Parents’ Loving Heart towards their Children is an Eternal Standard

Happy Birthday, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr!

Book Review: Standing Up to Goliath: Battling State and National Teachers’ Unions for the Heart and Soul of Our Kids and Country by Rebecca Friedrichs

Cheon Seon Gyeong 2063

We should do Tong-ban breakthrough activities, do you understand? In your village, if you think about the people according to each clan, and you have one hundred homes, how many ban(home neighborhoods) does that make? Only by going down to the ban will you move a Mr. Lee of the Lee clan, or a Mr. Pak of the Pak clan. In this way you can move everyone in the area. Since it was in the family that the seeds were sown incorrectly which led to its ruin, it is in the family that you must harvest the results and make a heavenly family that can prosper. Your destiny rests in fulfilling this. Let’s bring this matter to a closing point. (210-291, 1990.12.25

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1189

As God carried out the dispensation for restoration, His grief lay in the fact that the firstborn son was on Satan’s side. That is why human history is diseased. What kind of disease does it suffer from? It has a love related disease. The first son was born after humankind went astray due to the disease of love. If we are not aware of this fact, we won’t reach the time when we are able to ascend to the individual position where we can again achieve harmony, even if we spend billions of years in search of the principled standard. (136-126, 1985.12.22)

Richard: We have to understand The Fall of Man and we have to receive the Blessing.

A Good Heart

2. A Loving Heart and Its Roots in God’s Heart

Gentleness and goodness are the roots of humanity.
    Book of Ritual 38.18 (Confucianism)

To love is to know Me,
My innermost nature,
the truth that I am.
    Bhagavad-Gita 18.55 (Hinduism)

All men have this heart that, when they see another man suffer, they suffer, too… Take an example: a man looks out and sees a child about to fall into a well. No matter who the man is, his heart will flip, flop, and he will feel the child’s predicament; and not because he expects to get something out of it from the child’s parents, or because he wants praise from his neighbors, associates, or friends, or because he is afraid of a bad name, or anything like that.
    Mencius II.A.6 (Confucianism)

The Dwelling of the Tathagata is the great compassionate heart within all the living. The Robe of the Tathagata is the gentle and forbearing heart.
    Lotus Sutra 10 (Buddhism)

As a mother protects her only child at the risk of her own life, let him cultivate a boundless heart towards all beings.
    Khuddaka Patha, Metta Sutta (Buddhism)

Allah is kind and loves whoever is kind;
Allah is clean and loves whoever is clean;
Allah is generous and loves whoever is generous.
    Hadith of Muslim 913.2 (Islam)

What sort of religion can it be without compassion?
You need to show compassion to all living beings.
Compassion is the root of all religious faiths.
    Basavanna, Vacana 247 (Hinduism)

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Because God is love, let us center our lives on heart (shimjung), the essence of love. We advance on the path by developing a character that springs from the heart. (84:123, February 22, 1976)
 
In the heart of love, everything becomes one. It is all-inclusive, not discriminating. Being all-inclusive, it is also embracing. Inclusiveness is the inner core that manifests outwardly as tolerance. Inner and outer engage in circular motion; thus tolerance promotes inclusiveness and inclusiveness pro-motes tolerance.
    Beyond that, love is mutually responsive. “Mutually responsive” means the grandfather is not always absolute. Nor are the grandchildren always absolute. At times, the grandfather may become a grandchild, and the grandchild may become the grandfather. This is what is meant by “mutually responsive.” Therefore, anywhere that loving hearts and a loving atmosphere prevail, there is no opposition; everyone welcomes it. Neither knowledge nor power can create such a tolerant and embracing environment; only love can do it.
    When a hungry child is embraced in its mother’s bosom, it can forget its hunger and go to sleep. What else could be as precious as love? Diamonds? Suppose your wife or child was ill and on the verge of dying. Would you refuse to take a diamond out of your jewelry box and sell it to cover the medical costs? Would that be love? Genuine love has the power to move anything. (139:196-97, January 31, 1986)
 
Due to the human fall, nothing about the human realm of heart entitles us to stand before God except for one condition that remains unchanged: parents’ loving heart for their children. Children’s love toward their parents cannot be the standard, because in the beginning we betrayed God from the position of children. Hence we lost the emotional basis to relate to God as His children. On the other hand, God loved Adam and Eve even at the moment of their Fall. That original nature remains in our hearts. It remains the basis for parents to act according to their original mind in loving their children. Therefore, among people living in the fallen realm, only parents’ love toward their children remains as an original, prelapsarian standard of love. It shall remain as an eternal standard. (23:206, May 25, 1969)
 
If parents have a child with a handicap or birth defect, they are heart-broken yet make special efforts to take care of that child. The love of even worldly parents unmistakably reflects God’s heart. That is why restoration is possible when you are filial toward your parents. (99:127-28, September 10, 1978)
 
Right now what we need most is the glow of love. God’s love is like the guide rope of a net. That love should set its anchor in me. Where should we set the center of our character? Not in the truth, but rather in the heart (shimjung). (33:68, August 8, 1970)
 
 

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