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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book Fourteen - A Life Of True Filial Piety
Chapter One - The Meaning of Loyalty and Filial Piety
Section 1. Loyalty and Filial Piety Are the Central Thought of Koreans
People of filial piety will think of their parents first when something good happens in their lives. In the fallen world people think of their spouse first when they see something good. However, unless you buy something precious for your parents first, you cannot buy something for your spouse.
In the same way, a man should first buy clothes for his parents, and then for his wife and children, before buying clothes for himself. He should attend and serve his parents when they eat. Even in the satanic world, it was the custom in Korea for people to attend their parents for a three-year period of mourning after their death. In the old days, was it not Korean etiquette for a devoted son to be in mourning for his deceased parents by building a mud hut next to their grave and living there for three years in order to fulfill his filial duty? Therefore, in Korea, if people did not attend their parents with devotion for at least three years, then when they went to the spirit world, they would not be able to say that they are descendants of Korea.
We must surpass this standard. Our Blessed Families must enlarge themselves with good points from each other, and live their lives serving and caring for their parents. (26-299, 1969.11.10)
Koreans are a noble people who have honored loyalty and filial piety from time immemorial. I remember being invited to attend Armed Forces Day at Yeoido Plaza and feeling great satisfaction watching our dignified young soldiers. I was truly impressed as those brave soldiers marched past the reviewing stand and shouted the motto "Loyalty and Filial Piety!" (Choong Hyo!) I thought that, for God's chosen race, it was a motto that seemed very much like a revelation. I don't think there are any other armed forces in the world with a motto like this.
As Koreans are still a people practicing loyalty and filial piety toward God, the spirit of loyalty and filial piety has become the central thought of the nation. The classic stories of Shim Chung's filial piety to her father, Chun-hyang's fidelity to her husband, Jeong Mong-ju's loyalty to his king, and Yu Kwan-soon's spirit of patriotic martyrdom exemplify Korean faithfulness to the principles of loyalty and filial piety to a degree unparalleled in history. Such a spirit of loyalty, filial piety, and the unchanging fidelity that is like pine and bamboo constitute the central thought and spirit for the realization of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth that will be established in the future. As the Kingdom of Heaven is God's nation, you must be forever loyal to that nation, and, as God is the Father of all humankind, you must show eternal filial piety to Him. When God tested the many peoples of the world, He could not find a people of virtue and fidelity with a spirit of loyalty and filial piety as high as the Koreans. Therefore, He chose Korea and is intently watching the nation. (100-252, 1978.10.19)
Children of filial piety should not leave their parents, even if a century or a millennium should pass. You should say, "I want us to be together!" If you are not people who move the hearts of your parents so that they say, "If possible, we would like to stay with you forever!" then you are not children of filial piety. Parental love is such that no matter how bad the children are, the parents think of being with them. This is why it is called true love. What about impious children? They dislike being with their parents. We find stories of such people in the Bible, do we not? Some did not want to be with their own brothers. They wanted to do and live as they pleased. What kind of seed is this? It is the seed of the unfilial. (147-292, 1986.10.1)
Children of filial piety will forget their own situation and think first of their parents. They'll always live for their parents with a tearful heart. Loyal patriots are those who will forget about their personal circumstances in times of crisis, and take the path of loyalty, worrying first about the king's difficulties. Forgetting ourselves and sacrificing our own interests links us to the zenith of loyalty and filial piety. (37-33, 1970.12.22)
In a family, be it man or woman, brother or sister, everybody should want to become devoted sons or daughters. Centered on love, they are to become one in heart. To unify the family, children of filial piety are needed. The same is true for the nation. Centering on the father and mother of the nation, the king and queen, and also their sons and daughters, there must be reciprocal relationships between spouses and siblings in every direction, namely up and down, left and right, and front and back. If there is no front and back, then parents and children cannot establish a relationship. That is why it is necessary to have up and down, left and right, and front and back. Siblings are absolutely needed. Marriages are woven together from the meetings of siblings. (286-268, 1997.8.13)
People talk about the way of loyalty and filial piety, but do not really understand the meaning. Children must establish the parents as the center of the family in the same position as God; then, becoming one in mind and body in front of the unchanging love that the parents have for their children, they always receive one hundred percent through their heart and body, and adapt to them one hundred percent. What do we call sons and daughters who take such a position? We call them children of filial piety. When people speak of the way of loyalty and filial piety, they do not comprehend its true path. (101-13, 1978.10.28)
What do parents hope for? There is no unified root of the lineage with just a mother and a father. They need to have children in order for the lineage to continue. When sons and daughters love their parents, then the unconnected lineages of the parents become unified through the child. The perfection of parents comes about through having children. The father and mother become perfect through sons and daughters practicing filial piety.
It is a joy to have parents to whom you can devote yourselves. We represent our parents' life, love and lineage. Their love has been duplicated through us. It has become the nucleus; your love, life, and lineage have become its embodiment.
Bringing about the perfection of your parents can, therefore, bring about your perfection. When we mature and marry, we must become one as our mother and father have, and in this way both sides achieve perfection. (223-174, 1991.11.10)
With what kind of environment does the family want to be linked? A nation. The family connects directly to the nation. Where must the nation go? To the world. Where must the world go? The world -- God's Kingdom on earth -- will link to His kingdom in heaven. A nation's loyal patriots are its children of filial piety. Who are the loyal patriots on the world level? The world's saints are its children of filial piety. Who is a holy child of heaven and earth? Such a person is a devoted child of heaven and earth. Apart from this context, the concepts of a filial child or son have no value. (280-107, 1996.11.11)
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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book Fourteen - A Life Of True Filial Piety
Chapter One - The Meaning of Loyalty and Filial Piety
Section 2. Saints and Divine Sons and Daughters of Perfect Loyalty and Filial Piety
The ideology of loyalty and filial piety in Korea is truly great. Then does this mean that Koreans must be loyal only to Korea? That's the question. Should the Japanese be loyal only to their emperor? Should the Germans be loyal only to their president? Or can we say that Americans have fulfilled their duty of loyalty when they are loyal only to the president of the United States? No, we cannot say this.
If you ask Koreans, "Do you want to become saints or only become loyal patriots?" they might answer, "Well, the way of loyalty and filial piety is at the center of Korean thought, so I am not sure about being a saint. I will just become a loyal patriot." This would be wrong.
Who is a loyal patriot? It is someone who brings national blessings to all the people of the nation. A son or daughter of filial piety is someone who brings blessings only to the family. You should know this. Of course the path of loyalty is important for everyone, but the path of the saint still remains, and so, if there's a people determined to go the path of the saint, they will be able to bring global blessings to humankind. (101-16, 1978.10.28)
What is the difference between patriots and saints? Loyal patriots are always ready to sacrifice their lives for their nation, and they live and invest themselves for the public good. Saints, however, transcend their race and nation, and live for all humankind. Going beyond that, they live for God who dwells in the public domain of the cosmos. More than just following the way of filial piety in the family or loyalty to the nation, saints are determined to fulfill the way of loyalty and filial piety in front of all humankind. They are willing to abandon their position as loyal patriots and forget their country and king. Even if the king grabs their hands and pleads with them, saying, "Our country will be brought to ruin if you go," saints won't concern themselves with their king's situation. After they fulfill the way of the saint in the world, they will be recognized by heaven as having done something far greater than just being a loyal patriot to their king. (101-150, 1978.10.29)
Among patriots there are numerous sons and daughters of filial piety. However, if you are a patriot, then you automatically receive the rank of being a filial child, even if you are unable to practice that role in front of your parents. In the same way, when you are able to become holy sons and daughters, you will be able to govern the saints. If you were unable to be a devoted child, a patriot or a saint, but gained the position of holy child, you will encompass everything below that.
It is not easy, however, to become a holy child. To become such a person, you must surmount all hardships in order to become the leading patriot among all patriots. As a devoted child, then as a patriot, and all the way up to sainthood, you have to overcome all kinds of difficulties. On the foundation that has the autonomous power to surmount an even higher level, the path of the holy child is achieved. Those who have not passed through each stage of such a course must receive global persecution within a short time. (196-125, 1989.12.31)
People absolutely need to fulfill the duties of devoted children, loyal patriots, saints, and holy children. Due to the Fall, saints are needed; the way of holy sons and daughters is waiting to be perfected.
The realm of reciprocal relationships with God can connect from heaven to the world and to the family beginning with the individual. You must, therefore, fulfill all these duties while still on earth. It constitutes the road to perfection. Then, for the nation, the ruler should embody the essence of the father and mother. People would want to engraft to that standard and grow. You cannot stand in front of your nation without establishing your family, but now even the family is coming to ruin in front of the nation, Satan's nation. (285-91, 1997.4.21)
The way of children of filial piety is to love the family that channels love's life force. The way of loyal patriots is to give love based on the life force of the nation. The way of saints is to connect love to the life force of the world. In this light, the human moral concepts which have been taught in the past become clear. You have to know that this is the right way. It is the way of saints to love the world. This has set the standard of human moral education, and now you understand the correctness of such education. (111-173, 1981.2.15)
In the lives of people centering on love, the devoted child forms the innermost circle, the loyal patriot is the next bigger circle, and the circles get bigger and bigger. They start off small and become larger and larger. The circle of the saint is larger and the circle of the holy child is even bigger than that. That is why the central point of the circle is the devoted child. Children of filial piety are the first stage. The stages of loyal patriots, saints, and holy children follow. They constitute a total of four stages.
The center of these four is the vertical. They are centered on the vertical and the central point of all four circles is one, not two. The center of love is only one. That is why children who are devoted to their parents will not go to hell. People who are loyal to their nation will not go to hell. Even if they do not believe in the Messiah, everything will naturally be solved when they pass on. That is why saints will not go to hell.
I am saying that people who are not filial toward their parents cannot become loyal patriots. What happens with someone who wants to be filial, but has no parents? They would say, "I really want to be a devoted child, but I don't have parents. What should I do?" They have a serious problem. They can plead, "Heavenly Father, please give me parents!" but of course that cannot happen, because the laws of the universe do not work that way. Their parents may have died, or something else might have happened.
Even though you may wish to become a devoted child, if you cannot, then what should you do? You must become a loyal patriot or saint. The position of a saint is higher than that of a devoted child or loyal patriot. (197-44, 1990.01.07)
Devoted children are people who love their parents and children. The first page is love, the process is love, and the final page is love. The family cannot become the core. Above the family there must be a nation, and its core is the way of the loyal patriot. What does that mean? It means loving your nation. Loyal patriots, saints, and holy sons and daughters are the core; but what kind of core are they all based on? Humankind has not known that the core, the essence, is love; it has never been explained clearly. All of this means that the stable point upon which we can settle in these Last Days and in the future is nothing other than love.
Owing to this, spouses must love each other in order to become children of filial piety. You can become loyal patriots after becoming people of filial piety, and you can become saints after becoming loyal patriots, and after you have become saints, you can become holy sons and daughters.
After becoming holy sons and daughters, you have all the rights of inheritance, and after you become God's sons and daughters, He becomes yours, too. Then everything that He owns becomes yours, and all the things that He can later create for a future filled with hope will become yours. You have to stand in the position of being holy sons and daughters for all things of the past, present, and future to be given to you. When you stand in this position, nothing in creation will protest. You can then finally speak about the conclusion regarding a unified heaven and earth. (206-175, 1990.10.7)
When we consider the way we have to walk in our life, what is the main point of the way -- the way of filial children, the way of loyal patriots, the way of saints, and the way of holy children? They all want to live together forever. They want to live together as the upper level and lower level. Would they not become people who long to live together front and back, left and right, day and night, throughout their lives? This is a reasonable conclusion. (148-258, 1986.10.11)
In front of God what must you long to become? First, you must become devoted children. Second, you must become loyal subjects and patriots. Is there anyone above loyal subjects and patriots? Saints are higher. Devoted children in the family are absolutely loyal to their parents. Patriots are absolutely loyal to their nation. Then, what kind of people are saints? They are people like Jesus, Buddha and Confucius -- people who assert God's existence, not people who assert themselves. They lead God-centered lives and do not cause any harm, but instead try to benefit humankind. Moreover, they are not nationalists, but rather globalists. (54-214, 1972.3.24)
Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Chapter 2: Section 1. True Loyalty and Filial Piety Means Taking Initiative in Difficulty. |
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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book Fourteen - A Life Of True Filial Piety
Chapter Two - True Loyalty and Filial Piety
Section 1. True Loyalty and Filial Piety Means Taking Initiative in Difficulty
Those responsible people who are equal to the task of fulfilling the way of filial piety when they are in a difficult situation, rather than those who want to fulfill the way of filial piety in an easy situation, are the sons and daughters that we can say are truly walking along the path of filial piety. From this perspective, because God worries over global problems, then, if there is a person who wants to take responsibility for global problems, it goes without saying that this person can be recognized by God before any other race or anyone else in the world.
