Author: Richard Urban

The Family Is the Textbook for Attaining the Kingdom of Heaven

Listen to Dr. Kelly Kohls, founder of the National School Boards Leadership Council, speaking at the Strengthening Families and Communities Forum:
#109-Dr. Kelly Kohls: How to Fix Boards of Education

Cheon Seong Gyeong 266

    The path we are walking has not ended. You will receive the Blessing through the gratitude you show before Heaven. You should be grateful individually and you should also never forget the value of having received the Blessing representing your tribe, your clan, such as the Kim or the Pak clan, and, moreover representing the thirty million people of Korea and all the people of the world.
    Furthermore, you should know that you have inherited the responsibility that True Parents are to carry out on earth. Why do the Blessed Families have to inherit this? If the Blessed Families are going through the course to restore a people, True Parents should be going through a course to restore the world. In other words, they should be going one step ahead. Yet without establishing the victorious standard of having restored a people, True Parents cannot walk the course of worldwide restoration. That is why you must inherit the responsibility to restore a people to ensure that True Parents can walk the worldwide course. Until your death and until the sorrow of this people is removed, you must shoulder the responsibility to restore a people. (13-293, 1964.4.12)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1242

If you have the opportunity to attend a Blessing Ceremony, you should not go thinking you are just a man or a woman and there is nothing else to it. When you attend the ceremony, you are there representing men and women who have come and gone in the world over the past six thousand years. You must understand that you have been invited as such. You should experience this reality deep in your heart. (30-169, 1970. 3.22)

FAMILY

The Basic Form of Life

2. The Family as the School of Love and Virtue

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

The family is the most important school in human life, for it is the school of love. (271:80, August 22, 1995)

The family is the training ground of the heart. You are trained in brotherly and sisterly love, so treat your classmates in school with that same heart and your fellow citizens in the nation with that same heart. Hence, the education your parents give you to be loving brothers and sisters is for the sake of the school, the community and the nation.
    Parents should bequeath their heart and sensibility to their children and descendants. As parents you are role models, but this involves more than teaching by example. By your love you are laying the emotional foundation for your children, so that they are able to live for the family, the community and the nation. (180:131, August 22, 1988) Continue reading “The Family Is the Textbook for Attaining the Kingdom of Heaven”

When the Family Declines, Ancient Traditions Are Destroyed

Listen to Dr. Kelly Kohls, founder of the National School Boards Leadership Council, speaking at the Strengthening Families and Communities Forum:
#109-Dr. Kelly Kohls: How to Fix Boards of Education

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1231

In the course of the restoration of Canaan, you must follow me. When wild geese fly across the ocean, they absolutely follow their leader. There are no objections. When he says, “Fly!” all the geese fly. They must follow the leader, no matter how difficult it is, even to the point of death. Until now, you have been doing something similar. However, now that you have arrived at our destination and started giving birth to children, you must care for each other and love each other; you must create one tribe and be proud of it. Such a time must come. I have said that is what we must do now. Until now, it has been a time to move toward the blessed land of Canaan, and now we have come to a settlement age. (115-107, 1981.11.4)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1186

What happened due to the Ceremony of the Settlement of the Eight Stages? The right of Right of the parent can be liberated and achieved. Because this time is coming, then, from the position of Parents, I am raising all of you into a position where you can be tribal messiahs. This is to liberate Jesus and Adam’s family from their grief. Through your tribes, you can obliterate the foundation created by the mistake of false parents; in this way, for the first time, hometowns where people were born can be transformed into the hometowns of the heavenly kingdom. (193-214, 1989.10.4)

Family

The Basic Form of Life

2. The Family as the School of Love and Virtue

Lord, give us joy in our wives and children, and make us models for the God-fearing.
    Qur’an 25.74

The moral life of man may be likened to traveling to a distant place: one must start from the s stage. It may also be likened to ascending a height [of public responsibility]: one must begin from the lowest step [one’s family].
    Doctrine of the Mean 15.2 (Confucianism)

If a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he care for God’s church? 1 Timothy 3.5 Continue reading “When the Family Declines, Ancient Traditions Are Destroyed”

