Blessing and Ideal Family
by Reverend Sun Myung Moon

Chapter Seven
Part 4

TRUE PARENTS AND CHILDREN

Parents exist for children. If parents existed for themselves, the word "parent" wouldn't exist. From now on all moral principles will be formed centering upon the Unification Principle. How should parents exist? Parents who gave birth to children should exist for the children. That's the moral principle number one. No explanation is needed for that. To exist for the son is not something unhappy, but is something happy.

Parents sacrifice themselves for the children because they want to return to God through the children. In loving children, people experience parental love and, furthermore, they feel God's love. This is the work of the original mind. People without children cannot experience God's love as well because of the absence of parental love. That's why such people's love is imperfect.

Parents want to give children their favorite thing first. Sometimes they cannot give it even though they want to, because the children don't know how to manage it. If it is given, the receiver will be hurt. If a very sharp knife is given to a person who is not ready to use it, it will destroy the person, his family and the public. That's why parents should not give things at random. Parents always want to give the best things to the children. You should understand this position of parents and willingly go out witnessing before being told to.

No parents teach children something wrong. It is possible for a teacher to teach something wrong. If a teacher is the students' enemy, he will teach wrong things. There are two kinds of teachers and two kinds of brothers. But there is only one kind of parents. Even evil people teach their children right.

Which is the good parent among the following three? The first says, "Study in order to give good fortune to your poor parents." The second says, "Study for your brothers and your family." The third says, "Study to fight for your nation." The third one who tells the child to be loyal to the nation is surely the best parent.

What about a parent saying, "Follow the way of the saints who tried to save the world in spite of losing their lives"? Of course the fourth one who asks the child to sacrifice for the world is the better parent than the third one. The Unification Church has this clear standard.

To whom do you belong? You belong to your parents and your child. To whom do the parents belong? They belong to the child and to God.

Therefore, first you belong to God and then you belong to your child. After everything entailed in that, finally you belong to you. When you become like that, you'll be perfect. That's why the moral principle to respect parents still remains on earth and in human life. From this concept, derive respect for your parents and love for your child.

A person without parents is an orphan. When a person has the experience of receiving parental love and of loving children, he or she is able to distinguish the "four directions" and "up and down."

You were born of your parents, so your parents were the first ones to whom you could speak. Your first sound was "daddy and mommy." "Dad and mom" which I am mentioning now are the names that human beings called from the original position a long time ago. It is interesting. Call daddy and mommy thousands of times. Examine the taste of "daddy and mommy." The taste is infinite. When you call daddy and mommy, they answer right away because subject and object are structured like that.

Whom do you like better, your spouse or your children? You like your children better than your spouse. A couple can separate from each other but they cannot separate from their children. Even though you take your son out of your inheritance, you cannot truly separate from him because of the blood lineage. After a bride and a bridegroom divorce, they can forget each other, but they miss their children more and more as time goes by. Anyone who has children can understand this feeling. Parents living in the satanic dominion must admit at least this fact. That's why God loves His sons and daughters.

The reason for the marriage of Unification Church members is not to meet their bride or bridegroom but to establish the four position foundation centering upon Father. The parent and child relationship is more important than the husband and wife relationship. Even after the marriage ceremony, a bride and groom can be separated but they can never separate from their children.

Which side is more lucky, children meeting their father or the father meeting his children? Children who meet their father are more lucky. How miserable a father is if his children are big fools.

Heavenly Father looked for His lost children for 6,000 years, and finally He found them enduring suffering upon suffering. How would He feel to look at the children who are impure and worthless? Do you have confidence not to disappoint Heavenly Father, who has been looking for you with His cross of suffering for 6,000 years? Do you have confidence not to make Him say, "It would be much better if I hadn't found you"?

Blessed families should set up the family tradition before having children. Make sincere and serious effort to do that before giving birth to a child. Your children will be able to say, "My parents are the best among all parents." If you are lacking externally, you should create your authority in some unique field.

Your children should be able to say, "Our parents are the best in the whole cosmos."

The name true parents is for the ones who love children. They should be able to receive praise from the spirit world for their suffering and for their loving children. True parents eventually let their children suffer to love humankind. Then they become the historical owner. Your children should be God's children and the children of the universe, and they should be able to grasp the inheritance of love. Then finally God is to be liberated from His agony.

How should a father be? He should be the best friend among friends. When a father appears, his son should jump to his father, even abandoning his friends. A father also should be the teacher of teachers. And then he is to be the center of heart.

A father is to be considered the one next to God and the one surpassing the president. Children should think of their father as their best friend and the best teacher, whom they would never exchange with any other friends or teachers. And they should be able to say, "I would rather abandon my loving wife than abandon my father."