We can therefore conclude that a filial son or daughter is a person who, representing others, wants to bear responsibility for the wretched situation of his or her parents. The way of putting aside the good things, if there's something good, and always wanting to bear responsibility for the bad things, is the way a devoted child must go. (62-23, 1972.9.10)
It is not difficult to lead a life of filial piety in attendance to one's parents when those around you are doing so. But when many people are turning away from their parents and avoid choosing this way, should you stand in a position where you try to live for your parents even if it means giving up your precious life, then you will have fulfilled your filial duty transcending your circumstances. We know very well that in this situation you cannot help but achieve the position of children of filial piety. (42-182, 1971.3.7)
Relatively speaking, is a truly devoted son one who fulfills his filial duty when he is well-off or one who truly fulfills his filial duty even though he is poor? If you are brought up in a family in which you are only able to eat one meal a day, but you sell even your flesh and blood in order to let your mother and father eat three meals a day, is this being filial? Or is it being filial when you eat three meals a day, and there is so much left that you cannot finish it all, so that you give your parents the leftovers? Truly devoted children do not come from wealthy families. You must know this.
If your mother, father and younger sibling are starving, your mother will give her food to your younger sibling. Children who watch their mother all night feel this in their bones. They say to themselves, "Mom loves my sibling so much, and so I am going to do as she does and give even one more grain of rice to my sibling." Then when this child gives the mother that rice, the realm of filial piety, the environment of filial piety, is created. People who live only for themselves will be kicked out. From this point of view, a life of filial piety is a life lived for others. The way to become a truly devoted child requires that you have to live your life for others. Yet this does not mean that you live for others only under favorable circumstances. (286-282, 1997.8.13)
There is nothing we can boast about. All we have done is destroy God's sovereignty, citizenry and territory. Now is the time that you must change your heart to one which understands the heart of loyalty and filial piety; to the heart which understands how much you have violated God's sovereignty, territory and citizenry. You must return to the right way -- you who have betrayed heaven. You must have the clear conviction that, even in sadness and hardship, you will recover God's sovereignty, citizenry and territory for Him. You must eat, live and even die for this purpose alone.
Then what must you live for? You must be loyal and fulfill your filial duty toward the earth, your people, all humankind, and God's sovereignty. When you realize your failures, this is the time God can forget your disloyalty, filial impiety and betrayal. So you have to repent on behalf of the people, the nation and the sovereignty. The time when you repent before the Father is passing.
You must repent for the earth. Millions of believers are still waiting eagerly. We must repent for the recovery of God's land and sovereignty. You were chosen in order to recover God's people, territory and sovereignty. So, if you make a mistake, you will go the same way Adam and Eve went. If you do well, then you will be able to welcome the day of victory. (11-150, 1961.5.13)
Do not become like your ancestors throughout history and go to the spirit world with regret, saying, "Oh dear, what have I done?" In order to finish everything in our lifetime, and not leave such a legacy to our descendants, we have the responsibility to unite and become one, and, in fulfilling these things, make the foundation of loyalty and filial piety on the national level. You should know that this is the way that the Unification Church must go at this present time.
What a blessing it is to be in a position to become filial sons and daughters without being told what to do, to bear responsibility for taking revenge on the enemy Satan, and to indemnify everything yourselves without receiving God's directions or command!
I want to ask you, who know such things and care about your responsibility in this age and for this generation, to go forward to fight with a grateful heart for being in such a position, and from now on as you go forward, when you come across the question, "What shall I do?" do not give up until you can say, "I have become a patriot and a child of filial piety." Do not collapse, but absolutely win the victory and move forward. (153-110, 1963.10.24)
Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Section 2. True Loyalty and Filial Piety Establish the Family and Perfect the Parents and the Nation. |
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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book Fourteen - A Life Of True Filial Piety
Chapter Two - True Loyalty and Filial Piety
Section 2. True Loyalty and Filial Piety Establish the Family and Perfect the Parents and the Nation
If you understand your parents, then what must you do for them? You must fulfill your filial duty. You must become a filial son or daughter, and centering on those parents who have led the nation and world, you must become a loyal citizen or patriot in that nation. Before becoming a loyal citizen, you must become a filial child, and before becoming a filial child, you must become a true family member who can boast about your brothers and sisters. 'Family member' is the title that establishes the realm in which siblings can praise each other.
So what does it mean to be a filial son or daughter? You must be more devoted than people were long ago, when a man and woman got married and had children, thus creating a family, and fulfilled their filial duty to their parents. You cannot become a truly devoted son or daughter before you get married.
You can only become a truly filial son or daughter after getting married. You can only establish the realm of true filial piety after you have married and the wife's filial piety is added to the husband's in front of the parents. Only when, through this, you have a foundation of filial piety in attendance to the parents, can a true realm of filial piety be established.
You cannot become a loyal citizen by yourself. The loyalty that the Unification Church talks about cannot be realized by one person alone. You can only become a loyal citizen after you marry and have a family. So in order for you to raise the banner of being loyal citizens, you must give birth to filial sons and daughters.
You must become filial sons and daughters to God. You cannot be a son of filial piety by yourself. You can only become such a son centering on a trinity in which three brothers become one. You know what a trinity is, don't you? You must become one in your trinity.
The three families in a trinity must become one as brothers and sisters, and then again the three children of each family must become one. Then, three times four makes twelve, making twelve children. This became the first foundation for Israel. This is the origin for creating the branches of families, clans and then tribes. (30-220, 1970.3.23)
In order to become heavenly royalty, you must first become filial children, patriots, saints and divine sons and daughters. The training ground for this is the family. The ideal Kingdom of Heaven comes about when the perfected family expands. The family is always the center. The problem boils down to two people: a man and a woman. When an ideal man and an ideal woman come together as husband and wife, and form a family, then everything is completed. The ideal family expands to become a nation and world.
Through serving in the family and respecting your parents, you become children of filial piety. In the same way, when you attend and live for the king of your nation, you become patriots, and if you live for all humankind, you become saints. So you should realize how much the dimension of a holy child differs from yours. In order for you to change, you must make revolutionary changes in yourselves and ascend through numerous levels. (293-211, 1998.5.26)
God does not just want filial sons and daughters. He wants a filial family. You must understand that He wanted a family of patriots. He wanted a family of saints. He wanted a family of divine sons and daughters. This is His anguish. Hasn't everyone who died, and went to the spirit world, lived a single life until now? Although 3,600 years have passed since Moses went to the spirit world, it is said that he has always had a woman standing by him, attending him. When she asked him why he didn't marry, his reply was that God had said to just wait a little more. Nobody can do as they please. (297-204, 1998.11.20)
If the son advises and teaches his parents to love their country so that they become patriots, and makes them a mother and father whom heaven remembers, is he a filial or unfilial son?
So, rather than a son who says to his parents, "Mom, Dad, don't go out! Just rest at home." He should say, "Mom, Dad, what are you doing? Please, let's try together to find even one more person who can be a patriot, who can work for the unification of North and South Korea, who can work to save North Korea." Then he makes them shed tears, blood and sweat. Then what would you think if the people in the neighborhood were to praise this achievement?
Would the parents say, "You scoundrel, you really made your mother and father's life difficult, so at first we thought you were a bad boy. Yet we became successful and are praised by everyone. My! You really are a filial son." Do you think the parents would say this, or would they say, "You are an unfilial son"? What do you think? (209-266, 1990.11.30)
If your mother and father are disloyal to God's will, then you should counsel them. "Mother, Father, why are you acting in this way? The way of God's will is such and such, and God's will is like this, so why are you acting the way you are? You should be going out like this -- what are you up to? What are you doing fighting every day?" You have to try to persuade them. This is the right thing to do. It's a big problem if your mother and father go the wrong way. (100-153, 1978.10.9)
You have to prepare the way so that your parents can live. That's the duty of a child. You must stand in the position of filial sons and daughters. This is our responsibility. You must pioneer this way without worrying about whether you live or die. You shouldn't care about the good things in the world, or about persecution from the world, or even about going the path of death. You must connect to the way of loyalty and filial piety in order to pioneer this way. (20-122, 1968.5.1)
To become a historical woman, you have to clear up all the failures of history. Also, to become the Eve of the age, you must represent all the women of the age and establish the standard of having fulfilled your duty of loyalty and filial piety in front of Heaven. And as a woman, you must have the heart of a virtuous woman in front of one man, and in front of God. (30-166, 1970.3.22)
Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Section 2. True Loyalty and Filial Piety Establish the Family and Perfect the Parents and the Nation. |
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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book Fourteen - A Life Of True Filial Piety
Chapter Two - True Loyalty and Filial Piety
Section 3. True Loyalty and Filial Piety Is Being Obedient and Loving Others
Filial sons and daughters must fulfill their filial duty while their parents are alive. Loyalty also must be fulfilled when the king is alive. It is no use at all trying to fulfill your filial duty after your parents have died. Loyalty is of no use at all when the king is dead. People who try to do this are deceitful. Rather than making a big memorial service for your parents after they die, it is much better to say even one good thing to comfort them while they are alive. It is much more beautiful to become a partner in their sadness and try to comfort their hearts while they are alive, rather than setting up a service with thousands of kinds of food for them after they die. It is much more precious to fulfill your filial duty before your parents die, rather than just cherish their memory. (51-223, 1971.11.28)
Filial children must always unite with their parents' heart and direction. People going the way of filial piety are not those who behave in a way far different from their parents. If the parents go east, then the children should go east. If the parents go west, then they should go west. If the parents have given a certain direction, but suddenly make an about-face, then the filial child must follow them. There should be no dissent from this. If you follow your parents when they leave home, and each time they order you to turn back and go home, you should turn to go back but then do an about-face and follow them anyway, even if this happens ten times.
If you protest, you will not be able to fulfill your filial duty. If parents behave in a strange way, their children also must behave likewise. If parents give an order, then the children must follow accordingly, even if it is means behaving strangely. Acting in a strange manner in itself is not good. You may think that your parents are doing things unknowingly, but actually they know what they are doing. Therefore, you should follow.
Why would parents behave in a strange way? Their strange behavior would serve to identify the most filial child out of all the filial children. If there were one hundred filial children and the parents acted strangely enough, the most filial of them all would eventually emerge. The filial son, who absolutely accommodates his parents' orders at the risk of his life, even though he knows his parents are being capricious, can even become the king of all filial children. (62-32, 1972.9.10)
Filial children are people who have loved their parents and brothers and sisters. The child who lives the most for others, and who loves the most, will become the heir of the family. So, you should all try to go that way. Today, the way of true love is the mainstream of all ideal action. True love is the mainstream. Everything outside of this is secondary.
That is why it is good to tell people to become filial children. Today, people say there is a generation gap between the mother's generation and the younger generation, but that is nonsense. Is there a generation gap between the love in the mother's generation and that of the young generation? Should a woman live alone? Should a man live alone? That is ridiculous.
Even though you've been together with someone for a year, you might say, "I wish you could stay for another day." These words are really precious. If the husband and wife live to be a hundred, is there a wife who says, "Oh, I wish I could live for one hour longer?" Have you become that kind of wife? Have you become that kind of husband? Have you become that kind of brother or sister?
