Cheon Seong Gyeong Rough Draft Version - |
Book 2, Chapter 1. What Is a True Parent?
Section 5. What Is a True Parent?
5.1. The two tablets of stone and True Parents
When God led the Israelites out of Egypt, there was a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud. The pillar of cloud led them during the day, and the pillar of fire led them at night. What did they signify? They represented a man and a woman and showed, symbolically, that in the Last Days parents would come and that the Israelites would serve them. Those who did not follow the pillar of fire and pillar of cloud would all perish. The Israelites wandered around aimlessly in the wilderness for forty years. Out of concern that they would perish, God called Moses to Mount Sinai. He had him fast for forty days, and gave him two tablets of stone. They symbolized Adam and Eve, that is, True Parents. Why were the two tablets of stone placed in the Ark of the Covenant? The two tablets of stone symbolized Adam and Eve as the central figures who could complete the work of God's will. This is why they were placed in the Ark of the Covenant. (134-172, 1985.4.7)
What is our hope? God is the vertical parent, and Adam and Eve the horizontal parents. We should be the sons and daughters who can receive love at the point where the vertical and horizontal parents can be one and rejoice. However, to our sorrow this has not come about. We all have the passionate desire to receive such love. This is what religion is all about.
Have there been parents on earth that could become one with the vertical God on the horizontal plane and give out their love? There have not. Since the first human ancestors fell, they became false parents. Since Adam and Eve became false parents, there could not have been such good parents. This is why True Parents must come. True Parents must appear in history.
Who is the one who represents this historic mission? He is the one called the Savior and the Messiah. As one who saves, what does he save? He does not save the body but fulfills the hope of ideal love for us.
Then, what does he have to do? What kind of person does the Messiah have to be in order to fulfill our hopes? Surely he has to come as the True Parent. The Messiah must come as the True Parent. Christianity believes in Jesus as the Messiah and Savior. What does he have to do in order to come as the True Parent? He cannot do it alone. He must come as a man representing the True Parent.
Numerous religions have been looking until now for this one man. We can say that the Confucian teaching speaks of searching for a man who lives a good life, and Buddhist teachings speak of seeking for a man who is attuned to the spirit world.
Then, what is Christianity? It teaches us to become God’s son and make a loving family. Christianity is the religion that has appeared with more substantial content. This is why Jesus said that he was the only begotten son of God.
When the only begotten son comes, it would be a disaster if he were to live alone. There has to be an only begotten daughter. The only begotten daughter must be found and, centering on God, the only begotten son and daughter should marry each other when their mutual attraction matures. This way, God should rejoice as the vertical parent, and the only begotten son and daughter must become the bride and bridegroom who can rejoice as the horizontal parents and give birth to children on earth. Only then will the tribe begin to expand.
So there was something Jesus most needed to have, even if it meant abandoning the nation of Israel and Judaism. What was that? It was a woman. A man should not be without a woman. It is because Jesus did not fulfill this purpose that towards the end of his life, he said he was the bridegroom and that his followers were the bride. This is why Christians have been struggling to be brides while waiting for the bridegroom, Jesus, for two thousand years. What is the standard? It is the Messiah, who fits into the position of the True Parent. This is the feast of the Lamb. (58-218, 1972.6.11)
5.2. The definition of True Parents
Who are the True Parents about whom the Unification Church speaks? This is the question. What would have happened had Adam and Eve not fallen? Without the Fall, God would have become the vertical love and Adam and Eve, God’s body. They are like God’s body. God is like the bone, and Adam and Eve are like the body. God also has mind and body.
God becomes the internal parent in the internal position and Adam and Eve the external parents in the external position. The internal parent and external parents must become one through love. God and man come together in love and thus the True Parents, who are perfect, come into being. Without their union in love, people cannot become perfect.
Who are they? They are our original ancestors, the original people created by God. We are born from such people. We should be born from people who have such divine nature. This is how we attain both God’s divine characteristics and our parents’ human characteristics.
