Raising Children In God's Will

by Rev. Sun Myung Moon

1. To Take After God

We must solidly know the value that human beings had originally, if they never had fallen. Originally, God will come in to our minds and become the center of it, and become our body, making an internal-external relationship. So even if man stands in a position akin to God, God has created the Universe and has the ability of creation, so man would want that ability too.

In order to own God's ability of creation, man must resemble God. If you look at Genesis, Chapter 1, verse 27: "God created in His form. In other words God created human beings in His own form, a man and woman...." So when you look at this inductively, God is made up of one man and woman. God is the original being, so the resultant being must resemble its root. That is why any kind of seed has two pieces covered up with one skin. Beans look like that. They resemble God's form. If you sew the bean, two leaves would come out and step into a new stage.

Since God creates with two natures in Himself and since we humans also create, through a position where man and woman vertically unite and, centered on love, have children, we humans also have to stand in a position where we can create such masterpieces. We are talking about creating children. God granted us the ability of creation and at the same time God gave us the love of children to let us experience the joy God felt through creating the Universe.

That is why love does not exist without parents, without an object or without children. So only a person who has completely received such love can stand before God, who is the subject of love. Since this is the fundamental rule and heavenly rule, in order to pass this exam, you must have these qualifications.

Without having these qualifications, the Universe would not accept you and you will be dismissed from this world of existence, you will taste pain and sorrow. You must understand that God's love is not only the greatest thing a human being can hope for, but also it is the original homeland and origin of happiness. (54-24)

When you have eaten breakfast and when you call your child, who represents the world, in good spirits and when you hold and love him, you must love him with the idea that you have found a child who represents the whole world. You must consider it that way.

Even now I do the same. When I go some where, I'd hug and kiss the children I see. That became part of my daily practice. Also when my children greet their father in the morning, they kiss their dad. When they go somewhere they will tell me, and whenever something nice happens they will come to me.... You should develop that kind of thought. If you do so God will watch you in joy.

You must raise your children for God and the world. Your sons must go that path. Did you have children only for the sake yourself? It is for the sake of God. What is the reason we raise children? It is for the sake of the world. (47-170)

Why does a couple need children? God's love is the made of three stages, but without children it will not be three stages. So in order to keep the balance of the center line, the standard of children must go down and touch the ground. By doing so, the whole comes together. This is the fundamental rule and principle. Can you understand this? So under these rules, a father standing before his son represents God. Because the father is the substance representing God's internal and masculine figure, he becomes a God of sons and daughters. The mother must become a God to her daughters. (173-207)

2. In Order to Experience Vertical Love

I, Rev. Moon, am the person who wants most in the Universe to be born in and swim and live in this kind of love. Since Rev. Moon is in such position, if I grab someone, I can hold him and take him to the headquarters of love. You can just cross this bridge and go there quickly, so the members of the Unification Church are anxious to make use of me. And that is true.

Why do we like our fathers and mothers? We love them because we want to make use of them and find the love of a higher level. That is good. Mothers and fathers tell their children to love their parents. The reason for loving your parents is to build a bridge of children and to seek the love of the world. This was not known until now.

Why do animals called men need woman and vice versa? They need each other to love. To love means to build a vertical bridge between humankind. To build a bridge! Brothers caring for each other means building a bridge back and forth. And why do we need parents and children? To build a vertical bridge. Isn't it so? Vertical relationship, above and below relationship, back and forth relationship, left and right relationship..

When we make an affinity, with what do we make it? we make it with love. In order for man to make a commitment to the universe, it is impossible in one settled place, so it must be magnified. That is why you want to be a global person. Even those splendid figures would want the best sons and daughters in the world, rather than have below average children. (136-120)

When you say you live for your spouse, you are not living for the sake of your spouse. You live centered upon God's original, idealistic true love, in the essence of it. You live centering on that kind of love. You are living for and representing God. Isn't that wonderful! You want to live with God but He is invisible so you live with your wife instead of God, and vice versa.

Talking about husband and wife is not enough. Love between a man and a woman is inadequate, this is only horizontal love. You need the love of a mother and a father, parents' love.

You must become a parent. You can never know vertical love unless you become a parent. After experiencing horizontal love, why do we need sons and daughters? In order to experience vertical love. People without children does not understand vertical love. These kind of people become failures in the human world. That is why we think couples without children are unhappy. Do you get it? (Yes.) Why are they unhappy? At the position of parents, when you go up to a higher level there must be love you can give and take, below your level. By doing so, above and below can be connected.