A Family Should Have Both a Father and a Mother

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2084

You must set the condition of having loved your enemies even if the world persecutes you and even if you stand facing a global enemy. God and the people of all religions who are trying to be God’s children are caught up in this one line. The teaching, “Love your enemy,” is the great truth. Although the content is simple, no one has known that this would become the dividing line between God and Satan. (The Way of Unification – 595)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1434

The three goals of restoration through indemnity are the change of lineage, change of the right of ownership, and change of the realm of heart. You have heard this before, haven’t you? Since the lineage was defiled, unless it is changed back to its original state, you cannot be connected to the Kingdom of God and be registered in it. The original owner of the lineage is God. Through the fallen lineage, everything was stolen from God and His right of ownership was subverted. This situation can only be rectified by connecting to God’s lineage through His love. That is why the lineage must be changed. The lineage was perverted through the fallen relationship of love. Since the lineage was turned in the wrong direction, there will be no path for humanity to return to God unless the lineage is transformed. (258-287, 1994.3.20)

Family

The Basic Form of Life
  1. The Family Ideal

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Human beings have a basic need to feel and connect with each other. For this, we need wives and husbands; we need young people and old people. This is why, regardless of the world’s opinion, we have worked to establish the family as a universal form. (21:120, November 17, 1968)

A family should have both a father and a mother, and both sons and daughters. Only then can it be the complete foundation for happiness… when all the varieties of heart are present in the family. (32:197, July 15, 1970) Continue reading “A Family Should Have Both a Father and a Mother”

The Family Is the Basic Form of Life

Listen to Dr. Kelly Kohls, founder of the National School Boards Leadership Council, speaking at the Strengthening Families and Communities Forum:
#109-Dr. Kelly Kohls: How to Fix Boards of Education

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2201

    A father who is filial to his own father will want his own son to be even more filial than he is. Only then, can the grandfather and father be able to close their eyes peacefully when they die. The heart that is able to make the son suffer even more than I have is the heart of love for the son.
    This goes without saying. By doing this, then together we have to comfort God, who has been suffering for us. Because a father needs such children as his successors, he lets them carry out their filial duty to such a degree that he could not forget it even after his death. That is why I impose great hardship on you.
    I am a stingy person when it comes to my personal life. I do not know how to spend money on myself. I am not a person who will go to a restaurant to eat alone when I am hungry and I also advise Mother about what to eat and wear. (43-60, 1971.4.18)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1100

No one living on earth until this time has ever seen God’s Day, True Parents’ Day, True Children’s Day, and Day of All True Things. There are 365 days in a year. You should clearly understand that the most important days among all 365 days are those days that I have just mentioned, which have now appeared in providential history. You should know that these days are the king of all days, and if a year like that existed it would be the king of all years. (92-252, 1977.4.18)

Part Four

Family and Society

Chapter 19

Family

The Basic Form of Life

THE FAMILY IS THE BASIC FORM OF LIFE. Its relations constitute the environment where people are reared, molding their character, values and identities. People sometimes try to set up alternatives to the traditional family, but these fail to persist beyond one or two generations. There is a “form” to the family; not in the sense of a precise set of roles, but rather a general principle that even single-parent families, childless families and families blended with stepparents and other relations take after as best they can. What is the “form” of the family? Outwardly, it consists of the pattern of relationships linking parents and children, husband and wife, and siblings; inwardly, it is the true, godly love that governs these relationships.
There is another sense in which the family is the basic form of life: it is the “textbook” for relationships in the larger society. Good family relations are productive of good citizens, who apply the lessons of relating with elder, same-age and younger family members to their relations with superiors, peers and subordinates.
Father Moon teaches extensively about both aspects of the family’s form. He characterizes its structural pattern as the “four-position foundation,” a notable teaching because it brings God into the family as a veritable member. He also describes the family spatially as extending in six directions. In either case, the form is spherical and characterized by equality of all positions. This is possible when the dynamic in all the family relations is true love. Each family member lives for the sake of the others, creating a virtuous circle of giving that generates energy and equalizes all. Such families are the building-blocks of virtuous societies.

  1. The Family Ideal

He who loves his wife as himself; who honors her more than himself; who rears his children in the right path, and who marries them off at the proper time of their life, concerning him it is written: “And you will know that your home is at peace.”
    Talmud, Yebamot 62 (Judaism)

Supporting one’s father and mother, cherishing wife and children and a peaceful occupation; this is the greatest blessing.
    Sutta Nipata 262 (Buddhism) Continue reading “The Family Is the Basic Form of Life”

Can Celibacy as Taught by Catholicism and Buddhism Be the Basis for Human Happiness?