Sometimes, families split up over a very small amount of money. If a brother says, "Brother, you are you, and I am me. I lent you a million won, so why don't you pay me back? I don't like love or anything else. Money is the most important thing!" Then he is losing all the blessing he was born with. Let us say he was born with the fortune to become a millionaire or a billionaire. If he had love, then all the blessings of the universe would have come and built a nest for him; but instead the universe will run away without pity, saying, "My! What a miser he is!" This is the reason people like filial children. (141-298, 1986.3.2)
In order to follow the path of loving the parents, there must be filial children. In order to go the way of loving the nation, there must be patriots. In order to go the way of loving the world, there must be people who are like saints. All of you have many sons and daughters, but who is the best of them all? The one who has the deepest bond of love with you is the filial child. Centering on the most devoted of filial children, parents decide the direction that they will go. (136-205, 1985.12.29)
Filial children are those who would love and embrace their parent as their own baby even if he or she became incontinent or worse. Such children will go to heaven. (116-86, 1981.12.20)
Among your sons and daughters, there is a filial child, an ordinary child and an unfilial child. There are three kinds of children. I conclude that if you want to become the most filial child, you must compete against God and not lose.
So what must you do? You must become people who, more than the saints and sages or anyone else throughout history who has come and gone, have no doubt at all about God's will.
You must say to God, "Father, even if you were to say something unbelievable to me that could separate us, I would believe it. Even if you did something unbelievable, I would believe you. Even if you changed from being a loving parent into the most evil parent who whips me, I would respect you with a heart greater than that of a filial child." God would expect this. (73-59, 1974.7.29)
A filial son cannot sleep, even if his parents are sleeping. After I slept, I led my life repenting as a sinner for having slept. Even after eating, I would feel sorry. In the end, how should we walk the path of filial piety? From this perspective, I am a crazy person. Did I take care of my parents? Did I take care of my wife, my children or my brothers and sisters? Did I take care of my relatives? Did I take care of my country? Actually, I never forgot my country. I was working for my country on a higher level... The tears I cried for Korea during the Japanese rule... they are tears that could compare with any patriot's. (62-58, 1972.9.10)
If the parents realize that they must go this way, even though they might die, then they must bring their sons and daughters to God's side. The reason why parents don't fulfill their parental duty is because they do not know what it is. If they know what it is, then they must do it, even if it means standing as a sacrificial offering. Even if it is necessary to whip their children to bring them back to God, this can be thought of as good. So, if the parents act in the right way, there is no such thing as "no salvation for their child." (15-202, 1965.10.9)
Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Chapter 3: Section 1. Genuine Loyalty and Filial Piety Demands the Cost of Your Life. |
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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book Fourteen - A Life Of True Filial Piety
Chapter Three - The Way of Loyalty and Filial Piety
Section 1. Genuine Loyalty and Filial Piety Demands the Cost of Your Life
A wife who sacrifices her life for her husband is called a virtuous woman. A filial child sacrifices his life for his parents. A patriot sacrifices his life for his country. However, from the heavenly standard, loyalty and filial piety are fulfilled when you offer your eternal life. Our bodies die, but the standard of a heavenly virtuous woman is only established when she offers her eternal life to God, to her husband, and to her parents. You have to devote your entire lives to God.
That is why the Bible teaches us to love God with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our mind. So what is the standard of "all"? You have to be better than all other patriots, all other filial children, and all other virtuous women in the world. If not, then God's dignity cannot be established. Even in the satanic world, there have been many patriots and virtuous women until now. Yet God's dignity cannot be established if the standard for being a patriot and a virtuous woman is the same as in the satanic world. (9-108, 1960.4.24)
There have been filial children throughout human history. So, if we want to single out the greatest filial child in all of history, who could we deem to be that greatest or most exemplary filial child?
A youth who demonstrates greater filial piety than an old person is the more precious of the two. Filial children come in all shapes and sizes. Filial piety is practiced at all social levels, by the poor and by the rich, by laborers and by beggars. A person who is still alive cannot truly be a filial child. A person who is still alive cannot enter the ranks of those we call filial children. There are so many people who died in order to fulfill their filial duty; so those who are awarded the medal of filial piety during their lifetime will be accused by all those who died in the cause of filial piety.
From the ranks of those who died, there will be those who did so while trying to fulfill their filial duty. There will be those who died attempting to procure medicine for a sick parent, and even among them, there will be those that went with their own money, and others that had to borrow money. The tougher the situation, the greater is its value. Likewise, a patriot does not become a patriot before death. (49-279, 1971.10.17)
In what position do you have to stand in order to become a filial child? You have to stand in the position where you can take responsibility for the path of death, the path of the greatest suffering. So what is the path that filial children must walk? Parents will say "Love your brothers and sisters more than us. Live for the sake of your siblings in the same way as you live for our sake." Fulfilling this is the way of the filial child. Parents will probably say that this is their will. (62-37, 1972.9.10)
What kind of person is the true filial child among all filial children? Who can we say is more pious: a person who sacrificially attends his parents throughout his life, even into his seventies or eighties, or someone who sacrifices his life for them as a youth? Even if a son sacrificially attends his parents into his seventies or eighties, he cannot compete with the son who sacrifices his life for his parents in his youth. It is for this reason that the title patriot is conferred posthumously. From numerous historical examples, we know that true filial piety is determined at the transition from life to death. (48-65, 1971.9.5)
Even so-called patriots must live for the sake of Heaven before they can be conferred the title of patriot by Heaven. The path of the filial child is the same. Thus, you can understand how valuable and precious it is. Everything we do, whether eating, seeing, speaking or acting, must be for this purpose.
We have to realize that we have the responsibility to fulfill our duty as filial children and patriots, even if it entails walking the path of suffering and tears in the place of God, the Lord of Heaven. Even if we collapse while trying to block God from walking the path of tears, we must pick ourselves up again and go this way in His place. The duties of loyalty and filial piety must be accomplished from this position. (41-157, 1971.2.14)
Filial children and patriots cannot truly be termed as such unless they walk with death to their dying day. Nobody is truly a patriot prior to death. No matter how much a person may have suffered, a word spoken today with regret, nullifies any qualification as a patriot. All the loyalty that someone may have previously demonstrated is undone by a single moment of betrayal. It is only when someone has crossed over the peak of death that it becomes possible to determine whether that person has fully discharged the duties of loyalty and filial piety.
Hence, loyalty and filial piety are part and parcel of leading a public life. People who give their lives for their country are called patriots, and children who give their lives for their parents are called filial children. Consider the case of two sons: one had been pious and the other impious until their parents' dying day, but in the parents' dying moments the filial son becomes impious while his brother repents and turns pious; in that moment their positions will be reversed. In that event, the standard of his actions on that one final day would allow him to be elevated and have the title of filial son conferred upon him. Those who pursue their goals unerringly to the end of their days will inherit glory. (64-75, 1972.10.24)
I am more excited by a fallen person who is prepared to cast aside all fears of death and danger in order to confront grave global issues sincerely and earnestly than by someone who has toiled unremittingly over a prolonged period. Whoever ends their life for God in this way is assured of going to a wonderful place in the spirit world. (18-280, 1967.6.12)
Parents must provide the education for their children to progress through the stages of filial children, patriots, saints and divine sons and daughters. They have to teach them to perfect the dutiful way of children of filial piety, patriots, saints and divine sons and daughters, all the way up to God. If there is a parent who teaches in this way, then would not God think, "My goodness! That parent is doing what a parent should do. He is doing what a real teacher should do. He is doing what a real leader should do"?
When God says, "You are qualified to be a real parent. You are qualified to be a teacher," then you become a father who has the qualification to be a leader, and, beyond that, a king. Today, the concept of filial piety hardly exists in western culture. The concept of becoming a patriot does not exist. The concept of becoming a saint does not exist. The concept of becoming divine sons and daughters does not exist. This is why cultures will perish.
God wants you all to become divine sons and daughters. Then, who wants you to become a saint? The world does. The country wants you to be a patriot. The family wants you to become a filial child. This is the way of absolute truth. (285-218, 1997.5.19)
A true parent will never say to their child, "You have become a filial child, so, you do not need to become a patriot. Do not go the way of a patriot." A true parent must teach that filial child, "You have to sacrifice your family and walk the path of a patriot. You must serve your country, fulfill the duty of a saint, and you have to sacrifice your duty as a saint in order to go the way that Heaven desires. And beyond this, you have to sacrifice Heaven and Earth to find God."
People become filial children only by sacrificing themselves for their families. Further, in order to become patriots, people must be willing to sacrifice their entire families in order to save their nation. Only this way can they become patriots.
Saints are people who are willing to sacrifice their country in order to save the world. Divine children must be willing to sacrifice the world in order to realize God's Nation and Land, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. Humankind has been ignorant of this truth. You need to invest and sacrifice yourselves. If not, then the ideal of one world or one country will never be accomplished. (285-218, 1997.5.19)
It does not matter, how many Christians there are. God wants people who are resolved to go anywhere anytime at His command -- people who are awaiting His command with a joyful heart. There are millions of Christians in the world. They are proud of their numbers, but how many of them are like this? If someone at sword point were asked to allow themselves to be sacrificed on God's altar, but they refused to do so, then they would be nothing. This era requires people whose hearts are burning with desire to fulfill their filial duty. It requires people who will risk their lives for Heaven and strive for Heaven. I think these people will be called Heaven's Revolutionary Soldiers of the Last Days.
God will be looking for individuals, families, peoples and nations who are one with His ideology in seeking to fulfill their responsibility to the world. God has long sought such individuals. Such people must comfort God's heart and demonstrate loyalty and filial piety before Heaven, and resolve all the circumstances of Heaven and Earth. So you have to become a person to whom God can say, "You are the person who can take responsibility for this age. When I see you, I have hope for tomorrow. You can achieve the victory in today's fight." This kind of individual is absolutely essential.
God must be able to say to that kind of person, "You are truly the bone of my bones, the flesh of my flesh, and the heart of my heart." No matter how many ancestors we have, and no matter how many people there are in this age, unless a person appears on this earth about whom God can say from the depth of His heart, "You are the greatest ancestor, unparalleled in human history," then humankind will be unable to escape the sadness brought about by the Fall of the first ancestors of humankind. We, who were born in this plight, need to attend a new set of parents. (15-216, 1965.10.10)
God's will for the world and God's love for the world have to be passed down. This must be your legacy even if you die. All you need to realize is that people who devote their lives to bequeath this tradition will become filial children and patriots. We do not need a one-day filial son, or a one-day patriot. Even the most evil robber can become a filial son for a day and anybody can also become a patriot for a day. If you repent immediately, you can still become filial children and patriots. God wants people who live as filial children and patriots from the moment they are born to the day they die.
If you compare yourself to me, then I am probably a more filial child of God than you are. The reason is that I have lived my whole life in the way that God wants. Yet, I would not even dream of assuming that I have fully carried out my filial obligations. In fact, I feel ever more inadequate with the passage of time. When people think they have fully discharged their duties of filial piety and loyalty, they actually cease to become filial children and patriots.
The person who complains, saying, "I am a filial child. I am a patriot. Why do you not recognize me?" is the person who is retreating. You must understand that Heaven's filial child and Heaven's patriot is the person who realizes, as time goes on, how much more of his filial duty remains to be fulfilled. He then renews his commitment and goal to fulfill his filial duty as his life's philosophy. (35-341, 1970.11.1)
I am not suggesting that we now need to learn about a God who is in a state of happiness. You may or may not want to do that. It is not important. What we have to know first is that we have to become filial children, patriots and virtuous women. The person who is to establish filial piety emerges out of difficulties. Loyalty is not fulfilled when a country is in a comfortable position. Loyalty is not realized when the country is enjoying prosperity and its people are well off.
