Filial Attendance: The Way of Filial Piety of Holy Sons and Daughters of God - Elio Roman
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Filial Attendance: The Way of Filial Piety of Holy Sons and Daughters of God - Elio Roman |
The second affirmation of The Family Pledge1 mentions the important virtue of Attendance:
"Our Family, the owner of Cheon Il Guk, pledges to represent and become central to Heaven and Earth by attending God and True Parents…"
The meaning of this virtue is worthy of its own discussion. In fact, the ideal of Attendance is crucial in order for human beings to establish the original ideal of creation, the Kingdom of God on earth and in Heaven.
Attendance is one of the most necessary components of the human character that needs to be developed before human beings and the human race can advance. Attendance is necessary in order to establish the original ideal of creation, the Kingdom of God on earth and in Heaven. The process for the building of God's Kingdom is to first develop an ideal individual, then an ideal family, a tribe, society, nation, world and cosmos. It begins by developing the virtue of attendance in an individual and expands by living the way of attendance in the family, tribe, race nation world, and cosmos. As attendance is developed in a person's character it will significantly influence one's cognition, attitude, motivation, behaviors, and relationships. In order to facilitate the development of attendance it must first be recognized.
Restoration on the individual level and family levels occurs through our attendance to God and True Parents. By attending them our heart of attendance begins to be re-created and develops. We begin to inherit all the heavenly blessings and fortune which God intended for His children since the beginning of creation. Attendance is the way of inheritance.
Attendance stems from the impulse of love from the object partner to the subject partner. Attendance is way of life of the object partner in relationship to the subject partner. The standard of behavior of human beings toward God, their Heavenly Parent is called the filial attendance of holy sons and daughters of God.
There are ideal standards in the family system. There are ideal standards of behavior between husbands and wives; there are ideal standards of behavior between parents and children. There are ideal standards of behavior between brothers and sisters. These establish the ideal standards and ethics of society. The ideal standard of God the Original Subject partner is to love His children who are His object partners. It is the love of God and parents which internally motivate the children to live a life of attendance. The responsibility of subject partners is to love and thereby internally motivate their object partners to respond with attendance.
The Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of ideal relationships. It is about the way of life of subject and object partners in the pair system. It is about the original heart and standard of true subject partners and object partners that God, the Perfect Subject Partner, purposed before the creation in accord with His absolute laws and absolute standards. All pair systems in the eight stages require true subject partners and a true object partners.
The heart of filial attendance is the realm of heart that God has been planning to develop in human beings since even before the beginning of creation. This is the primary missing element required for the perfection of human beings and for the establishment of the Kingdom of God. Filial sons and daughters who can attend their Heavenly Father as His perfect object partners need to emerge on the world stage.
Parental love and filial attendance are the origin of true love, true life and true lineage. Without a relationship of Parental love and filial attendance, neither God nor His children can experience the joy and happiness of love. The Parental love of God has always existed. The missing element is the heart of attendance developed in His sons and daughters. God, with patience, long-suffering and forbearance has been waiting for His sons and daughters of filial piety to appear and mature.
To live for the sake of others is to live a life of service and sacrifice. One lives for the sake of others as a subject partner and as an object partner. Living for the sake of the other as an object partner is called attendance. God's Parental love lives for the sake of the children. God is absolutely dedicated and devoted to serving and sacrificing for His children. God's Parental heart is the subject of love. Filial attendance is to live for the sake of God from the position of an object partner. It is to live one's life absolutely dedicated and devoted to God, serving and sacrificing for His sake and for His ideals and goals because of the love and gratitude His children have for Him.
God has been searching for and trying to establish the heart of attendance in human beings for hundreds of thousands of years, through the long process of the creation and restoration. The way of the truly enlightened individual emerges as one begins to understand the value of, searches for, and begins to find and develop the heart of filial attendance. The heart of attendance develops towards maturity as we practice living a life of attendance to God and True Parents. Children learn to attend God and True Parents by observing how their parents attend God and True Parents. The heart of attendance beings to develop and continues to develop and mature as one learns to live a life of filial piety in their family, patriots in the nation (Cheon Il Guk), saints in the world, and holy sons and daughters of God in the cosmos.