So as the way you love your husbands and wives, the more you love there are no complaints in the work of living for the sake of others. So in the world of living for the sake of others, even if the husband loves his children more than he loves his wife, the wife cannot complain saying, "Oh, that man only loves his sons and daughters and doesn't care for me day and night. Why does he act like that?" She does not complain. She is happy with it, and says, "Oh, I'm glad. he loves them more than me. That's the way it should be.

3. For the Sake of the Expansion of the Four Sides of a Relationship

Love between parents and children comes from the parent, and the love of parents means the love of a father and a mother. We receive the love of our parents from the moment we are born. And as long as our parents exist, in childhood, in youth and manhood regardless of time, we receive their love. As we grow up with this parents' love, it will lead to each of us expanding the horizontal life of husband and wife. In order to carry on love between husband and wife, you must have children and love them.

When you look at it this way, the first ancestors received God's love and became a couple, and everything consisted of even numbers centered upon love. When we look at it from this viewpoint, people who receive parents' love and people who grant it are all brothers.

Without children, parents cannot know what love is. You can feel true love only with an object. Brothers might grow up without experiencing parents' love, but when they grow up, marry and have children, they would understand parents' love. In other words, when it starts from parents and goes one round and then goes back to parents, then it's understood. So you cannot be called a mature person without having children.

The question is where we should decide the standard of a mature and completed figure.

You may see the parents themselves are mature, but unless they are horizontally and vertically mature, they cannot be called a perfect person. When Adam and Eve receive God's love, mature, and centering on God unite horizontally; in other words, when they enter a realm where they can unite with each other in the opposite position, the love which God has purposed reaches completion.

When Adam and Eve unite centering upon God, a certain "shape" is formed. But to form a plane shape you must definitely have children. So this makes a horizontal relationship, but you must understand it cannot replace the vertical relationship.

The love of a husband and wife is one and the love of parents are vertically more than two. If so the question is which is more important, and even though the love of husband and wife has an object relationship, because it is one, the vertical love must be the center.

A vertical relationship is extending love between parents and children. Parents, husband and wife, and children are the fundamental rules of a vertical relationship. When all of it comes together, it forms one family. When you expand a couple's love, it can be connected to parents' love. If the children become a parent after becoming husband and wife, their love also must become the same size, the same length as the love of their parents. If so what becomes of love between children. With what standard should we love? The brothers love as their parents do. (66-119)

Nowadays, we humans want a greater person, better people, than yourselves... If you ask young women, "What are you going to be?" they will answer, "I will become a beautiful young lady with virtues, and marry husband even more magnificent." They will think like that. And if you ask young men, these youth here, "What do you want?," they would answer, "I want to become a more valuable and handsome man and marry a more splendid woman as my spouse." These are inevitable and common desires of men, so we see it.

When we look at it this way, if the two can become a couple that can unite perfectly into one, we can say that they are a true and precious husband and wife. If so, this valuable couple should not stop with themselves. To expand a better environment standing on an environmental position, they will need children, wouldn't they? Like you usually see in the movies, when your dear wife becomes pregnant, the husband rejoices without noticing. Well why is he happy? Because it means the expansion of himself, and the expansion of a base that connects himself to a larger extent. Since it is needed, we desire it.

Through having children we connect to four sides. This sphere, where the couple concentrated to love each other, expands bit by bit to a diffusive realm of love.

When you have a family, can you be satisfied with only the family? The family is not sufficient. It will want to expand. Here we need a tribe, a race, a nation, world, and if there is spirit world, we also need the spirit world. And if God exist behind the spirit world, we need God as well. It extends like this.

Anything expanding does not mean the reduction of itself but the expansion of itself, and it does not mean the incompleteness of itself but the perfection of it. So the more it goes up to a higher position, it will hold a more solid value of the higher level from a "plane" value. Solid value is not a stagnant value but a "circulation" value. When it moves its action is not without purpose but has content, its movement is not purposeless, but makes action of purpose. Whatever direction it takes, it has to fit the purpose. Everything has that sort of thought. (110-68)

When ours and God's hope and conditions meet, what will God do? He will let us inherit all things. God wants us to become this kind of substance and own all things, and to have sons and daughters in such a position and to let the children inherit everything. Only a person like this can find and restore back and forth, left and right, above and below.