A person can only be called a patriot of the nation when, at the time of his nation's greatest crisis, its gravest peril, he asks, "Will you die or will I die? Will the whole country perish or survive?" If, at this moment, he dedicates himself wholeheartedly, risks his life, fulfills his duty and successfully alters the destiny of his country, then he can be called a patriot. The historical records show that it is in the times of difficulty that the great names appear. These loyal, filial and virtuous people are remembered forever. (151-219, 1962.12.15)
Rather than turning your eyes towards your wife, you should all be thinking more about your country, which is divided between north and south. You should all be thinking about the division between the democratic world and the communist world. You must unify the north with the south and then make the free world and the communist world one. After all that, you are to unify the spiritual and physical worlds, which are separated. You must know that it is the duty of filial children to then liberate God after having accomplished all this. (115-160, 1981.11.8)
Therefore, in order to progress in the way of becoming filial children, you must endure persecution, and many trying moments. You have to become confident people who can overcome all difficulties. Rather than reverting to the path of sorrowful bitterness with thoughts of retreat, you must become people who determinedly overcome the hardships and difficulties of the ages. You must distinguish between the paths that lead to life or death, and press on to make a new start overflowing with the hope of tomorrow. You have to know that this is what God and history require of you. (1988.2.23)
Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Section 2. True Loyalty and Filial Piety that Anticipates the Needs of Others. |
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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book Fourteen - A Life Of True Filial Piety
Chapter Three - The Way of Loyalty and Filial Piety
Section 2. True Loyalty and Filial Piety that Anticipates the Needs of Others
The history of humankind is that of a fallen world, yet it actually arose based on ethics and morality. At the center of that morality is love. Filial children want to love their parents ever more, patriots want to love their country ever more, and the path of sainthood teaches us to transcend nationality in order to love the world. It is the duty of saints to love the world more than they love their own families or their own countries. The way of divine sons and daughters is to love with the highest love in accordance with the law of the royal palace rather than all the laws of Heaven and Earth. Centering on love, all things should be done this way.
Filial children must follow the right way in loving their families. Patriots must follow the right way in loving the nation. Saints must follow the true way in loving the world.
The children of Heaven observe the laws of the heavenly nation and the royal palace, but they do not truly understand the reasoning behind the laws of the royal palace. You can only become divine sons and daughters if you attend God in accordance with the law of the royal palace. These are the stages that people must go through.
The filial child is welcomed by the nation; the patriot is welcomed by the saint, and the saint by the divine child. The divine child in turn is welcomed by God. The marrow of all this is true love. It is unchanging and absolute true love.
However, humankind has been wandering about in ignorance of true love and the fact that it establishes the ties that bind absolute filial children, absolute patriots, absolute saints, absolute divine children and absolute parents, and sons and daughters together. You may do all kinds of things, but once you realize this, you still have to go the way of following heavenly principles. Thus, you cannot continue to wander about. (206-62, 1990.10.3)
Filial children do not exist just for themselves but for their parents. Patriots do not exist just for themselves but for their king. Saints do not exist just for themselves but only for God. This is why the saints have been the ones to teach us about our obligations to God.
So what is God's hope? It is to save the world. What is God's situation like? He wants to love His sons and daughters. What is the hope of God's love? His hope is to live in the intoxication of that love.
You have to understand God's hope, God's situation, and God's heart. Without doing so, you cannot become a filial child. This is the crux of the Unification Church teaching. Is it right for people who want to understand God's situation not to know whether He exists or not? Can you become a filial child without knowing what God's hope is? Can you become a filial child without knowing whether or not God is sad or happy? It is impossible. The path to becoming a filial child is simple. You must want to take responsibility for the things that cause your parents to suffer. This is the way to become a filial child. (62-61, 1972.9.10)
Which of these two sons is truly a son of filial piety, one who conscientiously prepares and serves his mother's meals or the one who has nothing to offer but his love? How impious would it be if the filial son offered love, but had no food for his hungry mother to eat? However, when the mother hears her son tearfully saying, "I am such an unfilial son to be here," she will regard that as greater devotion than being served with food. Then, who is the more filial son: the one who brought rice or the one who brought love? Love can transcend time and space twenty-four hours a day. Rice, however, cannot do this. You have to understand this. (1988.8.14)
You have to determine to demonstrate loyalty to the place of God before you show loyalty to your country. Before serving your society, you must first enter into God's presence and then serve that place and finally receive its recognition. If not, then your internal connection with God cannot bear fruit in the external world. This is the essence of a life of faith. You say "I'll serve the world and be loyal to my country," do you not? Then where is the starting point of that loyalty? It is surely in the family. It has to start from within the heart and body of your parents. (22-42, 1969.1.19)
If you successfully devote yourselves steadfastly, you will receive a blessing, but if you do not, you will regret it deeply. There are some people in the Unification Church who say, "I worked with, utmost devotion to carry out the commands of Heaven," but you need to realize that the factors determining whether your efforts will create an extensive foundation on the earth are your standards of compliance, your actual accomplishments, and to what extent you are able to absorb heavenly fortune. Even if it is not an extensive foundation, I personally must leave at least a footprint in the world before I go. This is the way of restoration through indemnity. (1971.1.31)
A patriot wants to receive the love of his country. Filial children want to receive the love of their parents and relatives. However, it is not easy to become a filial child who can receive the love of the whole family. The way to do this is to not eat when others are eating in order to enable them to eat, and to enable others to sleep comfortably and to enable others to dress better than you.
Those who toil for the country and for the family while others play are children of filial piety. You should be liked by more than just your own family. You must earn the love of all three generations: grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts, and grandchildren. They all have to like you. You cannot become a filial child if even just one of these people is unhappy about you. Only when all your relatives testify about you, "I want to become that kind of son. I want to become that kind of sister," will you be able to receive the title, of filial child from your clan and establish yourself. Then you will have a place to stand. (298-278, 1999.1.16)
People who just think but do nothing are worse than those who do not even think at all. Truly they are thieving scoundrels. Such people, when all else fails, they have no other recourse but to steal.
So what kind of people are filial sons and daughters that can make God happy? What kind of people are they? Are they those that fill their own stomachs? No. They are the kind of people who give away to others the food that is meant for them. Should those others refuse to eat, they would even force-feed them.
So what must be done to make you patriots, virtuous women, and filial sons and daughters of the Unification Church? You have to be separated. Do you think that one year is enough to do this? There is a saying that patriots are born to be so. If they are born with this kind of nature, then they have to remain faithful to their cause until they die. Then what must you do? The only way is to go along the path of suffering. That is the closest, shortest way. What is the shortest way to become patriots, virtuous women and filial sons and daughters? The only way is to live a public life with tears. I have no other recourse but to make you walk the path of hardship with tears. (155-259, 1965.10.31)
If we demonstrate greater patriotism than the citizens of a country, and love all the races of the world, all the while maintaining our loyalty and filial piety before Heaven, we will not be failures. Even if we die penniless we will be precious patriots of the nation and the world. (88-27, 1976.7.1)
When you demonstrate true love to your country, you become a patriot; when you demonstrate true love to your parents, you become the most filial child of filial children. If you demonstrate this before all the people of the world, you attain sainthood; and if you do that even after entering the Kingdom of God, then you become a divine child who habitually takes a kind interest in God Himself. (176-49, 1988.5.3)
The conclusion is that without true love there is no such thing as a filial child. At the moment, people have inherited the tradition of secular love, false love. So they presently enjoy free sex and whatnot based on secular love. What they are doing is breaking down all the foundations of love, filial piety and loyalty.
It is only when you stand in front of God for the first time, having fulfilled your duty as filial sons and daughters, as true patriots, as true saints and as true divine sons and daughters centering on the absolute love emanating from the Heavenly Nation, that you can receive your inheritance from God. For the individual family to receive this inheritance, it will do so by automatically growing bigger, adding to it everything in the future country, in the future world and in the future heavenly nation. (286-300, 1997.8.13)
Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Section 3. The True and Unconditional Filial Child.
Book Fourteen - A Life Of True Filial Piety
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Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Chapter 4: Section 1. God's Hope. |
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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book Fourteen - A Life Of True Filial Piety
Chapter Four - Loyalty and Filial Piety Toward God
Section 1. God's Hope
What kind of being is God? He is the Parent of humankind, the King of Kings of humankind, as well as the center of all creation. To become God's son, you would have to become the filial son on the world level, as well as becoming the filial son on the family level.
Assuming that only a person who occupies the position representing the highest qualities of filial piety, loyalty, and holiness can attend God, people who attain only some but not all of these characteristics cannot. God desires to see the person who combines all these qualities together: a filial child, a patriot, and a saint of saints, simultaneously.
God is surely such a being. We are striving to attend Him as our Parent in order to meet our obligations to Him as His children. If there is a group, denomination, or race seeking to go the way of first-rate filial children, the path cannot be an easy one. Filial children of that caliber cannot come forth from the ranks of those who choose the easy way out. They do not emerge out of such backgrounds. From the point of view of the majority, this group of filial children is misguided. Everyone else wants to go east, but they have to go not only west, but also south, and east, and back again to the west... God will make His true filial children walk the path that others will be unable to follow. That kind of religion has to appear. Even through a commonsense approach we are bound to come to this conclusion. (62-33, 1972.9.10)
Historically, although there have been many patriots, filial children, and virtuous women centered on the king, no one centered truly on God's will. Yet we of today are different. People of the past devoted themselves to freedom and liberation based upon earthly standards. They might have become the object partner of God's concern, but they were not able to give Him comfort and joy. As yet there has been no loyal subject, filial child, or virtuous woman of whom God could be proud.
Becoming God's patriots, filial children, and virtuous women is the right path for all people to follow; yet such people have never existed. Although people may have lived in this way for their king or their parents, none has done so for God. As God looked upon these people, how much He must have longed for them to become His patriots, filial children, and virtuous women! (11-77, 1961.1.29)
God wants all people to become filial sons and daughters and patriots; and, from among them, He wants those who maintain the highest standard. God wants people who will only go the way of loyalty and filial piety.
Those who do not take responsibility for their parents' life and assets, and do not bring peace and development to their families, cannot become filial children. If their parents lose all their assets, then they must be willing to offer up everything they have for them.
With the destruction of God's ideal of creation, those standing in the position of having trampled upon life, assets, peace, and the ideal cannot become patriots or filial children. You have to ask yourselves, "When did I ever show concern for God's affairs as if they were mine? When did I ever feel the threat to Father's life? When did I ever agonize and strive to try to bring about peace and unification within Father's family?" You may have attempted to do that, but from God's point of view, instead of being loyal and filial, you have been disloyal and unfilial. (18-341, 1967.10.1)
God wants to elevate patriots and filial children and through them transfer His bitter pain to Satan. He cannot do that unconditionally, however. Thus, after raising up patriots and filial children, He transfers that bitter pain to Satan by making them walk the historical path of suffering as individuals. (13-128, 1963.12.20)
Finding a filial son who can liberate God and also liberate love itself is important. God Himself would also like to be in that position and say, "I wish I could be a filial child once." True Parents also are saying, "I wish I could be a filial child once." How wonderful it would be if there was such a road for God and True Parents to fulfill filial piety together in front of love.
God stands in the position of being the Father who has truly perfected love, and the son fulfills his filial duty based on God's love and the fundamental love of the universe, thus uniting with the Father. How can God pave the way of filial piety of a higher dimension in front of this love? If this had been done, then the Fall would never have happened for all eternity.
This is the realm of the greatest of all liberation. This realm goes beyond the realm of the Principle. It is the original world of true love. When we think about this, then you must not think it is the end when you realize the ideal of the family, the Kingdom of God on Earth, and the Kingdom of God in Heaven. There are still some traces stained by Satan's blood in the internal root, which have to be removed.
Tens of millions of years of history have passed, and even if several times, ten times, or even more than a hundred times that time passes, do you think it is possible to forget the world of the Fall? You should ponder the thought that God's highest hope is to forget all this, to have you and me join together, to have the sons and daughters join together, and become filial sons and daughters who can comfort God who takes the trouble to love us. (300-33, 1999.2.21)
When God held out His hands to bless Adam and Eve, what kind of hope did He have for them as their Father? He would most likely have said, "Embrace the great cosmos that I have created and become patriots attending me as the King." God had this kind of hope.