Then, how does the perfection of Adam and Eve come about? Perfection comes when they are tied to God's love, but not unless they have such ties. The root of our ancestors’ lineage brings God’s vertical love and horizontal, physical love together at one point. This is where the lineage of our ancestors lies. All people come into being from there.
But the Fall separated man’s love, woman’s love, and God's love. Through the Fall, man’s love, woman’s love, and God's love failed to bond together. Without the Fall they would have bonded together automatically. A man and a woman automatically bond through love. Why do a man and a woman want to be one? It is because of love. What would they want to do after becoming one in love? They would want to receive God’s blessing. This is their purpose. (184-71, 1988.11.13)
When we look at the providential ages, we see that the providence of restoration is fulfilled in the Last Days. The nearer the Last Days approach, the closer we come to the age where the purpose of religion is realized. Ultimately, the time when the purpose of religion can be realized is the time when the Parents appear.
Those parents are the True Parents. Who are the True Parents? That is the question. As our Principle teaches, the ones called True Parents are the parents who have realized the ideal of oneness centering on God's love. They have fulfilled their responsibility after passing through the realm of dominion based on accomplishments through the Principle, that is, the realm of indirect dominion, and into the realm of direct dominion. They are the parents who, for the first time in history, established the ideal of oneness based on the love between God and man. God’s ideal of love has finally begun to settle on earth through the family of the True Parents.
The Fall shattered this ideal of True Parents. Adam and Eve, with the mission to fulfill their responsibilities, should have built a bridge from the realm of dominion based on accomplishments through the Principle, that is the realm of indirect dominion, to the realm of direct dominion, and completed it. Yet they failed to do so.
Through this, Satan began to invade the realm of indirect dominion. You must know this. Without knowing it, you will not be able to register in the other world. (143-75, 1986.3.16)
What on earth are true parents? They are the starting point from which true, ideal love can finally spark following the creation of the universe. This is why we call them true parents. Then, what kind of children should true parents have? True children. What kind of children are true children? They are the sons and daughters who have enough internal and external beauty to receive the first love of the true parents. (125-164, 1983.3.20)
What is the meaning of the term True Parents that we use in the Unification Church? God has appointed True Parents. What does this mean? It means that God's love has finally settled in the human world. It means that True Parents are the starting point. (130-111, 1984.1.1)
Who are the True Parents? As Adam and Eve were to become absolutely one based on the love whose core is God's love, they were to become our first ancestors at the beginning. You need to know this clearly. Without knowing the True Parents, you won’t be able to know the True Children. (135-160, 1985.11.12)
What is the philosophy that will be the core of history, the core of the age, and the core of the future? In other words, what would be the center of a global philosophy that can be the fruit of history, the center of the age, and the origin of the future? This is a true man and a true woman.
Then, what would be a true man and woman’s vision for daily life? It is to live meaningfully for the sake of the world. Their loving each other is for the sake of the world, and their having sons and daughters is to provide the motivation for loving the world more. This is the philosophy we are upholding. I do not know if you understand such things in detail, but from my point of view, whether we are judging from the entire horizontal, three dimensional world or judging from all of vertical world history, history must by all means be elucidated based on this standard. This is an automatic conclusion. (25-145, 1969.10.3)
Where does the origin of the Fall lie? It started with Adam and Eve, that is, with one set of parents. All problems have arisen due to Adam and Eve falling and becoming false parents. Because of this, the problems of the heart, lineage, character, language and daily life have emerged, as have the problems of the nation and world.
Then, where does the true standard begin that can gather them all up together at once? It does not happen within the domain of some tribe, society or nation. It is absolutely impossible even within the global domain. Since the origin of all problems lay with the false parents, this can be restored only through a connection with True Parents. Oneness with God’s heart can be achieved only through True Parents.
Through True Parents, the original lineage and original character will begin. Through True Parents, language will return to its original point. Through True Parents, our daily life will return to its original form. Through True Parents, the original nation will be established and the original world will be realized.
