband, she steps into the palace where she attends the king.
This is why both need to bow to each other when entering each other's room to have a conjugal relationship; each needs to bow three times and then receive the other. Have you ever bowed to your husband before entering his palace to make love? I am teaching you about what you need to practice in your family.
You also have to teach your family members as I am teaching you. That is when your mothers enter your husband's room, you must put on specially sanctified clothes and make yourself prettier than when you go out in public.
(261-222, 1994.06.19)
18. Before entering each other's palace to make love, husband, and wife should bow to each other. The husband is entering the palace of the grand queen, the empress, to attend her.
Adam should be the king of heaven and the model of tradition for all of you. If you live with such a heart and mind in your daily life, you will reach the level to represent Adam's royal position in the heavenly world. You will become a royal family member, assuming a value equal to that of Adam. (253-313, 1994.01.30)
19. When a husband enters his wife's chamber, he must be solemn. That room is the nest of life, the place where God can visit and dwell, and the fertile ground from which his illustrious descendants will emerge.
Therefore, every time the husband enters, he must be thoroughly prepared to be with his wife, so the flower of their first love for each other will bloom in holiness. The place where the husband and wife make love is the palace of joyous union.
When they are in that place, they are not envious of anyone's royal throne or heaven's citadels of happiness. It is this way because this is where everything begins.
Now that your husbands know this, henceforth you must always bow before entering your wife's chamber. Can any action be more praiseworthy than that of a husband who seeks to glorify that palace, the place that links three generations? (240-316, 1992.12.13)
20. Financial hardships in managing your household do not equate to misery. The dividing line between happiness and misery is determined by how close and how intimate our relationship is with Heaven.
An individual can bear his or her downfall but will not accept that the family goes to ruin. A husband needs his wife more than anyone else in the world, and a wife needs her husband more than anyone.
Therefore, a husband and wife must always encourage each other, support each other, and become each other's companions in life. (27-087, 1969.11.26)
21. If you as a husband want to express love to your wife, then on her birthday you could invite all the woman in the neighborhood to her birthday party. There, in front of all those guests, you should sing and dance for her with a heart overflowing with love.
When this happens, the people from the neighborhood will pray for your couple and wish blessings upon your wife. It is extremely precious to any couple that they can have guests who pray from their hearts for their blessings.
Suppose one thousand good-hearted guests assemble and offer your couple their good wishes. Since God answers the prayer of even one good-hearted person, will the good wishes and prayers of one thousand good-hearted guests go unanswered? (127-097, 1983.05.05)
22. If a husband is overflowing with love, he may even swear when he's at home, but his swear words can stimulate love. At the same time, any one word from a husband who is devoid of love can cut into his wife's flesh and hurt her badly.
Where there is love, a little playful wrestling is fine, but where there is no love, anything, everything, is detestable. (83-179, 1976.02.08)
23. If a wife darkens her husband's heart, the world will be darkened by the repercussions of her action. Therefore, a wife needs to wake up early in the morning and take good care of her husband before he goes off to work. She should always keep herself beautiful for her husband, even if it requires using makeup and perfume.
A wife should not be emotionally indebted to her husband. She should always concern herself with her husband's body and clothes. When her husband looks tired after returning home, she should bring him water to wash his face and a toothbrush and toothpaste to brush his teeth; then she should wash his feet and comb his hair. A wife's laughter is like the family's flower.
To build a harmonious family, she should be a first-class actress in both comedy and tragedy. She should be able to completely melt the heart of her husband anytime, whether he is happy or sad. (27-088, 1969.11.26)
24. On the path you are walking, you are bound to encounter imposing mountains with cliffs, deep rivers, and large chasms. If you are unable to overcome these obstacles, the only thing you will eventually face for sure is death.
When following the path of the Will, you should be able to leave behind your beloved wife, your husband, and even your children. Your women should go the way of women who respond to the heavenly way.
You should even be willing to die if your husband asks you to die with him if it is for the Will. Even though you die, you will live together in the spirit world. There will be a way to be liberated as long as you regard your husband's will as absolute. (026-265, 1969.11.09)
Sun Myung Moon