Our Ye Jin grew up like her mother. Even though I go home late sometimes, I never forget to kiss her. Children feel something when their father touches. Children need such a feeling. You should create such a tradition in your lifetime.

Father always caresses the sleeping babies' faces when he comes home. It is hard to be good parents. By doing so, a thought is automatically implanted in the children's mind, "I will also love my sons and daughters as our father loves me," and they will come to realize that their father is the best in the whole world.

Children should be able to sing songs of yearning for parents when they are away from home.

When coming back from outside, if its mother is not at home, even though older brothers and sisters greet joyfully, the little child asks, "Is nobody at home?" Because mother is absent, the kindness and joy of brothers and sisters is not enough. In other words, mother is the subject. Because the center of love, the central axis, is mother, babies are satisfied only when mother is with them.

Did you want your spouse to be better than you, or not? Everybody answers the same. People want their spouse to be better than themselves. No parents want their children to be worse than they are.

Even though a handsome man and a beautiful woman give birth to a very ugly firstborn, when people exclaim that their baby is more beautiful than its parents, the couple will be extremely happy.

People want to have a great son. Then how can we educate someone to be great? Some people may say that we can educate children from kindergarten to the best university. But education is to continue through the entire lifetime. When parents train their children their focus should be on how to make mental unity and how to bequeath the heartistic bond to them. This is a common practice.

When a child is better than its parents, they feel happiness. That's why a woman who gave birth to a child worse than herself is ashamed to enter the spirit world. You should be able to love your sons and daughters more than your parents loved you. When children think according to this pattern, the world of love -- the Kingdom of Heaven -- will be established automatically.

In order for parental love to last eternally, one who can inherit the tradition is necessary. Surely the children are the heirs. We have to educate our children to be the heirs of the tradition. And we need a method to develop the value of the tradition.

Each generation should realize the importance of the existing tradition and develop it for the sake of the future. Such a practice can be initiated in a true family where parents yearn for their children to be better than they. Parents with such a desire continuously will be interested in their children and encourage them. Such parents will try sincerely to create the environment best suited to enable their children to be greater than they. Such parents will sacrifice everything for the happiness of their children and they will even force their children into the direction which leads their children to excel.

What should the response of the children be ? Should they say to their parents, "You are a dictator, so I don't like you. Please leave me alone. I don't want you to intervene in my life." Is that the right attitude for the children? Or should they respond, "Father and mother! I realize what your will is. I value your tradition infinitely and try not only to inherit it but to develop it."

When parents present their children as their representatives in order to hand on the family responsibility, they don't want their representatives to be worse than they. Why? Because all parents want their children to be better than they. Likewise the leaders of the nation should want their successors to be better than they. People should want their successors to be better than them in a family or in a nation. This is the prerequisite for eternity to transcend the fluctuation of history.

The wish for children to be better than parents is the condition required of a family. The same concept applies to the nation. The sovereigns of the world have not yet practiced this. They have cut the necks of all the capable men who emerged to succeed them. Such a miserable history has been handed down.

For a nation to flourish, its people should inherit its history. Those who are attracted to older people can inherit history. It is better to bequeath it when they are young. That's why children like the old tales. Because children are the new buds, they naturally receive the historical sap. Loving the old days has to do with this concept.

When babies are crying with their noses running, if we say, "I'll tell you one old tale if you stop crying," they will stop crying. The best time for a baby, next to the time of drinking milk, is the time of listening to the folk tales. It is because they are to inherit history. The principle of the universe is structured like that.

2. THE OBLIGATION OF TRUE CHILDREN

You must return parental love. When raising up children, parents feed children even though they continuously starve, squeezing the hungry stomach, biting the tongue to overcome the hunger. They love their child at such a cost in order to teach their children to do the same thing for their parents. When parents go the suffering course first, the children can follow the same suffering course to comfort the parents; the parents' suffering becomes an investment. When you restore such heart to comfort your parents, your children will also follow your steps. And when you have such children, you will remain as good kin. People who center upon themselves and neglect parents cannot be considered dutiful sons and daughters.

Then who is the son of filial piety? When a son can do the same to his children as his parents did to him, he becomes the son of filial piety. That is also connected to heaven. Even though parents tried to raise their children up with a wholehearted effort, if the children don't appreciate them, the family will perish. When a reciprocal base is established between the parents and the children, God can dwell in that family and build the Kingdom of Heaven.

Then what child can remain in the Kingdom of Heaven? The one who repays the debt of parental love. When your parents are getting senile, you should serve them with the same care they had when they took care of your stools and urine in your childhood. That's the way to be a dutiful son.