Then, what is the core source that encapsulates this entire whole? It is the True Parents. True Parents, as one entity, determine everything. This is why we must receive their entire philosophy. Without receiving their heart, their character, their view of daily life, their view of the nation, and their worldview, all these things, we will not be able to stand in the central position. (28-247, 1970.1.22)
Without True Parents, there would be no education or foundation for daily life. We should become completely one with True Parents. We should be able to say, "True Parents’ daily life is my daily life, True Parents’ ideology is my ideology, True Parents’ job is my job, and True Parents’ domain of love is my domain of love." Is that what you are doing? (44-142, 1971.5.6)
5.3. True Parents are the embodiment of good character
Has there been a saint in our history who said, "Follow my example because, as a representative of all people in history, my mind and body have ceased to fight and have achieved complete unity"?
Which is more important, the body or the mind? Both mind and body are important. But what is even more important is the unity of my body and mind. This is very important. If you have not achieved this, even though the world may be unified you will have nothing to do with the world. (142-324, 1986.3.14)
Now your body and mind go different ways. Then, when will they become one? In the course of human history until now, no one who could claim to have unified his warring body and mind has ever appeared.
Even a person such as Paul lamented, saying, "…but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" He saw things correctly. We are liberated through God's love that is in Jesus Christ our Lord. (164-41, 1987.5.3)
What is the reason our mind and body have failed to become one? What kind of person is God the Father? He is the vertical pendulum of love that forms the fundamental core of the universe. When this pendulum tries to come down to earth, God alone cannot make it happen. Even with God, in bringing down love, there needs to be a force from the horizontal line that can pull this standard of love down.
When there is a strong electric charge, when a negative charge comes close to the earth, lightning will strike nearby. It must come down. Even if it is high up, it must come down. Likewise, if a high love is to come down, a negatively-charged love must arise on earth first. If a negatively-charged love occurs first, a positively-charged love is bound to emerge automatically. This works in pairs.
In the world of interaction there are always responses and reactions. Things respond to one another, and they act and react to one another. Ordinary people say that a reaction opposes an incoming force, but this is not the case. A reaction protects the entities that are engaged in mutual response. Only in this way is everything to do with good and evil logically resolved. Without discovering the logic that evil must be embraced by goodness, there is no way of guiding the history of confrontation between good and evil.
Through what place does God come? Vertical love must be established. In order for that vertical love to have vertical value, the horizontal foundation must be laid.
This is also the case with men and women? When they are immature, they know nothing, but when they grow up, women try to possess the world, and men so do. What happens when they try to possess the world this way? They should not go that way. Where should they meet? They should meet when they have grown up, when they are mature. To do this, they must advance to the point where they can claim the world as their own.
They say they will conquer the world, but they cannot conquer it with their own strength. They cannot do it without love. It is because the power of love exists that men and women have the ideal and dream to conquer the world. You want to make the whole world yours, don’t you? Furthermore, if there is heaven, if the invisible world exists, you even want to make this invisible, infinite world yours. Why is this so? Because you have the vertical desire and the horizontal desire. Your horizontal desire seeks to make the entire earth, the horizontal world, your own; and your vertical desire seeks to make this universe your own. Your body is limited. It cannot go beyond the limits of the earth. But the vertical world can grow bigger without any limit.
In view of this, the father who can represent the mind is God, and the father who can represent the body is the first ancestor of unfallen, true love.
The Unification Church is now speaking of True Parents after having uncovered out these facts that remained hidden throughout the ages. In accordance with the original view of the ideal of creation, the horizontal seat of the True Parents is the seat of God’s son and daughter. In other words, it is the seat of Adam and Eve. Then, what about God? If those who are like the body are Adam and Eve, the one who is in the seat of the father, who is like the vertical mind, is God.
How do God, who is like the mind, and a person, who is like the body, become one? Not through power, knowledge, or political might, but through love.
We as individuals were born to resemble the original model where our mind-like character and body-like character can be one. When we seek to find the fundamental core, there should be the body-like father and the mind-like father. There, the seat of the mind-like father is God’s seat, and that of the body-like father is for the first ancestors of humankind.
Then, where will the first ancestors and God, the father who is like the mind, become one? Where? They must become one through true love, at the core, the center of the sphere of love. Men and women seek each other centering on the vertical. (177-337, 1988.5.22)