In the New Testament Age St. Paul clarified the importance of Justification by Faith. It is by one's faith in Jesus Christ that human beings receive spiritual salvation and gain the right to enter Paradise. In the Completed Testament Age, the concept of Justification by Attendance must now be brought to the forefront. We are justified and receive complete salvation through our attendance of True Parents. It is by our attendance of True Parents that we gain the right to establish an ideal Family. By attending True Parents our heart of attendance begins to be re-created and develops. We begin to inherit the love of God, as well as the heavenly blessings and fortune which God intended for His children since the beginning of creation. Attendance is the way of inheritance.
Since Adam and Eve fell, God has been trying to create filial sons and daughters who live their lives in complete attendance to Him and establish the originally desired relationship between God, our Heavenly Parents and His sons and daughters.
Filial attendance is the first step, the first stage, the foundational realm of heart and love that the human beings need to realize in order to establish the Culture of Heart of the Kingdom of God. Parental love and filial attendance is a vertical relationship of love between the subject partner and the object partner. Once the heart of filial attendance to God the Father is fulfilled human beings come to embody the heart and love of God. The oneness of God and His children will be established. This is the first blessing, perfection on the individual level, and the foundational realm of the culture of true love of the Kingdom of God.
Having developed their hearts of attendance as filial sons and daughters of God, human beings will have the necessary maturity to be blessed in holy matrimony. As husband and wife they will have the necessary development of heart to live a life of horizontally loving, caring for, and attending each other. The husband and wife live for the sake of each other. They live their lives in vertical attendance to God with total dedication and devotion and horizontally with total dedication and devotion to each other. As partners of love in marriage, the husband and wife multiply horizontally the love of God they have embodied in their vertical relationship with God by loving each other and giving birth to children.
Having developed the heart of filial attendance to God and their parents, all members of the family learn to live a life of attendance to each other and fulfill the Three Object Purpose and establish the Four Position Foundation. In the Three Object Purpose of the four position family foundation one in any of the four positions can take the position of subject partner and the other three positions taking the of role of object partners in attending the subject partner. The four positions in the family are parental love, conjugal love (love between husband and wife), children's love towards parents, and sibling love (love between brothers and sisters.) Thus, it is absolutely necessary that the parents have developed their hearts of attendance to God. By developing their hearts in attending God, husbands and wives learn how to attend each other and subsequently the children learn how to attend God, their parents and their brothers and sisters.
Once the heart of attendance, which is the heart of the object partner, is developed in human beings and the Four Position Foundation which realizes the Three Object Purpose is established, God comes into the mix. God will come and live in such a family. God's purpose of creation has been to establish the ideal and model family which establishes the Four Position Foundation. Without realizing the Three Object Purpose the Four Position foundation is not perfected. In order to fulfill the Three Object Purpose each of the four positions must be able to attend the other three positions. This is living for the sake of others from the position of an object partner. When God takes the position of subject partner, the father of the family, the mother and the children attend God by obeying Him and fulfilling His desire. When the father of the family takes the position of subject partner, God, the mother, and the children attend him by fulfilling his desire. When the mother of the family takes the position of subject partner, God, the father of the family and the children all attend the mother and fulfill her desire. When a child takes the position of subject partner, God, the father and the mother of the family all will seek to fulfill the child's desires. God will fully live directly in such families and the vertical and horizontal positions will become one. While the Three Object purpose needs to be fulfilled in the family system the hierarchical identity maintaining positions of the family must always be respected.
After a family establishes a Four Position Foundation which fulfills the Three Object Purpose, a system of attending God, one's parents, one's spouse and brothers and sisters is established in the family. It would then be expanded to three generations in the family. The tradition of the Three Great Kingships would then be established in which vertical attendance would be extended from children, to parents and to grandparents. These are vertical subject partner and object partner relationships of love. Vertical attendance to one's parents and grandparents extends into the spiritual world through the vertical attendance of one's ancestors. God will directly dwell in such a clan and tribe.
Filial attendance in the family is extended to the patriot's attendance to the sovereign of the nation, saintly attendance in the world and filial attendance of the holy sons and daughters to God in the cosmos. Based on the family vertical traditions a vertical hierarchical family and tribal organization is formed. The vertical hierarchical organization then establishes the proper vertical order of society, in the nation, the world and the cosmos in accordance with the absolute laws and absolute standards, as originally intended by God.