Accordingly, Adam and Eve should have established the principle of being patriots amongst all the creation and should have lived their lives centering on this tradition for the whole of eternity. If Adam and Eve had become God's truly filial son and daughter and had served and attended Him as their True Father, then the loyalty and filial piety they showed to God would have become the tradition. The history of the world would have continued down until now with the same tradition of unified heart amongst God and Adam and Eve. Had that been the case, evil would not have taken over. If evil could dominate the world of God's heart, then the providence of restoration and salvation would be impossible. (9-105, 1960.4.24)
What God had hoped from His children, Adam and Eve, was to see them become filial children, patriots, saints, and a divine son and daughter when they grew up. God hopes that you will do the same, but have you ever thought that you must become a filial child in your family, a patriot in your nation, a saint in the world, or a divine child in heaven and earth?
Viewed historically, all the saints and great religious leaders have taught people to become filial children, patriots, saints, and divine children. Religions that do not teach this will not endure for long. In any case, that is the predestined course that humankind is following.
Destiny is to do with such things as the relationship between the parents and the children. You cannot change that destiny. There are some things in your fortune that you can change, but you cannot change those aspects of destiny.
If you do not understand these things, you will not be able to fulfill the role of true parents in your families. As true parents, you should teach your children how to become filial children, patriots, saints, and divine sons and daughters. You have to teach them to fulfill all these with you and beyond that in front of God. (287-23, 1997.8.10)
The first couple of God's ideal should have returned glory to Him; yet through the Fall they brought sorrow instead of glory. This was not just the responsibility of Adam and Eve; it was also due to the archangel's disloyalty. The archangel should first have fulfilled his duty of loyalty and filial piety toward God. The Fall came about because he failed to do so. Consequently, the providence of restoration is to establish loyalty, filial piety, and virtue.
Because God installed loyalty, filial piety, and virtue in the center of our minds, all religions and paths of faith are destined to uphold them. All the ascetics have striven to achieve this, and even Jesus sought to have a family so as to establish the way of loyalty, filial piety, and virtue.
God founded the nation of Israel for the sake of establishing such a family. Jesus should first have established the way of loyalty, filial piety, and virtue. The high priest should then have established loyalty, filial piety, and virtue, and then Satan would have been subjugated. Our Blessed Families should not be outdone by others in exemplifying loyalty, filial piety, and virtue. All these qualities begin at home. The Blessing signifies inheriting the hope of the Father.
Until now there have been families that demonstrated loyalty and filial piety before God, but not virtue. He cannot establish virtue before we usher in God's Day. Moreover, as long as the condition for Satan to invade remains, virtue will not be established (14-209, 1964.11.4)
To stand upright before God, just being loyal to one's country, such as Korea, will not do. By doing that, you cannot fully become God's sons and daughter. The Apostle Paul understood this point. Anyone can love their own race. Everyone can love their own countries, but you have to love people from other countries, too. This is because God does not only love Korea. You should understand that God loves everyone equally.
In order to understand God's heart, we ought to go in search of a country that has been struck by adversity and which is facing difficult circumstances, and espouse its cause. This must be done. Even from a principled viewpoint, we are required to establish the way of loyalty and filial piety in at least three countries.
Now in Korea when you determine to attend me, and fulfill your duty of loyalty and filial piety to Heaven, you should not think that this loyalty and filial piety that you are practicing is for you alone. You should pray to God, "Father, I am offering my loyalty and filial piety first for this race, first for the world, first for heaven and earth. Please let it remain as belonging to heaven, and belonging to earth."
Then even after your death your loyalty and filial piety will remain as that which belongs to heaven and to earth. Humankind will pass this tradition down as that which belongs to earth. That is how it is. (155-235, 1965.10.31)
The time for us to become God's filial children will not always be there. It will not exist in the spirit world after our death. In our earthly lifetime -- which, when viewed against the backdrop of eternity, is as brief as the tick of a clock -- we must establish the condition of having loved God and of having fulfilled our filial duty to Him.
Furthermore, we have to confirm our status as the children whom God absolutely needs, and we must accomplish this within our lifetime on earth. (26-114, 1969.10.19)
We are bound together by the destiny resulting from the unfolding history of God's providence, in which He has been pursuing His long-cherished goal of dissolving the anguish He has accumulated over six millennia. Accordingly, even though we have different surnames, we should live with greater love than blood brothers and sisters.
Although you are attending parents who are not your natural parents, you are the people that seek to attend the Parents, centering on God, even more sincerely than you would your natural parents. On top of that, despite having our own country, we are the people that seek to live for the sake of God's nation with loyalty, filial piety, and virtue. (47-81, 1971.8.19)
Now the final time has come. Parents must find "my country." To do that, all Blessed Families are to stand in a circle horizontally around Father and Mother and represent them by progressively fulfilling the duties of filial children, patriots, saints, and divine children. You will thereupon occupy those positions and proceed to observe the laws of the palace and uphold the laws of God's nation. You should understand that the Heavenly Constitution actually begins through us. This is what "my country" means. (197-87, 1990.1.7)
The day that the Korean people understand God's heart is the day that they will dominate Heaven and earth. Why is this so? Even though there are many children, and many citizens, there is only one greatest filial and loyal child. If it is natural even for parents in the fallen world to pay more attention to one of their children who is being victimized, do you not think it would be even more so for God?
God is not looking for any one particular race of people. He is looking for that filial son and daughter that He can love completely. He wants to be proud of them in front of all humankind. God moved the world to recover one people and set up Israel to recover one people. He then sorted out that one people to recover one family, and sorted out that one family to recover one person.
Recovering this one person is equivalent to recovering the world, and this person must be the filial child with the heart to dissolve all God's historical anguish. Only the emergence of such a truly filial son renders it possible for evil people to atone for their sins. (10-239, 1960.10.16)
In the Last Days, above all we must become the people who understand God's heart. Humankind is imbued with the three key elements of intellect, emotion, and will, and it remains for us to attain heavenly emotion on the foundation of intellect and will. God's love flows through our hearts, and because there is a heavenly providence concerning the Korean people, our hearts must beat more strongly with ardor, filial piety, and loyalty for Heaven than those of any other race. (4-250, 1958.6.22)
If you want to become Heaven's loyal subject, you must take revenge upon God's enemy. If you want to become a filial child, you cannot succeed as long as your parents' enemies remain, so you must subjugate and replace the sinful dominion with God's dominion. It is the same thing for a virtuous woman. Until the day you make the enemy account for his sins, if you are not prepared to go forth to fight at the risk of your eternal life, you will not be able to surmount the heartbreaking mountain of the Fall. It is only when you cross over this peak that for the first time God will be able to set His troubled mind at rest and say to you, "My loyal, filial, and virtuous child whom I have long awaited for six thousand years!" He will raise both hands to bless you. God cannot enjoy His Sabbath until such a standard of heart has been established. (9-122, 1960.4.24)
God is the First Parent among parents, the First King among kings, the One who alone can rule over all Heaven and earth, and the First Ancestor capable of formulating His ideal. Our purpose in the Unification Church is to attend Him as His sons and daughters who are capable of offering Him filial piety, loyalty, and saintliness and, for the first time, stand before Him and inherit His vast work of creation without shame or accusation. (84-205, 1976.2.29)
Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Section 2. Absolute Loyalty and Filial Piety that Moves God. |
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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book Fourteen - A Life Of True Filial Piety
Chapter Four - Loyalty and Filial Piety Toward God
Section 2. Absolute Loyalty and Filial Piety that Moves God
Noah could overcome intense persecution amidst troubled circumstances by pouring every ounce of energy into his work. He went forth with a humble heart merely to obey God's laws as His faithful and filial child.
The more Noah went before God, the more sorrow he felt from his heartless environment, and he would go to God shedding tears of repentance with a sorry heart. No one could block his path.
Just think about Noah who endured for 120 years. The satanic world set all sorts of schemes in motion to attack that one person, Noah, opposing him in every way possible; but he did not deviate in the slightest from the standard God had set. That standard established the absolute center of the cosmos, the man of righteousness of the universe, and the victor of truth. As such, God wanted to eliminate all elements of His enemies who opposed this standard. (18-159, 1967.6.4)
Walk the way of loyalty unswervingly all the days of your lives. As much as the people around you criticize you, to that degree our sphere of activity will expand toward the global level. Today we have to grapple, with our local state of affairs, but as our situation eases, we will start to take on global issues. Let us therefore hasten the day on which God can proudly welcome and bless His sons and daughters who exemplify loyalty to the world. Only thus will the peace of the Sabbath break out all over Korea for the first time. When the thirty million people of this country have accomplished their duty of loyalty to the world, and all the world's peoples acknowledge that they had been able to become God's sons and daughters with the help of Korea, and subsequently fulfill their own duty of loyalty, then, for the first time, the foundation for the Sabbath in Korea will have been laid. (155-263, 1965.10.31)
God has toiled assiduously until now to create a providential culture or epochal period in Korea. As that moment has arrived, we need to be people who are as faithful as cows. There were three sacrifices on Abraham's altar: the pigeons, the sheep, and the heifer. Today is now symbolically the age of the heifer. God likes cows.
The age of the heifer! Do we like cows because we can butcher and eat them? That is not the case. Farmers do not like cows because they can slaughter them for food either. They put cows to all kinds of work, and then perhaps eat them later. That is how it is.
Then, what do you need to become in order to be God's sons and daughters? Do you need to become a pig? Of course we are talking about things figuratively. Because God is like the greatest king of cows who offers loyalty and devotion for the sake of humanity, who are His children, thus we of today, as His children, have to become like calves before Him. Of course, I am not saying that you should literally become a calf. It is a figurative expression. (156-17, 1965.11.2)
You have to wonder about whether there is someone else who is being more loyal to Heaven than you are. Would he be from the East or from the West? You have to wonder about this. If there is a loyal person, then what kind of person is he? What kind of work does he do? You have to evaluate this very carefully. (155-248, 1965.10.31)
On your path of loyalty to God, you should have the conviction that you will not yield even an inch. Determine that you will go even one extra step more than any other person or loyal subject. Work harder than any person who ever lived on earth. You must live up to a higher standard than those who were loyal to their country and toiled assiduously for the public good. Go even the extra mile. This is an iron rule. (102-98, 1978.11.26)
In the age of the servant, you must fulfill absolute loyalty. In the age of the adopted child, you have to practice absolute loyalty in your life. If you do not go through these two stages, you cannot reach the standard to become one with God's begotten children. You cannot reach the standard of being unified mind and body with God. The representative people who accomplished for the first time in history the task of connecting the earthly world with the heavenly world will become the Third Israel. (45-82, 1971.6.13)
You have to endure with the heart of yearning, and you must struggle with all your might in every situation you are in to indemnify and liberate all the elements of God's grief. You should bear in mind that a person with this kind of heart will never stumble or fail. Even if you do stumble, and you think that there is no way to go before the Lord, remember that God is alive. He has been enduring until now, and so, when you stumble in the cause of loyalty and devotion while yet alive, He will raise you up and open the way for you to at least pray, and He will show you the direction how to live from then on. Then He will send you people who can help you. (153-255, 1964.1.7)
From God's point of view, you have to become a person who can make the internal heart of your people cry. You should also be a person who can realize the internal heart of the cosmos. The filial sons and daughters who can lovingly relate to God even in the position of great misfortune must comfort the heart of the unfortunate head of the household, whether it is the king or the parents. Then such a son and daughter should single-handedly tackle all the problems surrounding the situation and solve them. Those having such a mind of loyalty and filial piety will go to the Kingdom of Heaven. People who think that they can enter Heaven just by believing in Jesus shall in no way do so. These people have vilified and persecuted us to our exasperation and mortification, but we cannot take revenge on them with guns and knives. (19-300, 1968.3.10)
Depending upon your attitude when you write, you can feel joy at just dotting an i. At the same time, that one dot could even symbolize hope. In relation to that, when God who made Heaven and earth created an object partner, however small, it occupied the position of a being from which He derived joy and comfort in His solitude. As such, it brought God the greatest joy and thereby constituted an essential factor inherent in the object partner to have loyalty and filial piety. We can thus understand that when God ponders over His creation and wonders about the outcome of adding something here and taking away something there, He does so always with a joyful heart amidst hope. (39-226, 1971.1.15)
Who will liberate God? Filial children resolved to fulfill their duties of loyalty and filial piety with utmost devotion must appear and bear all responsibility for His anguish associated with the cross. Such sons and daughters must appear. Understand that, if we fail this, God will not be liberated. (101-255, 1978.11.1)
If, seeing your faithful determination, God takes heart and steps forward to declare, "I am going to tear down this evil world!" then, in that instant, His sphere of activity will expand due to your efforts. This will be a gift of joy from Heaven more wonderful than any coveted position, throne, place of honor, and even awards that would be heaped upon you over not only one but over many lifetimes.