What should you do for your parents? You should be a dutiful son and a loyal subject of your nation because your parents led the nation and the world. You are to be a praiseworthy family member among the true brothers before being a dutiful son, and you are to be a dutiful son before being a loyal subject of a nation. The title "family member" signifies the right to praise one's brothers and sisters. Isn't that true?

What is a dutiful son? Before getting married, you cannot be a true child of filial piety. When you serve your parents with your love plus your spouse's love, you can become a true and dutiful son or daughter.

The individual cannot be a loyal subject in the Unification Church. When you are a couple with a family, you can become a loyal subject.

That is why in order for you to set up an altar as a loyal subject, you have to give birth to a dutiful son.

There must appear the child who can willingly do the work parents desire and who is determined to be responsible to do even more than the parents desire. Then the solid foundation to inherit God's providential secret can be established on earth.

Satan ignores his own mistakes and only knows others' mistakes, but God cannot open His mouth when He makes mistakes. So you should always say, "I'm sorry. That was my fault." You are not to protest or provoke your parents. You should control yourself. As much as you endure, God will be with you.

When the children try very hard not to be indebted to their parents, the parents feel joy.

You should not be indebted to your father and mother.

Even though you hear words of praise from your parents, it is really stupid to behave centering upon those words. Parents use words of praise in order to make you come closer to the loving heart that parents desire.

Parents gave life to children. Children also should sacrifice their lives for their parents. Life comes from love, so it is a logical conclusion that you should go forward sacrificing your life for the sake of the essential love. This is not a contradiction.

If children grow up in the tradition of love, they cannot be indifferent when their parents want to divorce. They can never be indifferent. Good children will claim, "I'm your child, the union of both of you. You should make any kind of compromise for me. Please be the great parents. I need you." We should remind young people of the parental responsibility not to divorce; because of the children, parents don't have the right to divorce.

Because of love toward children, parents don't have any right even to think of divorce. Young people in this country should develop an anti divorce movement.

Unification Church members should restore divorced parents centering upon God's love.

3. LET'S BE PARENTS WHO BEQUEATH GOOD TRADITION

Be the Parents who live in the tradition. If a certain tradition is set in England, the people live and relate to one another within the tradition. Within the tradition, they love and feel joy. In general, the place for the establishment of tradition is the intersection of life and death. In other words, tradition is established in the place of suffering and agony. Speaking in detail, the tradition of a nation is established when it survives through a life and death crisis.

A tradition is to be set up in a difficult place, one that is difficult for the whole, not for the individual. In order for children to inherit their parents' mental and material assets, they should understand their parents' suffering and they should be able to overcome a situation more difficult than that faced by their parents. The true heirs do not waste the legacy of the parents; they utilize the legacy for the betterment of the whole. This is a reasonable conclusion.

True parents will endeavor hard to bequeath the tradition of love. This rings true to both Orientals and Occidentals. All parents, regardless of race, want to set up a universal tradition of love. All people want to enjoy a happy and peaceful life within the perfect and harmonized unity of a family.

The fact that everybody wants such a life shows that this tradition is fundamental. Because only tradition can be connected to the future, it is a natural morality of parents that once they realize the significance of the tradition, they want to bequeath it to their children no matter what the sacrifice.

The problem is how to implant the parents' thought into the growing children as a tradition. Heavenly Father's serious problem has been how to take your children out of the satanic world, and now the education of your children in the satanic world is your problem. You have to undertake such a double cross.

Father worries not about leaving behind the name of the Unification Church, but rather about how to leave the people who inherited Father's tradition. That's why I have been educating continually about the importance of the tradition.

What do you mean by living well? My well-being does not matter. We have to educate the descendants. We have to leave a good example to them. So far we all have walked a miserable path, the course of the wilderness. As refugees we didn't have a place to stay, but from now on we have to settle down and in order to settle down, we must win a victory. Unless we win as did the Israelites when they were driving out the seven tribes of Canaan, we cannot settle down. We are to get a victory through fighting centering upon the nation.

Always consider how you will respond to your children when they ask you, "Mother, what did you do at that time? Did you witness or were you running away?" Will you answer with pride or with a shameful heart? It is a good education to let your children visit your old mission area where you witnessed. Educate your children with a scrapbook, and especially let them know the main point: Father.

In the near future your children will ask you, "What did you do at that time, mom and dad?" Then you will be able to take them to your old witnessing area and explain, "At that time, I sat here holding you and father sat there. We were spreading God's Will, begging rice from that house. That's why we are blessed this much now. The positive house at that time lives like this, and the negative house lives like that."