Based on the Four Position Foundation, the family's horizontal tradition establishes the model and foundation for the horizontal order of society. In horizontal traditions there is a hierarchical order of attendance between husband and wife and between elder and younger siblings. A system of elder attendance would be established in one's tribe, society, nation, world and cosmos.
The establishment of a hierarchy consisting of vertical order and horizontal order in the family order is then expanded to the clan in the three generational family, the tribe, society, nation, world and cosmos. These vertical and horizontal hierarchical traditions are then extended to subsequent generations thereby establishing the traditions of the Culture of True Love. Family ethics expands to tribal ethics, societal ethics, national ethics, global ethics and cosmic ethics through future generations.
The law of the cosmos of living for the sake of others would be established throughout the world and one global family of God in a hierarchical vertical and horizontal organization would be established.
After having acquired the heart of filial piety and the way of filial attendance in the family, one's true character and personality continues to develop as one begins to live a public life as a patriot in attendance to the sovereign of the nation and living for the sake of one's nation and its citizens. Development of one's character continues as one begins to live a life of a saint where one lives for the sake of the world and its citizens, and by teaching them the universal principles of God and the traditions His Kingdom. The completion of one's character and personality is attained in becoming a holy son or daughter of God living one's life in filial attendance to God and living for the sake of the cosmos (the physical world and the spiritual world.)
Due to the Fall, human beings have become blind to the necessity of the virtue of attendance. No one wants to be an object partner. We do not devote and dedicate all of our life and love towards attending God. Hence we have not learned to live our lives in attendance to others. We have not learned the way of attendance of the true object partner. We need to understand that attendance to God, our Heavenly Parent, is the purpose of our existence and the foundation for the establishment of the Culture of Heart in the Kingdom of God.
Adam and Eve fell. God, in His providence for restoration, has been trying to re-create humankind in order that we may fulfill the original ideal of creation. He has been restoring and re-creating His sons and daughters who can establish the Parent and child relationship by developing the heart of attendance. Development of the virtue and heart of attendance in human beings is absolutely essential for the establishment of the Culture of Love. God has been trying to create filial sons and daughters who live their lives in attendance to God and establish the Parent and child relationship. Without the heart of attendance being developed in human beings, the Culture of Heart can never be established. God has been trying to create the heart of attendance in human beings since the beginning of creation. God is seeking for filial sons and daughters who first live their lives attending Him.
The Korean word for attendance is moshinda. The quotations below are from True Parents' words and from church elders' words in which they guide us into understanding the meaning and purpose of attendance (moshinda).
This book is made up of many categories from True Fathers words which, in sum, represent the virtue of filial attendance and will continue to guide the reader into the depth of the heart of the filial attendance of holy sons and holy daughters of God.
The words by attending God and True Parents describe the way we orient the vertical axis toward heaven. Our love is fixed in God through our dedication to Him and His will… Attendance (moshi) is the basic attitude of faith. It includes dedication to God, but also much more. The word moshio comes from the ethic of chivalry, practiced in the royal court. It nevertheless describes a universal principle of loyalty and service. One who attends the king dedicates himself to the king's welfare. He obeys and serves without complaint. More than that, he comes to feel like a junior partner with the king, sharing the same mission to defend the nation. The king's concerns are his concerns, the king's welfare, his welfare, the king's suffering, his suffering. The king loves such an attendant as his own son or daughter. The king can rely upon him totally to carry out any responsibility. He becomes the king's second self.
In the same manner, our attitude towards God, our Heavenly King and Parent, should be one of attendance. Through our service and dedication to God, we grow in knowledge of His will and heart. We want to share His burden as He strives to cleanse all evil from ourselves, our families, our nation and world. We become His trustworthy attendants and His champions in the cause of goodness.
Ultimately, we discover that we have been transformed into His likeness. Attending God and True Parents means just this. Outwardly, we are co-workers with God and the True Parents, participating with them in the great providence to restore this evil world to the Kingdom of God. Internally, we emulate the True Parents' lifestyle, attitude and heart, with the goal of embodying the True Parents' image in ourselves.