You should determine to confront any kind of persecution in the course of human history and even beyond that. This is the path filial sons and daughters who take on the responsibility to represent the history of eternity should take. This is the way of loyalty to the eternal Kingdom of Heaven. (255-121, 1994.3.10)
In conclusion, God wants absolute families who have absolute loyalty and filial piety. Until now, absolute loyalty and filial piety have never existed. Without a global foundation of absolutely divine children, namely God's children, God cannot descend upon the earth. Alone, God cannot do anything providential on the earth. This is why we refer to Him as a sorrowful God deserving of pity.
It is an amazing fact that European members who follow me are realizing such families for the first time. Everyone without exception desires loyalty and filial piety. Until now God has had no other option but to be in a miserable state over this fallen world. How can we liberate God? It all depends on how we build the family, the tribe, the people, the nation and the world. (297-202, 1998.11.20)
Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Section 3. The Loyalty and Filial Piety of Jesus. |
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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book Fourteen - A Life Of True Filial Piety
Chapter Four - Loyalty and Filial Piety Toward God
Section 3. The Loyalty and Filial Piety of Jesus
Jesus said that no matter what kind of difficult circumstances we encounter we have to have endurance in order to overcome. He said that we have to have more loyalty and filial piety for God's will than sinners show towards evil. This is the basis of the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit which is taught in Christianity. If you live a life of love, then happiness and peace will arise; and through endurance, mercy and goodness will arise; and through a life of loyalty, gentleness and humility will arise.
Jesus emphasized that in order to get rid of all their evil elements, people who are in the realm of the Fall should adopt heavenly love, heavenly endurance, and heavenly loyalty. This is a practical philosophy that can realize the ideology of the Kingdom of Heaven, but do you have this love of Christ in your hearts today?
Also, do you have endurance and the heart of loyalty? Jesus represented God's heart and was the incarnation of His love. Even when he was on the road to Golgotha he was the master of endurance who was worried about the suffering of all humankind and he was the representative person of loyalty who was more loyal to God than any other person in human history.
So where did the love, endurance and loyalty of Jesus come from? These things did not arise from within Jesus of himself. He was the mediator who connected God's love to humankind. He was the incarnation of love and the substantial being with God's value, and he came to save humankind from their ignorance.
In order to accomplish the true will likewise, God searched to find a person like Himself, someone who could represent the value of the whole. For that purpose, God first showed loyalty to humankind before anyone showed loyalty to Him, and He endured limitlessly. Therefore, you have to empathize with God who has been working according to heavenly principles and who had the situation whereby He displayed endless loyalty towards humankind in order to realize His will. You have to empathize with the heart of God who sacrificed resolutely and unflinchingly to establish His will. In addition, you have to empathize with the heart of God who rose above Himself time and again to set up the ideology of the future, the heart that wants to give endlessly to you. (2-344, 1957.8.4)
Jesus came as the Father of humankind, and the Holy Spirit manifested on the earth as the Mother, but they were unable to become both physical and spiritual parents, and were only able to work as the spiritual parents.
The death of Jesus by crucifixion did not mean that Jesus had gained the spiritual and physical victory over Satan. On the contrary, he was driven to his death by Satan. This is why Jesus gave up his body to Satan, and resurrected only spiritually. During his three days of spiritual resurrection on the earth, he gathered his disciples together, and, centering on the spiritual standard, launched the providence of the Second Israel, which started the two-thousand-year history of Christianity up to the present day.
So where is the First Israel? It was ruined. The Jewish nation as the First Israel was ruined because of their failure to believe in Jesus, and the Second Israel appeared. God had protected and nurtured the Israelites for four thousand years and He sent the Messiah on this foundation of His hard work.
However, the Israelites did not accept the Messiah, and they crucified him. This is why the Israelites became the enemies of God. After this, the Israelites became a people without a country, and they were unable to establish an independent nation until Jesus had come again. The Jews have had to endure unbearable suffering for two thousand years in order to indemnify their sin of having killed Jesus. The reason why the Israelites suffered so much and became a people without a country is because they shed the blood of Jesus, who had come as the ancestor for humankind, at the place of execution.
At that time Israel was a stable and vibrant country in both religious and secular terms. Jesus had come on the basis of Israel's sovereignty with the responsibility to rule over the nations and restore the world. However, because the people of Israel rejected him and forced him to the way of death, he had no option but go to the spirit world. However, he did fulfill his duty of loyalty and filial piety to Heaven. Even while treading the path of death he was fulfilling his heavenly mission and responsibility in place of all humankind. He fulfilled his duty of filial piety and loyalty when he prayed, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt."
That meant that Satan was unable to invade the standard of devotion even if Jesus died, and through this he could resurrect spiritually and set the standard for the spiritual Israel. (19-207, 1968.1.7)
When Jesus cried out, "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" as his body was being torn, when his soul was about to be wrenched out of his body on the way of sacrifice, when he was just passing over the peak of death, he determined to fulfill his duty of filial piety and loyalty to God until the very end, and in so doing, he died a noble death peacefully in a higher position than anyone in the satanic world. What was the condition that enabled him to stand in a higher position than anyone in the satanic world who had died before him? It was the fact that he prayed for his enemies. This became the shield which made it impossible for Satan to invade any further. God loved Jesus, and Jesus loved God, and this love mobilized the power of Jesus' resurrection. (50-201, 1971.11.7)
From his childhood, the people of Israel, whom He had chosen to go the way of loyalty and filial piety, should have served Jesus in the position that would have made God happy. Yet because they did not fulfill their mission, then the Inside the Belly Church had to revive Israel's victorious position to give new impetus to this work. (24-191, 1969.8.10)
Had Joseph and Mary known that Jesus was the true son sent by God, God's prince, and the Messiah of all the nations, they would have attended him as God's prince from the day of his birth. They would have worshipped him daily. As the King of all kings, Jesus came vested with God's authority to rule all of heaven and earth forever. That being the case, Joseph and Mary should have attended Jesus with loyalty and filial piety, completely devoting themselves to him from the moment he was born. From the humanistic point of view, where is there a law which requires parents to be loyal and filial to their son? However, that was exactly what heavenly law, required. (16-27, 1965.12.26)
Why was Jesus unable to personally teach Heaven's laws enabling us to attend our Parent, namely God? Originally, if there had been no fall, then God would have become Adam's parent, but their father-son relationship was severed by the Fall. In order to restore through indemnity Adam's inability to discharge his duties of loyalty and filial piety required of the father-son relationship, we are now doing it in his stead. God is unable to teach us from the parents' position before this is accomplished. (15-219, 1965.10.10)
Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Chapter 5: The Inseparability of Filial Piety, Loyalty and Religion. |
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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book Fourteen - A Life Of True Filial Piety
Chapter Five - The Inseparability of Filial Piety, Loyalty and Religion
There is no other way to possess God than the way of loyalty, and no other way to possess your parents than that of filial piety. Accordingly, you have to fulfill your duty of loyalty and filial piety. (14-90, 1964.6.12)
Those who are truly filial in their families are on the direct road to becoming the loyal subjects of their nation. Those who are truly loyal to their nation are on the direct road to becoming saints. Please understand this. Therefore, determining to absolutely love your parents is the pathway of becoming filial children in your family. Determining to absolutely love the sovereign and all the citizens of your country is the pathway of loyal subjects. Determining to absolutely love the world is the pathway of saints.
Even the king of a country must follow the saint and absolutely believe him. Patriots and loyal subjects must follow their king, and filial children must follow the patriots. There is only one way. Then who must the saints follow? They must follow God. God has eternal, unchanging and unique love. The saint, the king, the loyal subject and the filial child must all go the same course of eternal and unchanging love. Whatever detours you may take, you will always have to get back on the right track in order to stay on course.
The individual, family, tribe and nation are all to go this way. But there will be obligations to your parents as well as to your nation. If you are torn between these obligations and are unable to fulfill both of them simultaneously, where should your priorities lie? Between filial piety and loyalty to your nation, you should give preference to the latter. This conforms to the rule of law. The reason for this is that the nation encompasses the families and parents. (99-67, 1978.7.23)
Be the friend that your friends always feel safe in confiding all their secrets. Someone like that is the very best friend anyone can have. The man who can even temporarily neglect his wife, parents, brothers and sisters, in order to seek out and visit his friend, is an exemplary friend.
As a friend, become a representative of the past, present and future. Then, become the representative of the family. The father and mother teach their son to practice filial piety in order to establish him as the representative of the family. In other words, you must become children of filial piety.
What is the quickest way to become emotionally one with your parents? By being a filial child. Those who have forged the bonds of filial piety that can be recognized by Heaven and Earth are accorded the privilege of inheriting the Kingdom.
What are the Eastern teachings of the three basic relationships and the five cardinal virtues? Essentially they instruct us to exemplify a level of filial piety in the family that can be recognized by the nation and the world. God also recognizes that kind of filial child and He will send someone from that lineage who can rule the nation. Filial children are determined within the family and loyal subjects are determined within the nation. The people who can become loyal subjects are not those who have loved only God with all their heart, soul and mind. Loyal subjects are those who also love their nation because of their love for God. (32-258, 1970.7.19)
In my viewpoint, the person who is the most devoted and loyal will become the leader. Only that person is qualified to become the leader. A person with a doctorate is not automatically qualified to become the boss. Even if he joins the company and fits in, he cannot just be promoted over the heads of the rank and file workers. The ultimate deciding factors are not knowledge, erudition or competence, but rather devotion and loyalty.
When the Japanese willfully dominated the thirty million people of Korea, the maiden named Yu Kwan-soon, opposed them. We can see that she was no ordinary person by any standard. Even though her people were unable to be loyal, unable to devote themselves to their country, she represented them through her loyalty and devotion. This is why she possessed the kind of ideological authority and leadership that will never be forgotten by the Korean people. Yu Kwan-soon was unable to realize her goal and failed because the time was not ripe and the environment was unfavorable. But if there is someone who is completely devoted and loyal when the time and environment are right, what do you think would happen? Would he just be caught and killed? What do you think?
Consider God's children who have the kind of loyalty that they are prepared to die even when the environment is not right. If those children stand up when the time and environment are right, what will happen to them? The more active they are, the more they will be honored. Do not falter on your path. You have to have the mindset that you were born for this purpose, and this is the only work you are supposed to do. If you maintain your devotion and sincerity for a year, two years, three years, and more, you will be elevated more and more in proportion to the time period you spent. (156-12, 1965.11.2)
You would probably agree that people like Yi Soon-shin and Yu Kwan-soon are patriots. They are called Korean patriots and you might feel that you want to be even more loyal than they were. However, until now, you have been unable to achieve that status. From now on you must walk the path of loyalty. Be the vanguard of liberation in order to seek God's kingdom. Along this path, even if you are accused of being part of a sect or are hunted down or put in prison, you must continue the fight. You need to identify the adversaries you will have to contend with in this fight and then march forth. For Unification Church members, this is the way to go.
