Join us for the Peaceful Families; Peaceful World workshop, August 26th to August 28th in Harpers Ferry WV and online.
August 26- Parent and Presenter Training; Abstaining for Success and Happiness
August 27- Exposition of the Divine Principle Study
August 28- Strengthening Families and Communities Forum (Free)
Featuring Andy Wells; No Left Turn in Education, Live-In Person
Kelly Kohls; National School Boards Leadership Council, Live-In Person, Jamal Johnson, Richard Urban, Live-In Person
Registration Deadline is August 23rd.
FBI Raid of President Trump’s Home an Outrage
Cheon Seong Gyeong 2314
Your trinity teams are about the three great offerings. Abraham had to make three great offerings and Noah also had three decks on the Ark. They are all three great offerings. In this way, you should build an altar and have three people make sacrificial offerings to fulfill their loyalty and devotion to the people of that area. You should become people who know how to embrace that area with the same heart you would have in praying for blessings for your own children. If you are assigned to such an area and work there for three years you will qualify as the citizens of heaven. (150-26, 1958.8.17)
Cheon Seong Gyeong 1056
Chronic habits are deep-seated evil habits. After your marriage, if you lead a habitual life while rearing your children, habits become part of your body. You no longer find time for prayer or special offerings in such an environment; there is no time for prayer when the children are making noise right beside you. (30- 125, 1970.3.21)
Separation from Family
ALTHOUGH GOD’S PURPOSE FOR HUMAN LIFE IS FULFILLED in loving families, people on the spiritual quest often leave home and family behind. Sometimes it comes at the command of God, as when Abraham was called to leave his home and journey to an unknown land. Initiation into the ranks of monastic life likewise requires a painful separation from loved ones.
In other cases, aspirants may encounter opposition from possessive family members, who would drag them away from the path. Thus Jesus warned his disciples to expect opposition from their loving parents and spouses, and warned them of the cost of discipleship: “He who loves father or mother more than me is not Humility and Self-Denial 905 worthy of me.” Father Moon explains that separating from family and friends is necessary in the course of restoration, which requires a fundamental reorientation of the self from the customary fallen love of the world to the higher love of God.
Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have come not to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s foes will be those of his own household. He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
Matthew 10.34-37 O believers, take not your fathers and brothers to be your friends, if they prefer unbelief to belief; whosoever of you takes them for friends, those—they are the evildoers.
Say, “If your fathers, your sons, your brothers, your wives, your clan, your possessions that you have gained, commerce you fear may slacken, dwellings you love—if these are dearer to you than God and His Messenger, and to struggle in His way, then wait till God brings His command: God guides not the people of the ungodly.”
Qur’an 9.23-24
Consort not with those that are dear, neither with those that are not dear; for not seeing those that are dear and seeing those that are not dear are both painful.
Dhammapada 210 (Buddhism)
Put no trust in a neighbor,
have no confidence in a friend;
guard the doors of your mouth
from her who lies in your bosom;
for the son treats the father with contempt,
the daughter rises up against her mother,
the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.
But as for me, I will look to the Lord,
I will wait for the God of my salvation;
my God will hear me.
Micah 7.5-7
God has made up a parable about those who disbelieve: Noah’s wife and Lot’s wife were both married to two of our honest servants; and they betrayed them both. Neither had any help at all from them as far as God was concerned. It was said, “Enter the Fire along with others who are entering it.”
God has made up a parable about those who believe: the wife of Pharaoh20 when she said, “My Lord, build a house for me in Paradise with you, and save me from Pharaoh and his doings. Save me from such wrongdoing folk!”
Qur’an 66.10-11
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”
Genesis 12.1
Every one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life.
Matthew 19.29
He who forsakes his home in the cause of God, finds in the earth many a refuge, wide and spacious; should he die as a refugee from home for God and His Apostle, his reward becomes due and sure with God: and God is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.
Qur’an 4.100
If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
Luke 14.26
Even your brothers and the house of your
father,
even they have dealt treacherously with you;
they are in full cry after you;
believe them not,
though they speak fair words to you.
Jeremiah 12.6
One day she who was formerly the mate of the venerable Sangamaji came towards him, drew near and said, “Recluse, support me with our little child.” At these words the venerable Sangamaji was silent. So a second time and yet a third time his former wife repeated her words, and still the venerable Sangamaji was silent. Thereupon she set down the child in front of him and went away, saying, “Here is your child, recluse! Support him!” But the venerable Sangamaji neither looked at the child nor spoke to him. When from a distance she saw this, she thought to herself, “This recluse needs not even his own child.” So she turned back, took up the child and went away.
Udana 5-6 (Buddhism)
Give up your wealth and your wife; you have entered the state of the houseless; do not, as it were, return to your vomit. Gautama, be careful all the while!
Leave your friends and relations, the large fortune you have amassed; do not desire them a second time; Gautama, be careful all the while…
Now you have entered on the path from which the thorns have been cleared, the great path; walk in the right path, Gautama, be careful all the while!
Uttaradhyayana Sutra 10.29-32 (Jainism)
How could I be diligent, good Shariputta, when there are my parents to support, my wife and children to support, my slaves, servants and work-people to support, when there are services to perform for friends and acquaintances, services to perform for kith and kin, services to perform for guests, rites to perform for the ancestors, rites to perform for the gods, duties to perform for the king—and this body too must be satisfied and looked after!
What do you think, Dhananjani? Suppose someone failed to live the holy life because of his parents, his wife, and so on; because of this failure…the guardians of Niraya hell might drag him off to their hell. Would he gain anything by saying, “I failed to live the holy life because of my parents?”
Majjhima Nikaya 2.186-87 (Buddhism)
He who is kind toward much-beloved friends loses his own good from his mind, becoming partial; observing such danger in friendship, let one walk alone like a rhinoceros.
As a spreading bush of bamboo is entangled in various ways, so is the longing for children and wives: not clinging to these, even like a bamboo just sprouting forth, let one walk alone like a rhinoceros…
If one lives in the midst of company, love of amusement and desire arises; strong attachment for children arises; let therefore one who dislikes separation, which must happen sooner or later from these beloved, walk alone like a rhinoceros…
Having abandoned the different kinds of desire, founded on child, wife, father, mother, wealth, corn, relations, let one walk alone like a rhinoceros.
Let a wise man, having discovered that such is attachment, that there is in it but little happiness, that it is but insipid, that there is more affliction in it than comfort, that it is a fishhook, walk alone like a rhinoceros.
Having cast off the bonds, like a fish which breaks the net in the water, like a fire that returns not to the spot already burned up, let one walk alone like a rhinoceros.
Sutta Nipata 37-62: Rhinoceros Discourse (Buddhism)