Every religion speaks of faith in God in different ways and with different terms. Yet all have some notion of attendance.2
By rendering the Korean word moshi as "by attending" instead of "by dedicating ourselves," the new translation has the fuller meaning of this word.3
We are living in the age of attendance. The Old Testament was the age of sacrifice. New Testament was the age of faith. What does attendance mean? In Korean moshinda which means to serve. Another meaning of the Korean word moshinda is following and supporting. It can also mean we are always together. It has many various meanings. In English we translate as attendance. We really have to learn Korean because without understanding Korean is not easy to fully understand the meaning of our traditions.4
Unification Church members live their lives attending God, True Parents, and central figures. Yet each of us must remember that the important aspect of keeping a tradition is our attitude, not the ritual itself.
In attending God and True Parents our attitude should be to comfort God's heart; we should not feel that traditions are compulsory based on our duty to some church law. If we realize that we have lost the proper attitude, we can repent and develop a strategy for overcoming our fallen nature.
Whether a tradition is an internal point of attitude or an external ceremony, it can draw us to our real Parent, God, through the respect and love we show. Traditions can further close the gap that exists between the True Parents and ourselves.
The True Parents established the ceremonies and traditions of our movement with deep love for God; they had to go through many difficulties and tribulations in order to do so. In learning from the traditions they teach us, we should attend God and True Parents as children, with a heart of fidelity and filial piety.
Whenever we serve our central figures, we symbolically minister to God and True Parents. We cannot attend someone based on only an intellectual understanding of attendance, but must first cultivate a heartfelt attitude of love for God, True Parents, and our central figure through respect and actual service.
Unless we realize certain points of etiquette, it is difficult to fully attend the True Parents themselves or a central figure.5
Dedicating, serving, and living for the sake of others are all contained in the word moshinda.
God is our vertical parents and True Parents are our horizontal parents from which I am born. That means without serving and dedicating to God and True Parents we have no beginning. When we dedicate and serve True Parents then each family represents the whole cosmos before the fall. It means to become representative families before the entire cosmos, to become the central families-from the individual level throughout the eight steps and becoming the very center of the family. By achieving this then we pledge again to become filial sons and daughters within the family, a patriot at the national level, a saint at the world level and a holy son centering upon the whole cosmos. This is the content of pledge number two in which we pledge, centering upon True Love, serving and dedicating to God and True Parents I will make my family a representative family of the whole world and the center family of the whole world, thereby becoming filial sons and daughters. This means at the national level I will educate all the people of my nation who are patriots of that nation. That is pledge number two. (1994.5.8, Unofficial)
How often I prayed at night for you! I educated you so you could save the people! But you never understood God's miserable situation… Is my way easy? Can you understand what kind of a life I lead, trying desperately to liberate you? Do you really know me? Do you really know how hard it is to cleanse the historical sin of mankind? You don't know how hard my way has been. You only know your own small way.
When I leave for Korea will you miss me? Actually, you should miss me as if nothing else remained on the earth. Unless you can feel that degree of longing, you will never understand how difficult it was for me to search for God when there was only barrenness and loneliness all around. I looked for God's heart desperately in an empty world, and I finally managed to find Him. You can tell how far from the true standard your spirit is if you don't miss me that much. So do you feel fortunate to have met me? How much would you pay to have me stay here with you?
If you think I am just an ordinary person, you are wrong. Did all of you come here on time today? If you really wanted to see me, you would be ready to come here 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in case you were called. If you had that attitude, you would never have arrived late.
