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Section 2. The Family is the Textbook of Love through Which We Can Connect with Universal Love
What is the universe? Everything in the created world is designed as a sort of training aid to help God’s beloved sons and daughters find the ideal of love. This is why everything exists in reciprocal relationships. Minerals are based on the reciprocal relationship of subject and object partners and so are atoms. Protons and electrons also exist based on the reciprocal relationship of subject and object partners. Without reciprocation they cannot continue to exist. Without give and take action they cannot exist eternally. Therefore, the universe is a world created in such a way that its center can only be reached through human beings. (137-59, 1985.12.18)
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The perfection of the Four Great Realms of Heart is realized when the object partner manifests, centering on God, the past, the present and the future, bearing the fruit of love. This state is achieved when husband and wife, once they are married, become one through love. That is why we are not able to reach the state of oneness by ourselves. We should center ourselves on God. Only when God enters and becomes part of the equation can the position of a king emerge through the couple. Without the unity achieved through love, the kingship is not created. The kingship here refers to a king and a queen, but only with the intervention and involvement of the vertical God does the kingship emerge.
Richard: Wow! What a beautiful statement of the meaning of godly, Blessed marriage.
Scripture and Interpretation
SCRIPTURE IS THE BEDROCK OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE. All the higher religions are founded on inspired teachings or divine truths revealed by their founders and codified as scripture. Thus, scripture is the basis upon which believers lead their lives. It is also the enduring standard for evaluating new ideas and theological innovation. Regular study of scripture is recommended for gaining wisdom and finding guidance for daily life.
Nevertheless, the proper interpretation of scripture is not simple. The many disagreements of the meaning of scripture have created lasting disputes and fractures in communities of faith. One reason for this confusion is that the scriptures were written using parables and veiled language. Understanding the meaning of these symbols and parables requires spiritual discernment, even the assistance of the Holy Spirit.
Another issue is the problem of the letter and the spirit. Religious traditions always have to balance fidelity to the letter of a text with openness to new spiritual insights. Where scripture is meant to be a “raft,” in Buddha’s terms, which takes us across the sea of troubles that we might walk free on that blessed other shore, fixation on the words of scripture can be a burden to further spiritual advancement. Old interpretations need to give way to new ones or the scripture itself can become an impediment—a situation that occurred in Jesus’ day.
The section closes with passages on the limitations of scripture as finite expressions of God’s infinite truth. Jesus, Buddha and other Founders lived in circumstances where they could only teach a part of what they knew of God’s truth, according to the level that their disciples could receive it. Father Moon affirms the value of all scriptures as expressions of the truth of God, given at various times and places to elevate humanity for the fulfillment of God’s purpose. Nevertheless, since there is still much of God’s Word yet to be revealed, the world is due for a new expression of truth fit for this scientific age.
1. Take Instruction from Regular Study of Scripture
O how I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day.
Psalm 119.97
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3.14-17
The work which the sages saw in the sacred sayings
Are manifestly spread forth in the triad of the Vedas.
Follow them constantly, you lovers of truth! This is your path to the world of good deeds.
Mundaka Upanishad 1.2.1 (Hinduism)
And these words which I [Moses] teach you shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. And you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Deuteronomy 6.6-9
We have sent down the Qur’an in Truth, and in Truth has it descended: and We sent you [Muhammad] but to give glad tidings and to warn sinners. It is a Qur’an which We have divided into parts from time to time, in order that you might recite it to men at intervals; We have revealed it by stages. Say: Whether you believe in it or not, it is true that those who were given prior insight, when it is recited to them, fall down on their faces in humble prostration, and say: “Glory to our Lord! Truly has the promise of our Lord been fulfilled!” They fall down on their faces in tears, and it increases their earnest humility.
Qur’an 17.105-9
Know that he who reads and recites the Lawflower Sutra—that man has adorned himself with the adornment of the Buddha, and so is carried by the Tathagata on his shoulder.
Lotus Sutra 10 (Buddhism)
I am leaving you a trust. So long as you cling to it you can’t go wrong. That is the rope God has extended from heaven to earth. That is the Qur’an.
Hadith of Darimi 1 (Islam)
Absorbed in the scriptures and their purport, he transcends the cycle of birth and death.
Acarangasutra 5.122
The holy Word is the Preceptor; by devoted meditation on it am I its disciple.
By absorbing the discourse of the Inexpressible I remain free from the taint of illusion.9\
Adi Granth, Ramkali Siddha Goshti, M.1, p. 943 (Sikhism)
Whosoever labors in the Torah for its own sake merits many things; and not only so, but the whole world is indebted to him: he is called friend, beloved, a lover of the All-present, a lover of mankind; it clothes him in meekness and reverence; it fits him to become just, pious, upright, and faithful; it keeps him far from sin, and brings him near to virtue.
Mishnah, Avot 6.1 (Judaism)
And when a company meets together in one of the houses of God to pore over the Book of God and to study it together among themselves, the Shekhinah comes down to them and mercy overshadows them, the angels surround them, and God remembers them among them that are His.
Forty Hadith of an-Nawawi (Islam)
If two sit together and the words between them are of Torah, then the Shekhinah is in their midst.
Mishnah, Avot 3.2 (Judaism)
Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
Matthew 18.20