In the typical course of life, a child grows up among siblings and peers, gets married, and becomes a parent. These are the basic stages we pass through in life. Each successive role is added like a mantle to the previous ones. Each one opens a new realm in our heart. Human beings naturally express love in four directions: to our parents, our siblings, our spouse and our children.

These form what Reverend Moon refers to as the Four Realms of Heart: child's love, siblings love, spouses love and parents love. All other forms of human love derive from these four types of love. In order for individuals to reach their full maturity of heart and to become reflections of God, they must fully experience these four realms of heart.

From "The Development of Civilization from the Viewpoint of the Principle, Secaucus, New Jersey, August, 1996.

When human beings come into oneness with God through true love, they resemble Him and become the perfect embodiment of true love, with wholesome character. Thus we can say that God's love is the essence of human happiness, life and ideals.

Adam and Eve were meant to mature in God's love and become true individuals, true husband and wife, and, by rearing children, true parents. People experience God's true love step by step, throughout the stages of life's growth. Each individual is meant to come to know the heart of children through the love of their parents, the heart of a sibling through the love between brothers and sisters, the heart of husband and wife through the love of a spouse, and the heart of parents through loving children.

The family is the foundation upon which we establish these four realms of love and heart. The family is the basis for love, happiness, life and lineage. We cannot learn and experience these four realms of love anywhere other than in the family. We know love only through actual experience.

The true perfection of the individual, family, society and environment has its root in the realization of love within the family.

Some roles arise simultaneously, as when an infant is born both as a son and a brother. From a developmental standpoint, however, each realm has its season. The season of each realm is when it is the focus of development. Passing into a new realm does not end the development of the previous ones.

The realms impact each other in dynamic ways throughout the lifetime. For instance, when siblings gather to celebrate a wedding or mourn at a funeral, their bonds of heart may be refreshed and deepened.

Each realm includes both a role and a norm. These norms include the responsibilities, attitudes and virtues associated with each realm. Each culture has norms for the perfect wife, the model child, the exemplary father, and so on. Details may differ from culture to culture, yet beneath the diversity lies a common denominator of caring. And in all cultures, the family matrix prepares people for wider roles in society.

Reverend Moon emphasizes that, since God is our parent, it is in the relationship with their parents that children begin to experience and understand the heart of God. The very arrival of an infant gives birth to parental love.

Babies need much care. As they are fed, clothed, bathed, held and played with, they experience the commitment of their family to attend, nurture and protect them. The parent's eyes, voice, touch and responsiveness speak volumes about life in the world.

When the children's needs are met, they learn that it is safe to open their heart. In such a surrounding, children learn that the people close to them are supportive and good. This wordless communication penetrates deep in the child's realm of heart.

From "God and a United World of Peace, Founders Address, Inter-religious and International Federation for World Peace Convocation, Arlington, Virginia, December 27, 2002.

Often, the relationship between God and humanity is viewed from the perspective of majesty and holiness, and it is concluded that God and humanity will exist in dramatically different dimensions for all time.

Certainly, the Creator occupies a level that differs from His creation. And yet the original relationship that is most central and meaningful is the true love relationship between parent and child. True love makes unity possible in the relationship between internal character and external form and between male and female.

Human beings were created to become one in heart with God, to share the same rank as God in true love, and to experience an inseparable parent-child bond with God that enables us to relate with Him through our strongest emotions in daily life.

God's ideal of creation entails His being perfected along with human beings, who would become His partners in love as His sons and daughters. This apotheosis is the accomplishment of the ideal of true love.

As the child's first attachment is to its parents, the parent-child bond is a key to moral development. Attachment enhances the growth of heart and capacity for empathy. Our ability to recognize and feel another persons pain, suffering or joy as our own is the basis for our capacity to give love, take responsibility and have fulfilling relationships with others. Empathy emerges even in young children who have a warm bond of attachment with a parent.

Out of love for the parents, children usually obey them; eventually they learn to control their impulses because this pleases the parents. Children gain increasing parental love and approval as they take on increasing responsibilities appropriate to their age. The parent's words that the child hears gradually become the guiding voice from within the child.

The same heart that first develops in response to parental love becomes the core motivation for interaction with the larger community. Those who have developed bonds of trust with their parents are able to follow instructions and receive guidance from others.

They are not afraid that supporting and serving others will diminish themselves. They can bring out the best in their teachers and supervisors and may even come to inherit their positions. The extension of filial piety includes loyalty and patriotism. In many languages, one's nation is called the fatherland or motherland.