Your children should acknowledge you as parents who can overcome whatever seems difficult and who live beyond the constraints of time, environment and poverty. You should also set up the family tradition that your children can be mobilized under any circumstances by your order, with your children able to say, "Because this is the way my parents have gone, I can do it." You should make your children follow your example of a husband and wife serving their parents, and you should establish clearly the standard for the education of your descendants.

The hurt that you got while working for the providence is a great lesson for you and your descendants.

The little money that you saved with your whole heart is something that you will never exchange even for the universe; love dwells there. A wife cannot think of something else when she uses the money. You are to be the beings worthy of your descendants' praise. They will not help but be stimulated by the recognition that their parents have lived for the sake of the Will with God's heart.

You should be able to order your children to be like you. It is not shameful at all that you didn't eat enough and you wore terrible clothes while witnessing. That becomes a priceless educational resource for your descendants.

When getting out of Hung Nam prison, I didn't want to bring out any thing except the labor clothes, which got dirty and smelly with the compulsory labor and the chemicals. They were patched again and again. Finally they were patches and I had to be careful not to break them apart.

Those clothes are an invaluable souvenir. I couldn't throw them away, so I put them inside a quilt. The only asset that I brought out when escaping North Korea was one ragged bundle. I went from Hung Nam to Pyongyang with it. I asked a certain member to keep those rags, but he lost them during the course of refugee life.

If I had those clothes, I wouldn't have to explain my life at that time. I feel stifled thinking of having lost such a precious treasure. It cannot be exchanged for the whole world. We may never inspire some people even if we speak for trillions of years, but such a treasure can inspire all people immediately. You should collect many materials relating to your public, providential experiences.

Suffering is wonderful; therefore, you should set up the tradition of which all your offspring will be proud.

You are to set up a bone-marrow-like tradition which will serve as educational resources in your descendants' society. Such a tradition will educate without words. Realizing this, you should understand the precious value of the present moment and make a sincere effort.

The big problem is how your three generations can live with Father. If three generations together earn merit, they will be the meritorious subjects of the spirit world.

So from now on, you should devote yourself sincerely to educate your children with such thought.

Father is nearly sixty years old now. The tradition is to remain even if I die. Father's idea is to make you live more passionately than him and to make you soldiers moving forward. It is parental love and responsibility to transfer the tradition to the children even through letting them suffer. That's why Father forces you to go the sacrificial way.

What is the way of God's will? It is the way to save the tribe by sacrificing individuals, and to save the nation by sacrificing tribes. The way of the will is to save the whole world by sacrificing Korea on the altar of God, and to save our ancestors' spirit bodies in the spirit world by sacrificing the world. We know that the purpose underlying the sad fallen history is to liberate God by sacrificing the spirit world and physical world. We are given a mission in this context, so we should march forward at the risk of our lives.

We shouldn't just go; we should go forward creating the tradition. What kind of tradition should remain? We should leave the tradition of suffering to love humankind, scattering blood and tears.

Next what should we leave? We should leave the content of education for descendants. Finally we should leave good offspring and go to the spirit world. That's why you should know that your children are not for you but for the future world.

When you leave tradition and righteous descendants who are stronger and bolder than you, your nation will never perish even though her fortune arrives at the time to perish. New benefactors will appear at the time of crisis and a new victorious flag will be unfurled when collapse was imminent.

This tradition should make not only Koreans but all humankind joyful. If we cannot do it, there will be no offering to Heavenly Father.

Even though a husband and a wife die, they should leave the heavenly law. For what does a family exist? Even though it exists for the children, first of all it should serve God and the nation. That is the way for the betterment of your children. In that order, your children can live in the realm of the fortune of God, the world and the nation.

Therefore, your blessed children should be objective to the fortune of God, the world and the nation, and not put their own fortune in the subject position.

You should be the family living for the world and eternity, not for the sake of just one generation. Your family is supposed to invoke God's help, gathering the heart of all humankind, and is supposed to live in partnership with heaven and earth and humankind. If you become such a family, God will protect you from trouble and misfortune. God will leave your family as the mainstream family seed.

4. PARENTAL LOVE TOWARD CHILDREN

Where is the place to receive God's love? love is one; therefore, the place of love is also one. Are you willing to go forward if there's a place and a way to receive love? That is the position of a child in front of parents.

What is the original motivation for parental love? Love centering upon a man and a woman changes, but love centering upon children born of a couple never changes. Unchanging love is not the result of the horizontal bond of a couple, but it has to do with the origin of the vertical flow. Then who is the vertical subject? It is God.