American people do not really know how to serve others. They don't know how to live for the sake of their elders, sacrificing for them, doing everything to make them comfortable, and trying to understand their heart. We call this attitude moshinda. That means to cherish your parents and serve them in a vertical way, not a horizontal way. You have no word or concept for that in English. That is why you must learn Korean, or else you will never truly understand the deep meaning of what I am saying. (1988.4.4, Unofficial)
Oriental thinking, rather than Western, holds a possibility for God. Within Oriental thinking, there is the principle of absolute attendance to the parents, and at the same time the idea of following one's elder brothers and sisters. When this idea of attendance is expanded, it can reach to the clan leader, the society leader, or the representative of the nation. Thus we can gain the foundation based on the perfect system of attendance. Otherwise, we can never have a family, clan, society, nation, or world that God desires. You must understand this clearly. (God's Will -- 594, 1994.4.3)
If true parental love is to perpetuate forever, someone must inherit its tradition. What would be our ideal, desire and hope? The conclusion should be as follows: first, attending God as our Father is our greatest hope; second, we are to become His beloved sons and daughters; and third, we are to inherit everything He owns. There cannot be a human hope greater than this. (Blessed Family -- 480, Korean Edition)
By attending the heavenly Parent, the heavenly kingdom and the heavenly ancestors, a royal domain will emerge, one where we can eternally attend the realm of tribal messiahship as part of the mainstream lineage and bequeath the way of attendance to succeeding generations. It will be a nation where we can attend the King, and sing praises for the eternal reign of peace and prosperity. You, your mother, father, family and tribe can go directly to heaven only after having lived in such a nation. (220-221, 1991.10.19)
What kind of place is heaven? It is where you can take pride in what you prepared during your life on earth, and where you take pride in your life of attendance. Then what kind of person can enter heaven? Is it the place for those who believe in the Lord so as to receive blessings or for those who go forth for blessings? No. Those who prepare themselves for wholeheartedly attending God can go to heaven. It is a place for those who can leave a life of attendance as their legacy and joyfully move on even if they were to die in the process. That is resurrection. The hidden efforts of your daily life are not seen. How we should live from now on is the important question we should think about in our life of attendance. (8-304, 1960.2.14)
God is not a fantasy or a conceptual God, nor is He an abstract God. With His leadership in our daily life, He is always with us as the master of our daily circumstances. He does not just receive attendance but is living together with us by sharing love. (168-111, 1987.9.13)
We must live a life of attendance. Although we have welcomed the Kingdom of Heaven of hope, we have not welcomed a Kingdom of Heaven of attendance and practice. In other words, we have not been aware in our daily lives that God is our subject partner. (6-226, 1959.5.17)
Why should we live a life of attendance? It is for the purpose of receiving God's love. (78-30, 1975.5.1)
You can only go to Heaven when you walk the path of filial piety for God. You have to leave the tradition of filial piety behind you. If you don't do this, you won't be able to go to Heaven. (27-307)
You are a unique participant and companion in love in front of your parents. With love, you can be equal to your mother and father and rise to an equal position. This is a privilege of love. Parents want to bequeath everything they own to their sons and daughters, whom they truly love. To inherit the universe, you can jump in and inherit a hundred percent when you have found an equal position of value of love in the tradition of love. This is why parents want to have children of filial piety. Children of filial piety pass on the inheritance of love as participants in the eternal love of their parents. (140-233, 1986.2.12)
When God held out His hands and gave the three blessings to Adam and Eve, what kind of hope did God have for them as their father? He would most likely have said, "Embrace the cosmos that I have created and become loyal object partners attending me as the King." God had this kind of hope.
Accordingly, Adam and Eve should have established the principle of being loyal object partners amongst all of the creation and should have lived their lives centering on this tradition for the whole of eternity. If Adam and Eve had become a true filial son and daughter before God and had served and attended Him as the True Father, then the filial piety they showed to God would have become the tradition, and the history of the world would have been connected to the Heart of God and Adam and Eve, and evil would never have been able to come about. If evil were allowed to exist in God's world of the heart, then the providence of restoration and salvation would be impossible. (09-105)
The time when we can be filial sons and daughters to God does not always exist. It doesn't exist in the spiritual world after we die. From the point of view of eternity, the time when we can practice filial piety is extremely short. We can only do it during our life, which is just like an instant when compared to eternity. During this time we have to establish the condition of having loved God, and establish the condition that we fulfilled our filial duty to God.
And we have to confirm that we are absolutely necessary sons and daughters to God while we are still alive. We have to do this while we are alive. (26-114)
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)
There is a law in attending God. He is displeased when that law is broken. (17-287, 1967.2.15)
Now the problem is how you create a new tradition from the life of attendance to God as an individual, as a family and as a church or from the standard of attendance that God demands from this nation and race. (38-12, 1971.1.1)
In order to live a life of attendance, preparation for attending is required. After the preparation process, one needs to practice the life of attendance. After the preparation process and living the life of attendance, one can go to heaven. The place where people who have attended wholeheartedly go is heaven. The place where we can be proud of our preparation for attendance, and where we can be proud of our life of attendance, is heaven. It is our destiny to follow the course that advances towards the world of heavenly purpose. (8-290, 1960.2.14)
The starting point to unravel the problems humanity faces today is the certain knowledge of God, the Father of all creation and, on that foundation, the building of true families that live in attendance to God. This calls us to establish and attend God in our families, not as a concept but as the substantial Parent of us all. To do this, we first must clarify the relationship between God and humanity. God is the original entity of true love, true life and true lineage, and He is the True Parent of all people.