From "Mankind and the Ideal World, Belvedere Estate, Tarrytown, NY, April 29, 1979.

What are we going to leave our descendants?

Not money or the corrupted traditions of the world that seem to be flourishing today; the tradition that will flourish in the sight of God is the tradition of true love, not of power or knowledge.

Your social standing, appearance or distinguished manner will not remain. If you truly love your children and want to give them a lasting gift, hand down the tradition of true love. Once you give them that, you have already given them freedom.

Young children tend to respect and obey their parents, thinking that their parents are complete and all knowing. For Reverend Moon, parents stand in the position of God and carry the responsibility of conveying truth, beauty and goodness to their children.

Early positive bonds with parents can remain influential throughout adulthood and offer a secure base from which to form other significant relationships, including, most importantly, their relationship with God. This realm of filial piety continues far beyond childhood and bears fruit in mature devotion; children may have the opportunity to care for their parents in old age.

In the siblings' realm of heart, love becomes more reciprocal, as children learn to give as well as receive. Like all relationships, it takes effort to develop deep bonds of heart with our brothers and sisters.

In Reverend Moon's conception of this realm of heart, however, the key relationships are not limited to brothers and sisters. Rather, they include all peer relationships, including friends and colleagues.

A firm grounding in parental love and attention helps children to develop their identity and deal with the complex challenges of relationships with neighbors, classmates, cousins and peers. Such peer relationships offer opportunities to develop friendships with many different kinds of people.

Friends can be enormous resources for emotional, cognitive and social learning. Such interactions give children the opportunity to practice virtues essential for fitting into the community and carrying out their life work of contributing to the larger society.

From "The Seed and Root of True Love Is the Blessed Family, Belvedere Estate, Tarrytown, NY, April 14, 1991.

Look at the world. We see there are three different types of people. One is old people, those who stand in the grandparents' position. The second is people your mother's and father's age, who represent the whole world. Third is small children who represent the future.

The family, in which we are accustomed to treating these three levels the right way, loving them the right way, is a perfect textbook. Simply extend that to the rest of mankind with whom you come into contact. When you perfectly live like this and go to spirit world, you will surpass any generations before, any amount of families who lived before you, because they all work on the same principle.

There we see equality. We find harmony for which everyone is craving. And also there is unification. All things are welcome whether from the past, present or future; that is the real meaning of freedom. Any citizen in the world who shouts out for freedom here cannot accomplish that without first establishing that kind of family. That is where freedom begins.

On the one hand, adolescence is an invaluable time for exploring the potentials of peer relationships and learning about one's self through building harmony with others.

On the other hand, when attraction to the opposite sex is awakened, adolescence can be a treacherous period if the innocent trust and natural curiosity of youth become misdirected.

Of all of the problems of modern society, this is the one that concerns Reverend Moon the most. On one level, he sees these premature experiences as damaging to the heart of the individuals involved. On a more profound level, he sees it as a repetition of humankind's original fall from grace.

According to the Divine Principle as explained in volume one, the cause of the separation between God and humankind was a premature sexual relationship "a relationship that occurred before the capacity for love was fully matured."

The modern tendency is for adolescents to rush into a physical intimacy that is appropriate only within the commitment of marriage. A premature sexual experience often changes the course of a young person's life irreversibly.

From "The Power of True Love Transcends All Boundaries, Belvedere Estate, Tarrytown, NY, September 17, 2000.

What about the concept of freedom? Is the freedom to do whatever you want a good concept? What if each race insists that the other races do things their way? What if each generation were to insist on it? What kind of world would you expect? It would be chaotic; it would be complicated chaos.

The most fearful word is self-centered individualism that creates borderlines. We must like the word freedom, but there is some condition. Where can you find such a freedom that gives you the ability to kick away all boundaries? You say true love, but you've never seen it. What is it? It is simple: live for the sake of others. Elimination of boundaries never comes from selfish individualism.

The greatest human rule is, "love your enemy". But at first glance, it sounds foolish.

What does it mean? To truly love your enemy more than yourself means you will eventually enter his country and become its king, because there is no border. So if you truly love your enemy more than yourself, you will have free travel throughout your enemy's territory.

Reverend Moon's message concerning chastity and self-discipline during this crucial period of life is not restrictive, but instead emphasizes the true freedom that comes from being able to love others in the truest sense.

With the encouragement of Reverend Moon, many of his young followers take the following pledge during their teen years:

The pure love relationship between a man and a woman is a sacred gift from God to be cherished and honored for the sake of building a true family, healthy society and a world of peace for future generations. Once that love is consummated, it should never be broken.