That love cannot be controlled by a husband and a wife. In its presence, you don't have free choice to act according to your own will. You cannot abandon it whenever you don't feel like carrying it. It is impossible to cut it off. There's no way to touch it through the horizontal bond. That's why parental love is absolutely unchanging.

In democratic society, where individualism is dominating, children murmur about the difference in dimension between the old age and the new age. Even though children change, the heart of parents never changes. It is even true for animals. In loving their babies, parents risk their lives.

Why is parental love precious? Parental love is vertical, but it doesn't conclude as just vertical. Vertical love embraces horizontal love and helps it settle down. Parents play the role of beacon to dissuade children from wrong habits in life.

Vertical love exists surely to create the horizontal love. In this principle, parental love is established by the intensive integration of vertical and horizontal love centering upon God's love. Because parental love is responsible for both the vertical and horizontal elements, parents naturally want to give their precious things to their children. By letting the children receive these gifts in their purity, parents want them to expand horizontally. This is the essence of love.

Parental love is the greatest love in the world. Even people in the top rank of the world are nothing in front of their children. Parental love is unconditional and unlimited in the presence of children. Parental love is the origin of love. That's why orphans who never received parental love long for it most of all. Even if orphans have something to eat and a house in which to sleep, their hearts always hunger and are full of longing because they lack parental love. Even if they lead a joyful life in an orphanage, their time is not truly happy. The little orphans always long for parents even while they sing and dance, are awake or asleep. That's because every human being is supposed to grow up in the bosom of love.

Parental love of a thousand years ago and that of the present time is identical. In the fluctuating course of history, parental love never changes.

Parental love is the primary love. A sound man who grew up with parental love understands what love is. Because children love their parents, they come to learn love from their experience of loving parents. That is the highest joy for children. Without having parents, we never experience love.

One son can receive both man's love and woman's love through the parents. The father represents all the men in the world and the mother represents all the women in the world. In the historical view, the parents are an historical man and woman.

When children want to praise a woman, they compare her with their mother, and when there is a handsome man, children compare him with their father.

Is there a limit to parental love? Parents want to love their children not only for their childhood but for their entire lifetime and for eternity. If a father and son-relationship is established centering on absolute love, through it will come infinite power, infinite stimulation and something infinitely new. If a father- and son- relationship lacks such a bond, their relationship will surely stop at certain time.

You were born as the children of loving parents. You grew up receiving parental love. Parents always love children whether they are old or young. Parents look at a 70-year-old son with the same standard that they had when he was young. As the age gets older, the heart becomes closer and closer; when the responsibility toward a son gets bigger, the attitude toward him broadens and broadens.

Orphans -- "lonesome children" in Chinese characters -- are miserable because there is no way for them to receive love and no way for them to love in a true sense. Orphans are different in that they haven't received the parental love required in the growing period and they haven't had the heartistic bond to love and sympathize with parents. Therefore, the initial way to have give and take centering upon love is through parents.

Parents' love doesn't just come from the bond created by horizontal experiences, but it springs up from the bone marrow. Parents have the loving mind which can never be cut off or forgotten; therefore, parents love children as long as their life endures. When parents feel the bond of life to the children, parental love naturally springs up. Parents cannot help but loving children, not because of a forced consciousness to love them intentionally, but because of the lineal force of life connecting them. We feel this fact in our daily family life.

If there are four children, do you think parents love them unequally? Do parents give a certain amount of love to the first son and a different amount to the younger ones?

When feeding milk to the babies, no parents treat them unequally. Feeding milk is supplying blood and flesh to the babies, so parents are to supply it equally. A mother feels good to see her baby sucking her breast. She also feels joyful when the baby tries to grab her neck while sucking. Mothers give milk for free to the babies, but they are happy. No mother demands money for giving milk.

Even a very ugly mother who doesn't look feminine at all gets very serious in loving her children. She becomes more serious than anyone else in feeding milk to her baby. In loving her babies, she is second to none.

Even if a mother is facing an agonizing situation, when her baby asks for milk, she right away opens her bodice to feed the baby. When a baby is sucking its mother's breast, making the mother tired, it is almost like stealing the milk, but the mother is happy just to see the baby sucking because there's love. Everything is good in true love.

Being in the realm of true love is like being controlled by the typhoon in the arms of the typhoon.

Parents suffer for the children so much that it melts their bone marrow, but they don't feel pain because they love the children. Do they record the price in an account book after giving away their blood and flesh? They rather feel frustrated not to have given everything.