If human beings had not fallen, we would have reached perfection in God's true love as His true children and lived in attendance to Him as our Parent. God's plan was for perfected human beings to bond as true husbands and wives, bear and raise true children so that they would live in a Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, and then live together eternally in the heavenly world as families in the Kingdom of Heaven.
We need to stand on the foundation of absolute faith, establish God as our vertical axis, and struggle our entire life. Even then, it is a difficult fight. We cannot even think we will gain victory unless we enter a state of absolute love for God, loving Him even more than we love our own parents and children, and attending Him as our True Parent. We cannot hope to win this fight without a foundation of absolute obedience to God, following Him even at the cost of laying down our life.
Individuals who achieve such completion of character come together to form true families, and the members of these families work together to establish what I call the "four great realms of heart." Such families resemble, in form, an individual who has accomplished the complete oneness of mind and body. I have said that the Kingdom of Heaven is a place we enter family by family. Not every family, however, is qualified to enter Heaven automatically. You need a foundation to be a true family and to complete the four great realms of heart. A true family that can enter the Kingdom of Heaven is composed of true individuals who have completed the four great realms of heart in themselves and who are of a lineage centering on God.
Next, the realm of conjugal heart is the love relationship that extends true lineage. In this, husband and wife each are grateful for the other having established them as an owner of love, and each learns true love through giving and receiving with the other. They enjoy learning of true love when the husband lives for the sake of his wife, even if it means sacrificing his own life, and the wife attends her husband with the heart of attending God. The perfection of the husband-wife relationship is possible only on this basis.
Children experience and learn the heart of true love as they attend their parents in daily life, placing their parents in a position higher than themselves. Through a natural process, they come to understand that the love, life and lineage that they inherit from their parents originate in God. Children who watch and learn from their parents in this way will grow up to become husbands and wives who have no fallen nature, and ultimately they will obtain the position of true parents themselves. The spherical motion of the family unit that continually repeats the three-generational pattern in this way is the basic model for building the Kingdom of Heaven.
Lastly, the realm of the heart of siblings arises through brothers and sisters who live as a family in attendance to the same true parents. I said earlier that the heart between brothers and sisters establishes the relationship between front and back. True parents are a husband and wife living in truth, and children who attend such parents will naturally learn the discipline of heavenly morality and ethics among siblings.
It will be a beautiful sight, where a younger brother attends and reveres his older brother as he would his father, and the older brother looks after his younger brother with a loving heart. The older brother represents "front" and the younger brother represents "back." The older brother represents the father, while the younger brother represents the mother. The perfection of the realm of heart between siblings is the foundation for all people to live for the sake of others through love and service.
Respected guests, as the number of "true peace family kingdoms" perfecting the four great realms of heart increases, "true peace tribe kingdoms," "true peace nation kingdoms," and ultimately the "true peace world kingdom" will appear. In this way this will become the original world of God's ideal, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, the eternal Kingdom of Peace on Earth. I am declaring this here today. Humanity has lived without the certain knowledge that establishing true families is the most serious, foundational commandment of Heaven. (Public Venue, 2004.3.23)
Then what was the quickest way for them to cultivate a character of true love? In a word, it was to secure a parent–child relationship with God, whereby they could live in attendance to God as their Father and form a model family embodying God's ideal of peace. They were to have followed the path of living as one family with God, experiencing joy eternally.
When seeking after the lost ideal of the original family, there should be someone in the position of perfected Adam, someone in the position of Jesus, and someone in the position of the Lord at his Second Coming. From that starting-point we can establish the family in which God will dwell. In that family, three generations--grandparents, parents and children--would live in harmony. Parents and children would serve and attend the grandparents, because they represent the family's ancestors, its historical root.
Ladies and gentlemen, the family sets the pattern for living together in harmony. It is the model for living together as one. There we have love and respect between parents and children, mutual fidelity and love between husband and wife, and trust and mutual reliance among siblings. This means that you need to establish a true family wherein the stem of true love emerges from the root of true love and bears the fruit of true love.
Such families contain the living root of history and the roots of the Kingdom of Heaven. In such families, the Kingdom of Heaven on earth takes root.
You should perfect a true family, consisting of three generations of grandparents, parents and children living together in true love. Do this on earth, and you will be eligible to enter heaven.