Any person without parents, spouse or children would be sad because centering on these elements, we must hold heaven and earth. We must be able to say, "Heavenly father is my father.

So the whole universe which He created is mine." We must be able to say, "His heart of historical hope, the realistic circumstances are mine, and the future he wants to create is mine." (12-150)

4. Because the Fundamental Rules of the Universe are That Way

Does everyone, regardless if they are a man or a women need children? "Yes" Why? To make the historical tradition continue. You must understand that since this is a fundamental rule we follow it by getting married. And love also, tends to shrink after two people have met and married. You must know that.

It is a fundamental rule that it gets larger, then smaller. It shrinks. So how will it balance? To make the opposite figure, on the other side, the children grow bigger. You might not like your husband, but you love your sons and daughters, don't you? Yes, when children are born through parents' love and centering upon them, would they say, "I like only my mother?" They would say, "I love my father." They would say, "father! father!" The reason we need husbands and sons is to harmonize. Only with them every thing rotates centering upon parents. We are saying that by doing so we must go back to a place where our parents await. So for this reason, it will lead to the conclusion that we definitely need children.

So human love reaches its climax like this, and next it goes down. It will fall down. From here the children climbs up through love. That is why we should have children. Do you understand? That is why this is plus and this is minus. If this does not exist.

We cannot say, "Let's go.!" heading for plus, true love. Also, if this doesn't exist here, we have no energy to say, "Let's slide down." looking at minus.

Here we love mother, but we loved father more.... They would say, "We loved father, so now let us go down and love mother!" So the children can be happy by holding both mother's and father's hand. Why can they be happy in that way? Because the fundamental rule of the Universe is like that. (129-127)

5. To Pass the Exam of the Spirit World

There is hope in the future when people of all colors seek true parents. So marriage is also conducted to fit in to that standard. You should understand this. From now on you must be proud of your marriage and family. You should boast about it. They are more than we can hope for.

Everybody should participate in it. Then it spreads to a thousand, ten million and becomes my tribe, race, and nation. According to this principle, it enlarges and race, nation, world are formed.

What did I say the first thing you should be proud of is? First God, and then your heart, your body, your love, and finally your family. There is nothing more than this in the world that you can be proud of. You cannot exchange this with anything else, even for the world. And we own this precious thing.

You should understand that family is a requirement. Though family the vertical and horizontal can be united. It is connected through the family. That is why sons and daughters are a "must." And there also must be parents. There must be an object, this is the principle. Parents, children, and husband and wife are all required. Do you understand? [Yes] So we must all act. If we have these three elements, wherever you may go, even in the spirit world, you can pass! You can pass wherever you go. (162-54)

In order to walk this path, just man and woman will not do. There must be children. Why? When you go to the spirit world, the gates of east, west, south and north are still not open. Only by connecting children. You can create the substance only by marrying and having children like God created Adam and Eve. (181-82)

You must know that your husband, children, your parents and grandparents are the three guiding angels of heaven. Your grandparent, spouse and children are the three angels. They are all couples, so they are the representatives of three angels. So mothers and fathers learn from the grandparents and children. Do you understand? Husbands must learn from their wives and vice versa. This is a fact, and the tradition of a family.

The reason we have sons and daughters is to learn the way of loving the world. Children connect to the world and future. If you have no children you cannot be connected to the future.

God has given us children as a tool of education. And ancestors, grandparents are there for the education of the spirit world. If you are dutiful before your grandfather and grandmother... The spirit world has that system. It is to be educated about the spirit world. Please understand this. (135-120)

6. It is a Blessing to Have Many Children

If you look at the Bible, you see there are lots of stories centering on love. Did you ever see parents and children becoming unhappy the more they love each other? No. Because there is this rule, if you sacrifice love you will gain that love. That is why to sacrifice for God is drinking up God's love. (33-331)

You must live a life of gratitude. How do you appreciate something? When you see someone with many children, you may say that this person has a lot of hardship, but you know this person enjoys the happiness which a person without children has never tasted. People who have raised children know this. When you compare people who have raised children and someone who has not, people with children enjoy life no matter how their children rise and falls, but people without children cannot do that.