When babies don't suck the mother's breast, mothers get frustrated. It is like drawing out mother's blood and flesh through the umbilical cord. In a way, a baby is the king of thieves. Then why do mothers like to be robbed? Because it is the law of love.

When looking at her baby jumping into her bosom, a mother feels love. By embracing her baby, a mother feels new buds blossoming out of the cosmic atmosphere of peace. So even though the baby gets violent, the mother can have a generous mind and let it go ahead. In a way, the baby is the enemy stealing its mother's blood and flesh through the umbilical cord, but no mother thinks like that. That's because the mother receives the stimulation of new hope and also new stimulation toward her husband through the baby. Something penetrates between them. Nobody can control such a state of heart. When we pledge to work for God and the whole, centering upon absolute love, the strongest standard will be established. Without standing on that foundation, we shouldn't make the promise. East, west, south and north are different, and spring and autumn are different. When a seed planted in the spring can maintain its bond of life until the autumn, it can have the standard to embrace all four seasons. If it doesn't remain as the seed of life, everything will be dispersed.

We can see that parents who have raised up many children have bigger and broader hearts of love. Such parents come to feel that they cannot harm even an enemy. This shows that they stand upon a broader ground with a broader law.

Then what about God? Does He just want a love relationship with a certain individual, eliminating other individuals and the family, tribe, nation and world? If God is a parent, He would want to share love fairly with everybody.

Parents work for their children. No parents work just for their own survival. Imagine parents working as laborers in an agricultural community, picking weeds out of a held, carrying burdens on their backs, or hoeing weeds. They do all that for the children's eternal happiness. The drops of sweat running from the parents' foreheads are not for themselves. When the fruit of sweat and parental love get tangled with each other, new creative history will take place. A new history dwells in the footsteps of laboring parents.

Parents never say, "I want you to know how much I suffered," or "You should shed tears for me because I shed tears for you." They transcend all of these feelings. Only parental love and the love of children can solve such feelings. We can never deny the power of love. Human beings tried solving problems with human power or money, but it didn't work out.

A man's love shouldn't conclude in loving his wife, but it is to extend to loving children. The man loves his children on a much higher dimension than he loves his wife. Man would want to love his children in a new perspective, adding more to the stimulating love toward his spouse. He would desire a love deeper, more serious and more valuable in his parental love toward his children.

When a child who was begotten when its parents were in their sixties dies young, it is an event of extreme despair. If the child is the only begotten son of seven generations, how would the ancestors feel, who wanted the child to succeed to the dominion of seven generations?

The ancestors want to receive supreme fortune through their direct lineal descendants. That's why parents want to die when children die young. By the way, Adam was the begotten son of eternity, not of seven generations.

Heavenly Father wanted to accomplish His great plan centering upon Adam's family. How did He feel when Adam died ? The parental pain at that moment was far more severe than the pain from the unaccomplished marriage. How do the parents who live with the sole descendant of seven generations feel when the child is on the verge of death? Imagine that your child is dying, gasping for breath in front of you. What would you do? The parents do anything they have to, using all the possible methods, abandoning their dignity. Do you understand such a feeling? When there's a way to resurrect the child, parents don't think of their dignity.

When a husband is resurrected from death, the wife will serve him a thousand times more than before. And parents will risk their lives to gain the possibility to resurrect their dead child. The joy of meeting their child again is much stronger than the pain of sacrifice. Such power is produced only at the place of love. You may have felt such a feeling in your daily life.

Parents, knowing our ideology, are to enjoy and praise the conjugal love of their son and his wife. How can parents be jealous of their daughter-in-law? They should dance with joyful heart when their son joyfully loves his spouse. Love for the daughter-in-law is included in the parental love for the son. When God watches how Adam and Eve love each other, would He scold them, saying, "Get out of my way. You are blocking the traffic"? Even in the middle of an expressway, God would never care about the traffic. He would rather open their way.

Where is the ultimate land of True Parents' settlement? In other words, where is the standard point of God's true love?

New "parental love" is the ultimate settling land of love for humankind. By "True Parents' love," humankind can find the eternal and absolute standard point of true love. From here, humanistic love will be expanded into higher-dimensional love and will be connected to Heavenly true love.

5. CHILDREN SHOULD RECEIVE PARENTAL LOVE

As soon as they are born, children should receive parental love 100%; otherwise, dissatisfaction starts dominating them. We can't measure parental love by a numerical figure, but, for example, if parents possess 1,000 units love, they are to give the whole 1,000 units to children. If they give 900 to them, holding back 100, the children will feel as if they didn't receive any love at all. They will be satisfied when they receive the whole 1,000.