Please become true princes and princesses who live in attendance to God as your True Parent, for He is the Peace King of the multitudes. Let us build the everlasting peace kingdom by attending the True Parents, who have become the King and Queen of Cosmic Peace. Let us build the world of eternal liberation and freedom, where there is no need for a Savior, Messiah or Second Advent of the Lord, and fulfill the dutiful family way of filial sons and daughters, patriots, saints, and divine sons and daughters of God. (Public Venue, Aug.-Oct., 2006)
Heaven does not come under the banner of a certain religion. Heaven is the place where people who have regained the parent-child relationship of true love with God -- who transcends religion -- attend God and are intoxicated in His true love. The person who receives the blessing, creates a family of true love and lives in attendance to God can enter heaven along with his clan and nation. (Public Venue, 2004.4.30)
There has been no place for God to stand, because He did not have a devoted son or a system of love through which people could uphold the heavenly kingdom by fulfilling the way of a loyal subject, saint and divine son or daughter. Until now, God has been incarcerated and confined. The heavenly kingdom became an empty ruin. God has carried this sorrow in His heart. (302-226, 1999.6.14)
You should live in attendance to God and True Parents. This should be evident when you are talking and when you are moving about. You should live a life of attendance whether you are asleep or awake. If you think in this way twenty-four hours a day, Satan cannot invade you. (161-231, 1987.2.15)
Offer your first words to Heaven after rising from your bed in the morning. When you step outside your home, you should step with your right foot first, dedicating your first step to Heaven. If you develop such habits, your life will become a life of attendance. From this viewpoint, you should maintain the standard of a principled attitude in daily life. (17-296, 1967.2.15)
Heaven is where you can take pride in your life of attendance. Then, what kind of person can enter heaven? It is not a place for those who expect to receive blessings simply because they believed in the Lord. Heaven is for those who prepare their hearts in order to attend. It is a place for those who leave behind a life of attendance and joyfully move on, even though they might die in the process. Resurrection is found in such a place. (8-304, 1960.2.14)
If God's will had been carried out on this earth, a single cultural realm would have been created with Adam at the center. Instead of countless races, each forming its own different culture and civilization, as we see today, we would have a world with a single culture, single philosophy and single civilization centered on Adam. Then everything, including culture, history, customs, language and tradition, would be unified. In God's love, we would have established ideal families, tribes, peoples and nations, and these would have expanded to realize an ideal world of Adam's ideal. Just as a tree's root, trunk and leaves are all connected with one life, viewing the world from God's will means centering on love. Looking upward, we would attend God as the Father and, looking downward, we would change all people into one living body. This would be a living body of love, like brothers and sisters building an eternal, God-centered, ideal world. People living in such a world would not need salvation or a Messiah, for they would be God's good sons and daughters. (110-213, 1980.11.18)
The extent to which you devoted yourself to meeting the Father and creating bonds with Him will become your asset. (50-288, 1971.11.8)
How many times during the day are you aware of God's existence? How many times during twenty four hours do you feel God's presence? How can people who are determined to be saved through attendance, attend God just one or two hours in a day? God is something you need more desperately than even the air. God is something you need more desperately than even water. God is more precious than your meals. Yet, do you really feel this? (33-230, 1970.8.16)
From now on you should live a life of attendance. Originally, if humankind had not fallen, we would be following our normal path by attending God. In attending God, you should attend Him wholeheartedly in your daily life. (150-213, 1961.4.15)
Originally, if humankind had not fallen, we would be following our normally intended path by attending God. What is the use of faith alone? You can fulfill everything by leading a life of attendance. When you attend God, you should attend Him in your daily activities and with your whole heart. (150-213, 1961.4.15)
The problem we face now is how to create a new tradition from the standard of attendance that God wants from the individual, family, church, this nation and this people. (38-12, 1971.1.1)
You should live a life of attendance. So then, why should we live a life of attendance? To receive God's love. For this reason you should serve God first. You should attend Him. (78-30, 1975.5.1)
All humankind and the creation, going right back to the origin of the universe, incorporate subject and object positions. Thus, everything was born for the sake of its counterpart. There is not one entity that does not have a subject partner and an object partner. Is this not also the case for the mineral world? Within a molecule, the positive and negative ions are in the positions of subject and object partners. With plants, it is the stamen and pistil. In the animal kingdom, it is male and female, and in the human world, man and woman. Everything needs a reciprocal relationship. (260-252, 1994.5.19)