Therefore, from this day forward, I commit myself to:
Respect and honor the ideal of purity in myself and in others.
Practice pure love as a child, friend, spouse and parent.
Refrain from all sexual relationships before marriage.
Dedicate myself to absolute fidelity within marriage.
Encourage others to do the same.

Perhaps the most central element of the teaching of Reverend Moon is that the union of man and woman in true love reflects the nature of God. As we saw in volume one, Reverend Moon teaches that God has the characteristics of masculinity and femininity, or positivity and negativity.

Human beings, who were created as the substantial object of God, were created as man and woman. Therefore when man and woman marry, they become substantial plus and minus representing God. They are a physical expression of the nature of God.

As well as becoming the reflection of God, the marital union also becomes the dwelling place of God. Reverend Moon explains that the purpose of the creation was for the experience of joy in reciprocal relationship. This joy comes when the creation, especially mankind, comes to resemble God.

When loving individuals join together as husband and wife, then resemblance is fulfilled. It is at this point that people, too, experience the act of creation. This begins to explain why Reverend Moon is so passionate about marriage and why he and Mrs. Moon have officiated at more weddings than anyone else in the history of the world!

From Blessing and Ideal Family, New York, NY: HSA Publications, 1993.

For whom are we to get married? We are to get married for the mutual benefit of all humankind. The husband is a man representing the whole world, and the wife is a woman representing the whole world. Then where is this to begin? It is to start from a place representing the whole world. Marriage is for God's will and is what all humankind publicly hopes for.

Marriage is not for your own sake. If you have a self-centered marriage, your whole family will be destroyed. To want to live a happy life by getting married self-centeredly is just a one- night dream. The problem is your future.

Conjugal love represents the fulfillment of horizontal love. It intersects with vertical love as it bears fruit in children. The love between husband and wife, therefore, has many dimensions.

While the fundamental relationship is that of spouses, their interaction may sometimes be like that of brother and sister or parent and child.

A man may express a fatherly heart towards his wife, and a woman may express a motherly heart towards her husband.

The key element in this relationship, however, is the commitment of both individuals to something more significant than their own individual happiness. The marriage ceremonies conducted by Reverend Moon are dedicated to the cause of world peace, and the couples view their participation as having great significance.

Therefore, their commitment to the relationship has far greater depth than a hope for personal happiness. This is a point that Reverend Moon often emphasizes when he sees how selfish individualism often results in shallow relationships and easily-broken commitments.

Fulfillment in the spouse's realm of heart is a lifelong endeavor that grows and deepens over the years into an irreplaceable richness of shared experiences. Over the lifetime, married couples experience many changes. Babies are born, and loved ones die. Romantic delusions evaporate, hormones ebb and flow, and the glow of youth fades into wrinkles.

There are high times and low times, health and illness, oneness of soul and temptations to stray. Couples whose bond remains strong have truly created an enduring kind of love. The wisdom, maturity and integrity that grace a lifetime of love and commitment make such devoted couples invaluable mentors for anyone whose life they touch.

The key difference between this realm of heart and, for example, the siblings' realm of heart, is that it is exclusive. This, once again, is a point on which Reverend Moon is emphatic. While children can benefit from healthy relationships with many adults, and adolescents thrive on friendships with many people, marriage is an exclusive partnership.

In the marriage vows, a man and a woman entrust themselves completely to each other. The sexual bond between husband and wife is the physical expression of two mature lovers joining into one in total openness and trust, with nothing standing between them. The profundity of the marital union on both the physical and emotional planes means it can occur meaningfully with one and only one person.

The conjugal realm of heart is reserved for the emotional and psychological intimacy between two mature beings who share their deepest thoughts, feelings, dreams, bodies, possessions, home and children with each other. It is worthy of honor and ceremony, as well as community support.

From "I Will Live with True Parents, Belvedere Estate, Tarrytown, NY, March 7, 1993.

The man who has attained the state of perfection has all these four different levels of love perfected.

Likewise, woman has four different loves. They grow up, but they are not together yet. Where do they get together? First, child's love, then siblings love, then couples love, and they come closer. You cannot see, but its diagrammed like so.

God's original ideal of creation for child's love, sibling's love, couples love, and parental love now becomes perfect here. By marrying, we have perfected child's love, sibling's love, and couples love, right here, which then resembles God.

Therefore, we carry out the act of creation, just like God did. This is the whole crux, the nucleus of existence for human life. Now the couple is ready to give birth to a child. That means to create life just like God.