When your spouse asks you how much you love her or him, you shouldn't answer, "I love you 99%." You should say that you love your spouse 100%. That's because only love can establish the "whole" and only in love can the whole be given and taken. When we give and receive the whole, unification comes about. The only way to create perfect unification is to give and take the whole.

Babies in America, after getting out of the hospital, are placed in their own room at home. They seldom sleep with their parents. That's why they cannot feel the warmth of the parents. The mother seldom feeds her milk to the baby. If the babies don't sleep with their parents, they will be no different than pets. You shouldn't treat children like that.

Several babies sleeping with their parents is a beautiful scene. It is good to sleep with babies. If there's not enough space, you can make space by sleeping upside down. Use your brain to make the arrangement. It is a little uncomfortable for a small baby to sleep between huge parents, but it feels good for everyone. Babies should feel the body warmth of parents.

Juvenile problems bring on public criticism. What is the cause of their problems? It almost all has to do with emotional issues. That results from not having sound parents and brothers and sisters, and from the unsound man-woman relationship. Looking at such a fact, where do we look for the clue to correct those destructive problems? It is in the family.

All juvenile problems originate in the family. They have parents, but the parental heart is not implanted in the depth of the children's heart. In other words, parental love is not deeply solidified in the bone marrow of the children. From that point, the gap between parent and children expands.

If you grow up with the feeling of hate instead of the feeling of love, you are apt to create accidents in adulthood. A virgin of mild heart can create a pleasant environment even in married life, but a virgin of ill temper is apt to be unhappy in married life. There are many people cursing God for their miserable, unfair environment. But when they realize that their environment is created by themselves, they will be convinced that God is creating a fair world.

6. THE TOUGH DISCIPLINE OF LOVE

Revelation in the Bible says that we should be hot or cold, not lukewarm.

The lukewarm attitude counts for nothing in the world of love. It is permissible to hold a whip if you have a loving heart. If the children neglect the love given by the parents, the parents may have to be cold to them. If children don't get scolded even when they misbehave, they lose any sense of distinction between good and evil. Father looks kind but in a way he is very tough. Father is very cruel toward evil, but very hot like a blast furnace of several thousand degrees toward goodness.

When Father heard that teachers have been sent to jail for spanking students, he knew that America is perishing. For the sake of gaining a good direction, students should willingly ask their teachers to punish them if necessary. Do you complain when you are hit by Father? Would you complain of being hit by Father, saying, "Being a Unification Church member already makes me feel pent up"?

A Korean proverb says, "Give one extra bowl of rice to the difficult person and hold a whip to the beloved one." Such is inevitable if one wishes to inherit the right tradition. You should be able to shed tears of gratitude for parental love, forgetting the pain.

Even a whip is precious for love. Anything accomplished in love is precious, even punishment or suffering. Love doesn't include only pleasant feelings.

Parents who let their children stop studying whenever they are tired are not true parents of true love. They should even spank the children to continue studying because they are concerned about their future well-being. Parents set their hopes on the future of their children.

It is goodness and love to hit children or close friends when they want to go in the wrong direction. By knowing this principle, everything should be included within the standard of goodness.

You are to give birth to children and rear them with true love. Then the family becomes one and if you love the nation centering upon the family, you will be called a patriot. Parents from time to time enforce discipline in order to educate their children to go the right way, so children shouldn't be dissatisfied or rebellious against their parents when they are spanked. They should reflect on their wrong behavior and endeavor to correct it. Such a person will grow righteously and will move closer to the center where God dwells.

I once scolded a certain person, who shed tears during the scolding. He still remains in my memory. I should check if he cries during a second and third scolding. And if he cries the fourth time, I will realize that I cannot scold him any more. The way of indemnity is like that. It is not the feeling of hate that makes parents scold children; deep love makes them spank children.

Can children curse the parents who weep loudly after spanking them? True love has the value of moving harmoniously in two directions. True love wants to die again and again. Even though you shout at your wife, she responds obediently. Who else will do that? If you scold a neighbor lady, she will definitely be angry. If you are deeply interested in and love a certain person, you can scold that person without feeling guilt.

The closer you are to a person, the more you scold that person. If a neighbor boy makes mistakes, you may pretend not to notice it; but if your son makes the same mistakes, you will chastise and spank him harshly. To hit a person out of deep concern is to love, but to hit a person without any concern is to commit sin. If you hit a person more than the degree of your concern about him or her, you will become that person's enemy -- the worst of all enemies.

If you pour out continuous love toward your son, even though he is a rascal and even though he rejects it, he will ultimately return and repent. But if you scold a son three times and then boast how well you reared him, he will pack and leave right away. Then when you treat him with a greater love, shedding tears, he will come back. A greater love has the motive power to digest a smaller love and to make unity.