What kind of parents are genuine parents? They are the parents who know no limits because they love their children eternally. Then, what kind of children are genuine children? Genuine children are the ones who reciprocate the love of their parents eternally with a loving heart overflowing with love. Such is the way of the genuine child of filial piety. (127-16, 1983.5.1)
Parental love, conjugal love and filial love motivate us to forge those bonds that fulfill our desires to be eternally together; these love bonds transcend laws, systems, all backgrounds and circumstances, and even ourselves. No social system can ignore this way of life, and no nation can be formed if it ignores it. (34-328, 1970.9.20)
Within the realm of God's love, humankind would have originally created an ideal family, tribe, people, and nation, and finally would have expanded to form a world embodying Adam's ideal. Just as the roots, stalk, and leaves of a tree are connected to each other as one living entity, centering on love, human beings were supposed to attend God as their Father. They were supposed to live in harmony with all people in the world as brothers and sisters, living as one created being, an interrelated being of love. It was God's worldview in accordance with God's will, to achieve the eternal ideal world centered on God in this manner. People living in such a world would not need to be saved, nor would they need a messiah. This is because they would be exemplary sons and daughters of God. (Blessed Family - 320, Korean Edition)
The Kingdom of Heaven is a place where people go who live for the sake of others. Those who have invested themselves in the world while embracing and communicating with it, and who have wandered about in search of something greater while attending God, will be the owners of the heavenly kingdom. You should take pride in such things. You can take pride in your mother, wife and husband, sons and daughters, children and siblings. You must apply this tradition to the nation; you must apply that formula to the world and to heaven and earth. Such people can have the right of participation, equal position, and inheritance wherever they go. This is why God becomes mine. God's love becomes mine. Wherever God goes, there is the right of equal position and participation. If anyone wants to go somewhere else even after having learned such an amazing fact, please go. He will be hit by lightening. You should know that achieving this is the path of the Unification Church. (175-138, 1988.4.10)
Had they reached perfection without falling, Adam and Eve would have perfected themselves not only individually, but also universally, and a new family centered on God's love would have begun. In this way, if the clan, tribe, people, nation, and world had been created from the family, the world would have become one great extended family attending God. The center of such a great family-like society would have been God and Adam. Furthermore, in that world, Adam's family life and life course centered on God would have remained as a historical tradition, together with his lifestyle, customs, practices, and life background. Those things could only become intertwined as traditions based on God's love.
God's love is the source of life and all ideals, so that even if one wanted to leave His bosom, one could not; and even if one did, one could not but return again. (91-240, 1977.2.23)
God, the absolute being, created human beings as His children in order to instill in them absolute values on the basis of an absolute standard. Thus, human beings must follow the way of that absolute standard in keeping with the demands of the heavenly path. This means we must follow our destined life course in order to attend God, the absolute being, as our Parent. In other words, for people to perfect themselves in resemblance of God and obtain the stature of people of character who can be called sons and daughters of the absolute being, they must follow the path based on the absolute standard God has determined. (Messages of Peace 10 -- 143, 2006.11.21)
Had Adam and Eve not fallen, they would have established an ideal family and tribe, and their descendants would have formed a race and nation within the realm of God's love, and these would have expanded and accomplished an ideal world in which Adam's ideals would also be realized. Just as the root, trunk, and leaves of a tree are connected as one living body, human beings centering on love, attending God as their Father above, and attending each other as siblings below, making them into one living body, turn themselves into beings of love and establish an eternal and ideal God-centered world. This was indeed the worldview of God's will. (110-213, 1980.11.18)
1 Tparents.org. “The Family Pledge” About Unification Church Tradition, http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/topics/traditn/Pledge-2004.htm. [Accessed Sept. 1, 2010]
2 Pak, Joong Hyun and Wilson, Andrew. True Family Value. (New York: HSA-UWC, 1996), pp. 37-38.
3 Wilson, Andrew, “A New Authorized Translation of the Family Pledge”, 16 Sept., 1996. 29 April, 2007. http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/topics/traditn/FAMPLEDG.htm
4 Ibid
5 Kwak, Chung Hwan. The Tradition, Book One. (New York: HSA-UWC, 1985) p.1