The most important objective for husband and wife is to achieve oneness of heart. It is this oneness that creates the freedom to relate in these different ways. The intensity of unconditional love between husband and wife is more valuable than their good looks, education, possessions or social standing.

Conjugal love is built upon absolute trust and fidelity. When that trust is strong and love is mature, then the couple is ready for the challenges of parenthood. Our commitment to the continued growth of our spouse foreshadows our role as parents.

The relationship between husband and wife has an impact beyond their personal happiness. It is crucial to their role as parents, which is one of the most transforming experiences of life.

A harmonious, loving, committed and selfless marriage creates an environment where children can feel secure, have their needs met, and learn positive patterns of behavior. A good marriage is a necessary foundation for success in the parent's realm of heart.

The parental heart yearns to expand and multiply love. Parental love evokes the noblest emotions and most unselfish actions from ordinary people. Because of its other-centered nature, the parent's realm of heart is most conducive to moral growth. There are natural transition phases in the school of love, such as the nine months of pregnancy during which husband and wife can prepare their hearts as parents.

From "The Providential Path to True Liberation and Complete Freedom, International Leadership Convocation, Washington, DC, April 13, 2005.

Finally, what is the perfection of the parent's realm of heart, and how is it accomplished? Even the most wonderful husband and wife do not become parents until they have children. The status of parents is granted in the moment the couple's first child is born and lets out that first cry announcing its arrival.

I have said that God created human beings to be His object partners in joy. In the same way, a couple gives birth to and raises a child as a creative act that allows them to experience, through the relationship with their child as their object partner, an eternal joy similar to what God experiences.

Parental love is the most demanding and sacrificial of all the realms of heart because it is closest to the heart of God. It requires constant investment and sacrifice. The foundation of these qualities is compassion, a profound understanding of people's suffering and a willingness to aid them.

Parenting calls for qualities of character such as sacrifice, generosity, patience and forgiveness. Genuine love transforms everything, converting ugliness into beauty and bad odors into perfume. For the sake of their children, parents are willing to do anything and go anywhere.

The parent's most unforgettable gift to their children is their unconditional love. A parent's love is unconditional, and its reward is the child's well being and happiness. Parental love is the vertical axis around which the family revolves. Parental love is selfless, giving everything for the sake of the child.

Parents invest their constant love and guidance, with the fond anticipation that their children will develop all the realms of heart and some day become parents themselves.

From "Restoration from the Origin and Rebirth Are for Myself," Belvedere Estate, Tarrytown, NY, September 20, 1992.

I looked for the truth and was amazed to finally realize that there was nothing God did not give to everybody. Everybody had and has the potential to experience God's position himself. There is nothing God reserved for Himself. You want your truly loving father and truly loving mother to be a king and queen, don't you? Everybody answers the same, yes!

Yes! Emphatically you would answer, "I want my father to be king." You also want your grandfather and grandmother to become a king and queen, don't you? And also, you want your spouse to become a king and you become a queen. You want that, don't you?

How about your children? It is the same answer. That is the privilege God bestowed to all mankind, all children, without exception. You are rightfully eligible to have that. If Adam and Eve didn't fall, God would have been the king Himself.

The king's son and daughter are a prince and princess, aren't they? Literally Adam and Eve would have been that prince and princess, on the way to becoming king and queen one day. This is not just thought, but reality.

When they succeeded in growing up in a good manner and became husband and wife and king and queen, only one nation under God would have existed throughout millions of generations. The concept of king and queen is not so distant.

We can see already, we must be kings and queens because our parents are kings and queens. We are the offspring of kings and queens and eventually we will be too. This is literally how God created. How different it is: what we are today and what we are supposed to be!

I am saying we have to have four big heartistic realms and three kingdoms. The grandfather --is he king or not? Yes. God is in the grandfather's position, too. God or grandfather is king of the past, I am the king of the present and children are the king of the future. Everything happens in one family.

The family roles of child, sibling, spouse and parent are the most fundamental roles in all of life. These are the four main types of love, each with its unique realm of experiences and responsibilities. Within each realm, we learn those virtues that comprise a mature character.

Investing in these significant relationships deeply enriches a person's life. This means that the family environment and these four realms of heart are critical for any consideration of moral development. Our life, love and heart unfold and develop through the limitless range of experiences in each of these realms.

Each realm supports and participates in the next, while each successive realm requires a greater degree of responsibility and unselfishness than the one before. Success in each realm is determined by the degree to which values of the preceding realms are embodied. Our capacity to love increases as we learn to overcome self-centered desires and develop our ability to live for the sake of others. Ultimately, we seek to possess a genuine heart of love and stand as a true parent.