In the Korean War, I saw the following scene. A mother was carrying her five-year-old boy on her back, and the little child was singing, not knowing that they were taking refuge because of the war On the way the mother got exhausted and powerless, and she let him walk. But the child was protesting, saying, "If you don't carry me on your back, I won't move." What should a loving parent do in this situation? The correct emotion and desire is to carry the child on her back. But in this case if she had tried to carry him, both of them would have died. Then she correctly let the child walk, even slapping his cheek and using threats, in order to reach safe refuge.

If you were the parent, what would you do? Would you abandon the son, kill the son, or bring the son by force? You should take the child with you to safety, even if you have to tear off his ear or pierce his nose.

That is true love. After safely arriving at the refuge, the child will appreciate his mother. If he complains of his ear having been torn off, worrying how he will get married with such an ear, he deserves to die by being hit by lightning. The torn ear should symbolize the greatness and dreadfulness of her parental love.

You may think that Father allows you to eat, but otherwise just wants you to suffer. In assigning your work, I don't have sympathy, but once we live together, you will be filled with springtime love for Father.

Father should lead you to work even by piercing your nose. I should drive you out by kicking or hitting you. This is the righteous method. We have to even hit the grandfathers and grandmothers to force them to go forward. That's our mission.

We have to do that in order to enter the realm in which we receive God's utmost love. We are to go over the standard of past religions and completely devote ourselves to the establishment of God's nation, more than the people of any other organization, in order to occupy all of God's unaccomplished love. That's why this is a legitimate method and strategy. If you fail while trying this way, you can take revenge on me. I haven't perished by living such a way.

7. LET'S SINCERELY CONTRIBUTE TO OUR DESCENDANTS

Even though parents are so ugly, the children will be born of heavenly fortune. How to create descendants born of heavenly fortune depends upon how much the parents are devoted to the providence. The destiny of the descendants is determined by how much the parents have been loyal to the nation, world and heaven.

The descendants coming from the family that God and the church desire must be born of good fortune. Even though the parents have gone through an enormous suffering course, the children will be born of heavenly fortune and Father's fortune.

The best blessing of all is not money nor power, but it is children born of good fortune. It is to have children who can receive God's love.

Parents should devote themselves seriously to their descendants. They should be determined to go to spirit world after blessing their children for their well being. Such a family will never perish. Such an organization will never perish. The leader who is responsible for such an organization should make a new bond with God for the bigger providential task in the future. If he works by himself, not renewing the bond with God, and fails, he won't be able to pray to God. He will be too shameful to communicate with God.

If you are the son of filial piety, you should let your parents embrace their grandchild. What kind of grandchildren should you offer? You should offer the children who will consider grandparents more important than you. You should let your children receive more blessing than you and be much closer to Heaven than you. In that way, the providence of restoration develops. If your children are worse than you, your family will perish. You should be careful about this point.

The best way to invite God's heart is to devote three generations together to God, making sincere, heartistic conditions. If you do that, God will dwell in your lineage and it will never perish.

Some of the church members may complain that Father doesn't recognize them, even though they work so hard. That's a serious matter to con- sider. If you work hard, Father blesses your descendants. If you want to receive the limitless blessing, you will have to be infinitely patient and leave the lesson of patience to your descendants.

Fallen men should build the church first, prior to their own house. Father obtained the church property first before building his house, and bought the site for a university for our descendants. It is not for me or for you; it is for our descendants.

Because Father loves the descendants of the Unification Church, I man age and invest in the academic, political and economic worlds and the world of the media and thought.

The Mayflower arrived in New England in early winter. It was very cold and people didn't have the food to sustain their lives, so they were dying of starvation. Their great testimony is that they planted the seeds for the next year's crops even though they were dying.

Because they had hope that God would establish a blessed nation, the kingdom of freedom, through their descendants, they planted seeds for the next generation. They could willingly go the path of death with this hope. It was possible for them to pray that their descendants be blessed while themselves going through a suffering course because of their faith in God and their heart of love toward God.

We are the pioneers of goodness. The first step of a pioneer is sacred, so the process and the result should also be sacred. You should be a tree on fertile soil (not a tree among hard rocks) when you sprout and blossom from the rotted seed. If you cannot reap what you sowed in your generation, you should have the hope to reap it through your descendants. The person with such heart, who fights for the future happiness, is fearsome; and the multitude which is willing to sacrifice for the future victory with such heart is fearsome. Such a nation will dominate the world in the 21st century, the 30th century and the 50th century.