We enjoy life through children. Even if the environment is complicated, you cannot be unhappy. Then you have hope for tomorrow. When you have many children which other people do not have, they spread out to each field with four sides and you have new hope, so it will be easy to overcome difficult circumstances. (35-283)

Because love is precious, it expands from an individual to a family, to the tribe, race, world and still spreads out further. We enlarge it bit by bit through the generations. So how far will it go? To the world. Do you understand what it means? This is why having many children is no misery. The tribe that has many children will conquer the world. (162-53)

I said having many children is a blessing. Why is it a blessing to have many children, and why is a person with many children fortunate? Since they grow centered on the realm of heart, they can go up to a higher place near a standard of participation in the Kingdom of Heaven. There will be these orders. and it is all public. (171-21)

Is it better to have few children, or many children? (It is better to have many children.) Why do we want many children? It is because by having many children, we can fit in with the characters of all four sides, and we can learn to control it. And by having many children we can come near the ideal shape of the universe and fit into it. So that is why we want many children. (12-1128)

If you ask God, "What is your wish?," He will probably answer. "My wish is to save the world and humankind." And when you ask, "When you have saved them, what will you do?" Will he say, "To make them work like horses and collect taxes."? "No, I am saving them in order to make them live a life of gratitude for thousands of years centering on infinite love, that is my wish." The more sons and daughters parents have, the more the heart of love will expand in them.

Their character enriches 360 degrees in every direction. So the conclusion is, people who have and raise many children must be good people, even if they try not to be.

My mother had lots of children and, while raising them, she had many difficulties and ups and downs. So if anything happens to somebody else, she doesn't think it's their own business. She helps this person, thinking of her own children. When you have a more heartistic expansion then you become a good person.

Do you like having many children, or less? Let me ask you one thing. Do you like having many children or not? (We like many children?) If so, go ahead and have many. So, even the offspring of the fallen world like having many children, so is it good or not, good to have many sons and children who can receive plenty of God's love? Everywhere you go, you will dance in joy.(82-319)

7. There Cannot be Birth Control in the Unification Church

1) The Perfect Kingdom of Heaven Starts with Children Centering on God

Adam and Eve connect to a vertical center. When you look at it like this, in order for Adam and Eve to be connected vertically, they are required to be like this, and they must not stop here.

This must be attached. But if there are no children this does not connect. Do you understand? So when you look at it in this point of view, this is the four position foundation... Now, if you have no son, there will be no vertical standard. This is all lost. Vertical and horizontal standard will not be connected. this cannot be.

So when you see it, this point becomes Adam and Eve's, and also God's wish. Okay, how about Eve? Adam and Eve could not stand in this position. A vertical person receives God's love and develops it horizontally. They extend it horizontally! And this is what a parent is. This is God's love, and this is parents' love. Vertical parents' love is God's love, and horizontal parents' love is your own parents' love. (pointing at the writing on the board) So, from God, Adam and Eve, love must be passed down. It must be passed down from God to Adam and Eve, and to the children. Crossing three stages, and the same here. Parents' love, then couple's love, children's love. It's all the same.

So where is the Kingdom of Heaven? The question is: From where does the Kingdom of Heaven start? Of course it starts from Adam and Eve, but precisely speaking it starts from the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. So through this, horizontal Kingdom of Heaven and vertical Kingdom of Heaven are completed. We see it this way.

If you were born in the world without the fall, you would surely be born as a son of some parents. Since the vertical Kingdom of Heaven is completed at the generation of the son, the Kingdom of Heaven develops for the first time when we become one with Heavenly Father centering upon our own parents. (92-217)

2) The Purpose of Love Between a Man and a Women is Their Children

What is the wish of an individual? When you think about it, there must be the wish of a man and the wish of a woman. So what are their wishes? Their traditional way of life and hope would be, while they grow up, to be mature and get married. That is the path of hope that life can go and many people have followed it.

So what is the purpose of two, man and woman, meeting and loving each other. Where does the purpose of love dwell? If a couple loves each other centered upon themselves, where does the purpose lie? Do they hope the result of it will influence only themselves? Do they love each other only planning to leave love for themselves? We don't think so. When we love we are hoping for something where the result can be connected to the whole. Isn't that children? Why do we want to have children? Why are we not satisfied with centering upon a substance who is closest to us, but try to leave children behind, When we talk about having a small number or a large number of children, the more a person stands in a noble or a good position, his desire is to leave behind as many offspring as possible, centered upon his precious position. That is the nature of human beings.