Listen to Dr. Kelly Kohls, founder of the National School Boards Leadership Council, speaking at the Strengthening Families and Communities Forum:
#109-Dr. Kelly Kohls: How to Fix Boards of Education

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1950

England was able to create a world-wide empire because it was the successor to Roman civilization. Before England was occupied by Rome, her people did not bathe properly more than once a year. Isn’t that barbaric? They could not bathe because it was freezing cold. The English people are all descendants of pirates. Would they have had time to bathe? England inherited Roman civilization and expanded its global domain, centering on the ocean. God had them dominate the world. “You, island nation, conquer the world!” That was God’s will. (110-41, 1980.11.8)

Richard: Things just don’t happen. Although individual events are the reslult of human decisions (human responsibility), the overall flow of God’s Providence, as evidenced by the reading above, is overseen by God.

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1246

    Do you know Lee Gap-seong? Of the thirty-three people who participated in the March 1st independence movement, he is the only surviving member. When you consider him with regard to that movement, is he higher or lower in rank than the president of Korea? Without question, he is higher.
    In the same way, the people who receive the Blessing through True Parents will be glorified by the world. Even if the last couple to be blessed is crippled, with one eye, crooked nose, one ear, and one arm, they will be glorified by the world. Their physical appearance and anything else that is lacking will not matter; only the fact that they received the Blessing through True Parents will be important. That is something you cannot buy even if you were to pay billions of dollars. Women in the Unification Church, do you understand that? How much do you understand? (35-71, 1970.10.3)

Richard:  The March First Movement, or the Samil Movement (in Korean, samil means “three-one” or “March 1”) was one of the earliest manifestations of Korea’s independence movement during the Japanese occupation of Korea. The name refers to an event that occurred on March 1, 1919, also referred to as the Mansei Demonstrations (“ten thousand years,” in Korean).
    The March First demonstrations established the high-water mark in Korea’s struggle for independence from the Japanese colonial government. Although the nationwide demonstrations failed to accomplish the goal of effecting independence, they unified the Korean people in spirit as they awaited their eventual liberation from Japan. 
From:  The New World Encyclopedia.

Special Reading: Cheong Seong Gyeong 1404-continued

    Through this ceremony, the environmental conditions necessary for all humankind to be able to participate in the Blessing have been created, and all people connected to the mainstream ideal can now belong to You through attending it. This amazing and incredible miracle has been wrought, not just by the work of the Unification Church but also by the joint efforts of Yourself and the spirit world. Therefore, I hope and pray that You can forever hold the victorious dominion and sovereignty of eternal love and glory gained from this ceremony, and establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth and in the spirit world through the liberation achieved by this Blessing. All humankind connected to the 360 Million Couples can now unite in heart and strive to achieve the unity of mind and body, husband and wife, and within the tribe, race, nation, world, and cosmos. These couples have been established as the nucleus representing the True Parents on earth and the family in the garden of Your love. They have been blessed in order to complete the Kingdom of Heaven on earth with the sovereignty of the love central to the ideal of creation, which has been Your eternal dream.
    I stand before them on this occasion which You have long desired, and bless them to become Your children who from this moment can inherit Your will to build Your kingdom on earth and in heaven as true individuals by uniting mind and body, husband and wife, parents and children, and with their siblings in the blessed world. Please be with them and bless them as they march forward to the place of victory and glory. I pronounce my benediction upon the 360 million Couples in the name of the True Parents! Amen! Amen! Amen! (299-109, 1999.2.7)

Ascetism, Monasticism, and Celibacy

4. The Problem with Asceticism—Lack of Love

Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Can celibacy as taught by Catholicism and Buddhism be the basis of human happiness? No. Yet no religion on earth has demonstrated what the basis of happiness is. Religions did not uphold the family as the basis because no family had appeared that was worthy of that position. However, sensing that one day such a family would appear, they emphasized celibacy. It was the foundation for people to form a pure and correct family. (Blessing and Ideal Family 2.2.4) Continue reading “Can Celibacy as Taught by Catholicism and Buddhism Be the Basis for Human Happiness?”