Do not boast that you were devoted to your father. Filial piety is just the foundation on which you will be able to fulfill your duty of loyalty. Become people who can be more loyal than your father, people who can receive the blessing of love from your parents. In this quest, the question is: how can we surpass this standard and realize the kingdom desired by God, our Father, who seeks to bless us with His eternal love? We now know our life's work. Let us fulfill our responsibility and mission as citizens of God's kingdom. (29-110, 1970.2.25)
We are overwhelmed by the grace of having been told by Heaven that God predestined us to be His children, and yet we need to ask ourselves, "How much have I attended my Father? To what extent have I become a filial child?" We are to relate to God individually as filial children and manifest the spirit of a loyal subject toward the nation and its people. The Eastern teachings of the three basic relationships and the five cardinal virtues are true and instructive. They are akin to loyalty and filial piety toward God. Someone who is disloyal to his parents cannot become God's filial child. By the same token, people who do not have the integrity of being a loyal subject to their country can never, by any means, become Heaven's loyal subjects. It is the same for heaven and this world. It is the same for the world of the heart, only the content differs. (7-66, 1959.7.12)
In the same way that patriotism is linked to heavenly ideals, the original mind extols the way of loyalty and filial piety. The Japanese and Koreans held divergent views: where Korea's admiral Yi Soon-Ishin was the enemy of Japan, Ito Hirobumi was Korea's enemy. That is how it was. At those points, both Korea and Japan were trying to stand in the center. Each and every country has its own heroes, but not all of them have saints. Heroes love their country, but not the world. Had Ito Hirobumi loved Asia and the world more, he would not have perpetrated the atrocities that he did. (229-247, 1992.4.12)
Let us compare two people. One is a devoted on who lives his life according to how his parents think. The other is unable to fulfill his filial duty to his parents immediately, because he is doing his best for the restoration of their nation in accordance with the wishes of his people. He is waiting impatiently for that one moment when he can do his best for the sake of the world, while deferring his filial family duties to the future. It is the latter person who is more needed by the world. Viewed from this perspective, we can say that religion has come to represent striving for the future, being loyal to the nation of the future, and firmly establishing the foundation of filial piety for the future. (27-307, 1969.12.28)
Patriotism should not be focused only on your country. The philosophy of the Unification Church is to become filial children who have the heart of love to liberate their parents. Before you love your country, you have to love your parents first. You have to become filial children. Only in this way, can you love your country and it is on the road of loving your country that you can love the world. It is only by loving the world that you can love Heaven. That is how it is. You have to become a filial child to your parents first. (139-275, 1986.1.31)
What kind of time will that moment in the future be, the time all religions strive for, in which we can practice filial piety and loyalty? It is the time when all humankind can sing songs of happiness together, rejoicing for the first time over the beginning of hope; and take pride in the joy of God who has been guiding history. Surely religion arose solely for the purpose of ushering in that moment; pledging victory in order to manifest each of us as the center of all heaven and earth. (27-307, 1969.12.28)
Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Chapter 6: Our Level of Loyalty, Filial Piety and True Love Determine Our Path to Heaven or Hell. |
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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book Fourteen - A Life Of True Filial Piety
Chapter Six - Our Level of Loyalty, Filial Piety and True Love Determine Our Path to Heaven or Hell
No matter how much evil we encounter in our social environment, we still have loving parents; how happy we are to be able to go to them and shed tears in their warm embrace! No amount of money could ever buy that feeling of embrace or comfort you receive from your father and mother while leaning your heavily burdened body, letting tears flow over their bosom and feeling their hands quietly caress you. It is in those times that you can have a heart of thankfulness, and feel joy that surpasses even that of an earthly commander who has just won a victory over the enemy forces.
That is why I am asking you to become filial sons and daughters. When you hurt yourself, your mother and father are always ready to listen to you, night or day. They are always ready to pat you on the shoulder and embrace you. They will give you a bandage of love or some medicine of love even if they haven't managed to prepare a bandage or some medicine. This is truly amazing. Such a place is filled with the fragrance of peace. You must know that there is no power that is greater than this.
Nothing can quench the hope that burns in the hearts of parents who live all their lives, bound by the cords of love, for the sake of their children, offering their sweat and blood with backs bent by age and faces ravaged by time. Within them resides a force enabling them to clear the obstacles they encounter with a strutting gait however insurmountable they maybe.
The path of a patriot is the same. The ancestors of our nation walked the path of patriotism imbued with a heart of deep love for their parents. Our cherished pride as their descendants who can inherit this love is to love as they did.
Accordingly, we should love our country as its citizens. We should not eat the bread of idleness to the detriment of our nation. You may do this until you grow up; that holds true while you are still immature and undergoing education, but not when you come of age. Are babies not also weaned off their mother's milk after some months? When they become toddlers, it is not a sin for them to swipe the food that their mother and father have put away and stuff it into their mouths. When they do that their parents are not going to yell at them, saying, "Hey, you little scoundrel! You're a thief. I'm going to teach you a lesson!" More likely, they will tap their child on the bottom and say, "You smart guy! How did you know it was there? You are sharper than I!" Such is the heart of a parent. (175-207, 1988.4.17)
Through the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, their sons Cain and Abel harvested the seeds of the original sin. As such, the parents who had sown the seeds of sin had to be restored. The foundation of children who can fulfill their duty of loyalty and filial piety also has to be restored connected to the foundation of the restored historic parents of heaven and earth. It was only after this standard had been established that the Day of All Things could appear for the first time. (16-259, 1966.6.19)
Is it not love that moves us to help our parents at home? If they loved you, you want to love them back. That is a heavenly principle. Everything arising from the heart is linked to the parent-child relationship. It is all derived from the seeds that were planted in your hometown.
Yet due to the Fall, everything went awry, and consequently needs to be resolved on earth. Return to your hometowns and post up the signboard declaring yourselves as being more loving filial sons and daughters than all the other filial sons and daughters out there on Satan's side. On that declaration, it will not be the archangel, but good spirits, who will descend upon the earth. Then the spirits operating on the horizontal level with a loving heart will come to your house here in Seoul and cooperate with you. You can then extend your horizontal foundation in this way. This is restoration. (175-44, 1988.4.6)
What is the one unfinished work that we must leave behind, the legacy we can bequeath, and the last will and testament we can leave behind -- even when we are accused and hunted down by a bunch of smug narcissists occupying the highest positions in society, and we are tearfully struggling to steady ourselves with our blood-spattered bodies close to the point of death? It is our hearts burning brightly for the sake of Heaven and our minds as filial children, loyal subjects and virtuous women. A group of people embodying such qualities will never perish. (150-153, 1961.1.9)
Clearly knowing, distinguishing and walking the path of righteousness are the way of loyalty and filial piety. As such, don't fritter away your days in vain. It is the same as getting into debt. Pull in the people who are close to you and bring them here. If you are not strong enough, you may have to resort to threatening them into order to pull them over to us; that is not a sin. We would go to such lengths in order to educate them and take them to a good place. As such conditions exist, we can do anything. So from now on you should not leave people to do as they please. (243-51, 1993.1.1)
Your loyalty will be immortalized by your descendants, and when you go to the spirit world, you will be commended for your merits of your efforts. The age of indemnity has now passed, and from now, you will be able to establish a bright tradition commensurate with the level and extent of your activities. This will become your estate. Let us devote ourselves to our task with utmost sincerity, knowing that we are placed in such a point in time. (38-126, 1971.1.3)
You will enter God's original kingdom if you absolutely go the way of loyalty and filial piety, but you will double-back one hundred eighty degrees and then drop straight into hell if you oppose it. Everyone must realize that free sex is Satan's domain of love filled with ensnaring evil spirits to bring about the downfall of humankind and expand hell on earth. From the viewpoint of the God of absolute love, the grandmother and grandfather are one; they cannot be separated. They must absolutely become one centering on God, and centering on love. What is love? It is fitting convex and concave together absolutely; mother and father, husband and wife, son and daughter -- all must unite in this way absolutely. This is what God wants. (280-135, 1996.11.24)
Parents behold their devoted children with tears in their eyes and wish them eternal blessings. Such a background exists in the realm of the heart. It is fearful. In this world, there are many types of people who compare themselves with others; they may pray with those others, but in the end become isolated and finally leave. But when the true filial children become the center, then tears will flow in their home between them and their parents. They will become the devoted children of parents who wish that the blessing of the future nation will be with their family. (247-32, 1993.4.21)
In going the way of filial piety for the sake of God, even if you have to die away from home, you should protect whatever environment you are in such a way that will earn you the appreciation of its inhabitants. Only by bequeathing such a legacy can you go to heaven. If you do not, you will not. (280-41, 1996.10.13)
We believe in God who wants to realize one world, a world of one purpose. Since God is Jehovah and Lord of all nations, and the center of all centers, when we face Him from afar, we want to be His loyal subjects. We were born for this duty and responsibility. Understand that as we draw near to Him, He becomes our Father to whom we owe the duty of filial piety as His sons and daughters. That is our priority. Only when you have lived like that can you say to God, "If you want to send me to hell, send me there. If you want to send me to Heaven, send me there. Do as you please." Nobody went to hell after living like that. (154-314, 1964.10.5)
As national representatives responsible for the world, you are to achieve unity with America, which has its responsibilities as the nation representing the world. You have to become perfect Cains before me as people who represent the nation and the world. You cannot have your own individual concepts about that. Realize that at this exceptional time, you need to stand resolved to represent world history, to become the representative Cains of all Cains, and to cause the archangels to be ashamed because you have surpassed their conditions of atonement as you become like Heaven's loyal archangels. (88-143, 1976.8.10)
Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Section 1. True Parents Are the Model of Loyalty and Filial Piety. |
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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book Fourteen - A Life Of True Filial Piety
Chapter Seven - God and True Parents
Section 1. True Parents Are the Model of Loyalty and Filial Piety
We might call Jesus Christ the King of kings, the Lord of lords, or the main representative of the Absolute Being. However, there is no one who can stand before him and be blessed with the title of loyal subject or patriot. Please understand this. No loyal subject, filial son, or virtuous woman of heaven has yet emerged.
If there is a person who has absolute faith, God would want to bless him and set him up in the highest position from which he could rule heaven and earth. For that to be so, he should be called the most loyal subject and most filial child, and since the believers are called his brides, they have to gain the title of the most virtuous women. God has conducted His providence of restoration for six thousand years, but He has been unable to bless anybody saying, "You are my most loyal subject without equal in all of history" or, "You are truly the filial son that I have been wanting since Genesis." Nor has He been able to bless anyone as His virtuous daughter.
None of the world's nations have become the country possessing the sovereignty that God could designate as His own; none of its families have become the family having True Parents whom God could love and protect eternally; nor has anyone on earth been able to become the true bride or groom whom God could trust eternally.
Thus, from Genesis to the present day, the Creator God has not been able to designate, among the people living on the earth, anyone as His beloved son or daughter, or as His filial child who can represent Heaven and Earth. He has been unable to designate anyone as His loyal subject or as a virtuous woman before Him.
We, who have fallen, long for the nation where we can become the loyal subjects approved by Heaven, and for the world where we can become filial children in the presence of True Parents. This is the original world in which God can embrace us in His bosom as true brides and grooms. This is the greatest goal desired by humankind. (9-102, 1960.4.24)
Since this world is longing for Parents, we are preparing for the day when those Parents will come. The one master, the one parent and the one world are the fruits and goals for which God has endured and toiled for over six thousand years up to the present day. Here, an heir of the heart, who can stand representing his parents, has to appear.
An heir of the heart is not an heir who just talks, or someone who merely appears to be an heir, or one who is having a good time; but rather the one who takes ownership of his parents' sadness and suffering, agonizes and grieves in place of his father, and struggles to establish the way to manifest the duty of loyalty and filial piety before Heaven. Only such people can stand before Heaven. (9-30, 1960.4.3)
The course of history until today has been one of intermittent warfare between good and evil. Faced with such a history, each individual must separate evil from good. It is the individual who holds the key to determine success or failure.