Nowadays, people are talking about birth control. In other words, we can say that even though our original nature wants to spread and expand our offspring centered on family, which is the origin of moral principles of humanity, birth control prevents it.

So in this era of birth control, do they do it because they don't want children? There is nobody who doesn't want children. They must be the same with other people in wanting children.

If they have a son, they should also want more children. In other words, they would want children who can be a leader of other children? Isn't it true.

With any parents, even with evil parents, they have that kind of hope for the children? Isn't that love? When we think about this question, all people want their children to be the best among all children rather than their children following other sons and daughters. (64-167)

3) Children are the Gift From God

When I look at the children my family, the younger they are, the smarter they are, they are geniuses. So if there is a gift that God grants to us, should we prepare a big bag or a small bag to put it in? Do you want many presents or not? Wouldn't you receive many? (We want many.) What is that gift? (Sons and daughters.) So, my mother would have had something like 20 or 40 children. (Laughter) God would do so. He wants to give us 100 or 200 children, but there is a limit to the number so in the end He will give sons and daughters that can be worth 40 children.

What happens if you don't have children, if you just cut off what God wanted to give you? If you apply birth control and just cut off children which God planned to send as the sons and daughters that can conquer and rule all of heaven and earth.

God calls, "Rev. Moon, Mrs. Moon, come here," and says, "I will grant you these blessings." That's it. I think Western people cannot understand this stuff. (Laughter) Among those people who appreciate it and those who don't, through which kind of people will God expand the base of love? (111-79)

When you see the children of our Unification Church, the more babies that were born: the second child is better than the first, and the third is better than the fourth...... They will have better children, the younger they are. I am sure it is a fact. They will have better children, even their hearts. God has prepared for children that can rule the world and can study how they can see God on TV......

When I go to the spirit world, would humankind and God praise Rev. Moon, or not? If you think about this, can you, or can you not apply birth control? (You cannot.) So even if the satanic world applies birth control, we should not do it. Even if you are very pretty and rich, if there is a husband who receives God's love, you must follow God's will and follow the peaks of the heart, and even if you know you will have hardships and be treated contemptuously, but if you are able to give birth to sons and daughters who can rule the world and love heaven and earth, you must say, "Yes, I agree. I will go that way."

4) Birth Control is Forbidden.

I am going to forbid birth control to the women of Unification Church. I Will say, "Go ahead and have many children." In America, even pigs eat barley powder and kidney beans, so go ahead and have many children. As I have said, "Have many children" after I came to America I had to show a good example, so I have said to mother, "Have many sons and daughters." Now how's that? (123-276)

Choi Kum Soon, Park Jong Gu, are they here? Park Jong Gu! He didn't turn up. Choi Kum Soon, how many boys do you have? (seven) And girls? (one) I heard you have decided not to have any more children, is that so? (We will have one more.) Why just one? Why do you apply birth control? You people of the Unification Church cannot do this.

Out of Jacob's twelve sons, Joseph is the eleventh. If Jacob applied birth control, could Joseph become Prime Minister? (Laughter) The more time goes by, the better children you will have. The further you go, they will have more fortune of the Unification Church, the path of fortune in the Unification Church. It is true. After you have gone to the spirit world, and God says, "I was going to send, through your family, men who can control the Universe, but you have cut his throat." What will you do? If you bore them, they will feed themselves even if you don't eat. Even having ten babies a day is OK. Have children. (laughter)

You must not use birth control. In the satanic world they will have more birth control and in the church, we will have lots of children. That also applies to True Mother. We have decided we should have at least twelve children, So we are heading for that goal. Do we have many? We now have eight brothers and sisters, so that is close to twelve. If we quit having daughters and have only sons, we might have fifteen or sixteen. So when I gave mother this task, she was worried. She even said that she wished she could expect the second baby before giving birth to the first one.

Even mother is doing this, so what right do you people have to use birth control? If you were granted 7 sons, you must be grateful. They are all grown, and aren't they all strong? If they have nothing to eat they would even eat their own mother's bones to survive. And they should be like that. Recently I have heard reports that people of our church live in a crowded one room apartment with many children...... Yes, I have heard of this. Two rooms or one room? (Three rooms) Well, that's quite a few. Are they all small rooms? I have heard that the room is packed, and so on...... But those are the best times. (79-142)