Bear in mind that you are public figures who are to transcend the individual level. In the past, our ancestors worked hard to fulfill their public mission through loyalty and filial piety. So the person who is to inherit the historically great accomplishments of his ancestors must, when it comes to his public mission, be even more loyal than they were. Therefore, if we are going to take on a public mission, we need to have a universal heart and resolve to be examples of loyalty, filial piety, and virtue which transcend history. (11-270, 1961.12.17)
What is a loyal subject? Is it someone who is devoted to his king? No. Know that a loyal subject is someone who knows how to live for the people in the same way that he lives for the king. Then who is a filial son? It is not someone who is devoted to his parents. Know that a filial son is someone who lives for his siblings in the same way that he lives for his parents. Who are true divine children, God's sons and daughters? Divine sons and daughters are those people who seek to live for the sake of everything that is of God, in the same way that they live for His sake.
That's why I say that I will go the way of the divine son. I love God, but I also love all humankind, even my enemy America. Only when I do this will God, who has been watching, be able to say to me, "My son!" I am not a son of any particular country. I was born in Korea, but I am not Korean. I am not a son of Korea. A person to whom God can say, "My son!" is a person who lives for all of humankind in the same way that he lives for God.
Such a person is God's son. Since God is a being who forgets Himself and cares for people, someone who does likewise is His filial child. You have to know this definition clearly. We are people who start out on the path of filial children, progressing by way of the path of loyal subjects or patriots, to reach the path of divine sons and daughters. We are not aspiring to achieve sainthood. Based on such contents, by fulfilling the duty of divine sons and daughters through the duties of filial children and loyal subjects, then what nation would we end up with? The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. A country which lives in this way will go to heaven just as it is. What I mean to say is that putting this into practice was God's ideal of creation. (133-241, 1984.7.19)
Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Section 2. Loyalty to True Parents Is Loyalty to God. |
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Cheon Seong Gyeong – Sun Myung Moon
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Book Fourteen - A Life Of True Filial Piety
Chapter Seven - God and True Parents
Section 2. Loyalty to True Parents Is Loyalty to God
Humankind is faced with the plight of being children of filial impiety. People are the chief culprits who brought about unhappiness. Having been unspeakably impious toward God, such children must occupy the position that will enable them to become filial sons and daughters, and recover their dignity before Heaven.
Unification Church members are proud of themselves, saying that they have pledged to become filial sons and daughters of Heaven. However, we need to dispassionately undertake a critical reappraisal of ourselves. We have to ask ourselves how much our hands have become the hands of a filial child that Heaven longs for, and how much our faces have become the faces of filial children that Heaven can long for.
If we ask ourselves whether or not we have personally become the catalyst of filial piety, overcoming whatever adversities we may face, day or night, and whether or not we have succeeded in resembling our Father who has toiled relentlessly in order to allow us to pioneer the way of filial piety, we do not have that confidence. (60-19, 1972.8.1)
Those who want to become filial children must become people who come forth to take responsibility for all their parents' suffering, or choose the most difficult path to go in place of their parents. If there are parents who want to make a filial child out of their errant son, what would they make him do? They will probably give him the most challenging tasks. Out of all his brothers, they will choose the most difficult things for him to do, ordering him, "Hey you. Come and do this!"
The one who comes with the name of the filial son without equal is the Messiah. The one who comes with the name of the filial daughter without equal is his Bride. Since Jesus is a man, are we to call all women his brides? Are there many brides? There is but one. Everyone can compete to become the Bride. (62-41, 1972.9.10)
If filial sons have already existed in the history of your hometown, you have to supersede them all as the great king of filial sons. If there have been loyal subjects, then you should surpass them as the great king of loyal subjects. Yet, however much one may become a filial child or loyal subject, without having a horizontal relationship with True Parents, it would serve no purpose. It is only when the True Parent becomes the horizontal Father on the horizontal level that the vertical Father appears. When the absolute minus appears, then the absolute plus comes looking for it. (177-347, 1988.5.22)
The True Parents are the ones who have fulfilled the traditional duties of children of filial piety in the family, patriots or loyal subjects in the nation, saints in the world, and divine sons and daughters in heaven and earth. Without such a concept, you cannot stand before God as the filial child that He desires in the family or as the patriot that He desires in the nation that is formed centering on God, or as the saint that He desires in the world; and you cannot attend the divine son, who can become the filial son of heaven and earth.
That is why each of us, in order to restore the satanic world through indemnity, has to fulfill these four main conditions and dedicate them before Heaven. Divine sons and daughters must observe both heavenly and earthly royal etiquette and palace protocol, as well as laws governing both the heavenly and the earthly nation. God's Kingdom, too, has its own palace and nation.
You have to perfect and know how to abide by the royal etiquette and palace protocol and all the laws on earth, and those in heaven. Only thus, do you fulfill your duty as divine sons and daughters. Once you have returned to your homeland, you are to accomplish the Family Pledge point number two by becoming filial children, loyal subjects, and virtuous women. Family Pledge point number two needs to be realized. I am telling you that because God has been unable to own all this until now; it had all belonged to Satan. (266-145, 1994.12.22)
I am eagerly awaiting the appearance of people who pledge to fulfill their duty of loyalty and filial piety to God across the length and breadth of the Korean peninsula, on behalf of the thirty million Korean people. I had already pledged this before you were even conceived, and I had already trodden this path when you were not thinking of doing it even in your wildest dreams. If you say you are a person of many tears, then I will say that I have shed more tears than any of the thirty million people of this race. Just having someone come to me and saying one word can cause me to burst into uncontrollable tears.
I am a very pitiful person from the worldly point of view. How pitiful am I? However wide heaven and earth may be, I have no place where I can lay my mind to rest. I can understand Jesus' heart when he said, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." (13-35, 1963.10.16)
Have you shown filial piety to me as you would to your Heavenly Parents? I am telling you that countless filial children in the satanic world, who have come and gone, have had monuments built to their memory in their countries. When have you fulfilled your duty as patriots? You cannot become a filial child or patriot before you have offered your life all the way up to your dying day. I wanted that kind of person, which is why I educated you; nevertheless, you have fallen short of the standard.
When have you loved your country in the true sense of the word? When have you loved your brothers and sisters in the true sense of the word? When have you loved me in the true sense of the word? When have you loved my family in the true sense of the word? According to the principle of restoration through indemnity, do you not have to be better than any other filial child or patriot? Isn't that what the Principle teaches you? Have you attained that standard? You must know this. (68-268, 1973.8.5)
Why are you unable to be loyal to the point of getting gnarled hands in carrying out my orders? Why are you not able to make such a historical condition that will cause those who see you and hear your testimony to get all choked up, and burst into tears, even though what I am asking you to do is quite simple and easy?
I am asking you why you have not practiced filial piety before your parents on behalf of your family, and not practiced loyalty to your nation, and why you have not fulfilled all your responsibilities to Heaven, in spite of having been given the absolute chance to go forth with the authority of historical victory, and unconditionally inherit all the great accomplishments of Heaven. Only when you have accomplished that, will there be no one to block you when you go from the earth through your nation to Heaven.
Satan has blocked the level of the family. However perfect a person may have become on the individual level, it is of no use if he is unfilial to his parents. This is how it is: no matter how filial a person may have been in his family, his piety is of no use if he is disloyal to his country; and no matter how loyal a person is to his country, if he is disloyal to humankind, then he will be unable to go to Heaven. (158-143, 1967.12.26)
Even if you have been impious and failed to love Mother Nature, your birth parents, or the spirit world and God, by virtue of attending me as your True Parent, you will receive the qualification of a filial child. That is why you have to follow me dauntlessly. (105-112, 1979.9.30)
Do they not say that young people in this world cannot forget their first love? As none of you have been married, you may not know it, but I am telling you that first love is unforgettable. The relationship between God and humankind is that of parent and child, and God can never disown those sons and daughters who are remembered as having practiced filial piety. This is because they stood in a better position than Adam and Eve. Did Adam and Eve become filial children? They did not. What is the path of becoming a filial child? In order to tread that path, it is necessary to live according to the will of the Father. A person who is not doing so cannot become a filial child. (57-153, 1972.5.31)
In order to fulfill your duty of filial piety to your Parent who has been toiling strenuously for you, you must first console Him with your tears and then take the cross off His back and go forth, bearing it with dignity. With the heart of proclaiming the fact that the path of the cross God trod for His children has been miserable, you must stand in the position in which you are able to say, "Father, please don't suffer anymore. Father, please don't worry about me anymore!" Don't you think this is the face of the filial child who can stand before God, our Parent, who has been agonizing sorrowfully until now? When I think of it this way, I realize the fact that we, today, have been too brazen and arrogant before God. (31-35, 1970.4.12)
Move with the awareness that when it comes to attending the True Parents on behalf of heaven and earth, you will become people of even greater loyalty and filial piety than any of your ancestors in history or anyone from any other time in history. Then Heaven and all the people around you will be influenced and unite with you. (275-187, 1995.12.8)
Be loyal to your society, your church, and your family. What kind of place is the church? It is the place that helps you to form and nurture your character. Due to the Fall, the church is needed. It does not stop at the family and society. The restoration of character does not happen by itself. Graduating with a doctorate from some university does not mean that your character has been restored. That is why we need the church.
Then where should you practice loyalty? Do so in your church before your family. Do so in your church before your society. The church is the subject; the family and society are the objects. Where does the wise person stand? He does not stand in the position of the object partner, but in that of the subject partner. The position of the subject partner is but one.
The object has to revolve three hundred sixty degrees through the four cardinal points of north, south, east and west; but the subject has no other place but the center. There is only one absolute point in the center, not two. Can there be two points in the center? If the center moves about, there is great potential for failure. (25-126, 1969.9.30)
To become the president, one must prepare a foundation accordingly. Even someone who is born as crown prince must first learn all the relevant laws, rules and regulations in order to become king. So now you must not just talk but also participate in the final course of human history. Then God will stamp you with His seal of approval, "You have been a filial child," and send you to heaven as a filial child of the heavenly nation. How amazing is this love? What did I say was the foundation for this? It is Home Church. The Kingdom of Heaven is the place where filial children will enter.
A villainous son, however much a son he may be, will not enter. To go in with the name of a filial child, doing Home Church is to receive that stamp of approval. (122-124, 1982.11.1)
People who just live comfortably within their families are fools. They can only stay within the confines of the family Kingdom of Heaven. That is why I am telling you to become representative and central families. That is why I am telling you that the way of filial children, patriots, saints and divine sons and daughters is the path you must take. Naturally, it is the path you must inevitably follow.
This is why you are to become filial children in the family. Next, you are to become patriots in the nation. From the time of their birth, loyal subjects or patriots do not stray from their duty. They must proceed, remaining focused night or day. Throughout my life, whether asleep or awake, I never lost my focus on God's will. Rising from my bed, I keep going. For a thousand years and even ten thousand years, I keep going. It is because I have gained this kind of victory that I am able to tell you that, even if you had been unable to fulfill your responsibilities as tribal messiahs, you can still wipe out all your past mistakes by fulfilling your responsibilities as national messiahs. This is where you should become filial children and patriots. Pray for your brothers and sisters with the heart of loving the nations of the world. Only in this way can you appear before God's royal presence with the status of divine sons and daughters following their Parents. (283-77, 1997.4.8)
I shouldered the nation. On that path, you are meritorious subjects. For that reason, you have to understand that we are treading the path in order to pave the way of the filial child, the virtuous woman, and the loyal subject. This is the mission of the tribal messiah. The position of the filial son is in relation to his family, the virtuous woman's position is in relation to her couple, and the loyal subject or patriot's position is that of the parents representing the country. By becoming loyal subjects, patriots, you will represent the position of parents by being connected with the nation. (220-153, 1991.10.16)
God shed many tears for me. You did not know that, did you? Among all of you, where are the filial sons and daughters who make me shed many tears? That is what I desire. I have not been able to find such people until now. This is a serious matter. (256-26, 1994.3.12)
Go Home to True Love Go to the Contents Page Go on to Book 15: Chapter 1: Section 1. True Love is at the Center of God's Desire. |
