Raising Children in God's Will |
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by Rev. Sun Myung Moon |
Section 6. Children's Birth and Growth [Part 2]
5. During Early Infancy
The newly born cannot recognize his parents. But the baby can respond to his parents with smiles. Although the baby doesn't recognize anything, the mother is just happy with the response. A psychological cord is being established through which parental love is being passed to the baby.
Everybody, have you seen any baby embarrassed by his accident? The baby feels no embarrassment with his accident and just smiles at his mother who has to clean up the mess. Isn't that sweet? (Laughter) Love makes this all possible. Only love does it, do you understand? Love sees nothing ugly or unsightly, and can conquer everything.
Now, everybody, we started out with infancy. It's the time of pride. Wouldn't you feel proud of the baby that just emerged from the womb? Yes, you would be proud, even of the baby's first cry. The proudest is the mother who has given birth to the baby. Right? The baby kicks, the baby cries, that's all the more reason to be proud of your baby. You are proud of the baby even if the baby can't talk. Just proud.
The mother says to the baby, "Okay, my son, grow up, grow up strong" as she exhorts her baby. Exhorting, how? Even when the mother is dog-tired from her low-paying factory job, even when she has to clean up the baby's mess, she is still proud. The baby is a happy baby if he has a proud mother. Don't you agree? [We do.] Everything, all things ... even the small insects are proud. Even the inorganic things.
All things in the universe are like that. They are all proud.
1) Childhood
Children desire to go back to the comfort of their parents. All of humanity desires this as its basic makeup.
There are stages in child rearing. The tender, precious years are followed by crawling, then walking. Then learning to use the spoon. Then the child recognizes the approvals and disapproval from his mother. Sometimes our baby Kook Jin, when he was about one, would not come to me when coaxed. Then he breaks into a big smile when he recognizes that I am pouting. That's when I knew he was really clever. Children can tell your moods and react to them appropriately.
All of you ought to watch children grow to be school age. They soil diapers, then crawl, then walk, still struggling and stumbling, then fight with their siblings, crying and screaming. That's education. That's growing up.
Then they learn to talk. When they first learn to say "Daddy," they don't know what that means. They don't know what they are saying when they say "Daddy." They keep saying it, eventually realizing what that means by habit. It's amazing to watch them learn to speak, learning things like abstract nouns. It would take an encyclopedia to explain how it takes place but they just learn it.
Children only need parents. Why would they need anything else? Would they need money? Power? Self concept? Only the mother's breast. That's all ... Nothing else. All I care about is my mother's breast. All my education is my mom and dad. The first thing we learn is speech. The first word we learn is to say "Momma." First "Momma" and then "Dadda." That's one's first property. That's how we become one with our parents, through this property connection. All begins here. That's why nothing else can be acceptable.
Today's children grow up differently than yesterday's. Things change. Things change, including speech patterns. Children like toys that spin, move, go up and down fast. They get excited. Get very excited. You know, when they get excited their eyes, minds and spirits all become one with the body. The things children play with, something as fast as a train. What do you call it? Roller-skates? Is that what they are? You know, the ones that slide up the wall and down the cliff -- they seem to like those quite a bit. Don't they? [They do] The principle is the same.
Children today seem to like insects, baby monkeys, small fish, and the like. Why? They like to watch them grow, learn to love them, and like the idea.
You must be as a child. Children's self concept requires a generalized approach. Children want nothing but their mothers. There are no other desires. They only think about their mother. Their whole life, whole sensors, whole cognitive system are centered on their mothers. It's the mother at all times, before and after nursing, all the time. That's why you must be as a child. That's how you can sleep as if you are in the arms of your mother and father even when sleeping alone. That's how it works.
2) Parental Influence Until 20
Parental love prevails until age 20. This is love's preparatory period. One receives parental love until 20. After that, one leaves the parents' love to establish one's own marital love. As marital love gets stronger, their love for their children gets stronger. That's the way it works.
Loved from birth ... Loved by the parents while in the womb. Mother and father love the child. For nine months, touching the baby ... Loving when he is born, then until he goes to school ... Until college, now how many years is that? Twenty years. Or is it 22 years? Six years, then three and three, that's 12, and then college. How many years is it? Sixteen years plus kindergarten, that's 18 years. That's the parental sphere of love ... Parents always feel, even with all their love for them, that they have not done the best, or not as well as someone else's parents, and feel the pain of inadequacy.
You don't understand it until you have your own children. Parents never sleep comfortably when they are separated from their children. You must realize how great your parents have been, with all the tension and stress they lived with because of you. That's love. So, when you are over 20 ... it's moving into a different stage of life.
Can we arrive at the place of our heart's desire all at once? Because we cannot do that we must not rush blindly, but steadily recover the ground we have lost whenever we backslide. There are no two ways about it. Now then, what is our fundamental self, fundamental place? We should have been born as God's direct children.
If we had been born as God's direct, incorruptible children, then our love would have reflected that ancestry. Growing old from childhood to middle age, then decline, our whole life, can we say we have lived within the sphere of God's love? After the fall of man, we cannot say we have been living within the sphere of God's love. That's within God's power to reject and outside God's domain to protect. It's not within God's ideal sphere.
You must establish a connection between the church and your children before they turn 20. In other words, you lose them if you do not anchor them while they are still in middle school and high school. That's straight from our church statistics. They will drift into society if you don't anchor them with the church by the age of 17. This is a serious matter.
6. Need for Family Education
1) Reasons for Correct Child-Rearing
Without the fall, the family should consist of men and women who are God's true sons and daughters. They are one with God. Men and women must become one, whole and complete. Couples do not exist just for themselves. Children need parental education. They must be prepared in all things.
The children wanted by God, who can live in Eden, must be sons and daughters of universal character. They must be qualified enough to have dominion over all creatures.
2) The Fall of Man Requires Education
Education is necessary to save humanity. Education is necessary. Man's ancestors fell because of ignorance. I will be brief since you already know about the Principle. Adam and Eve remained ignorant as they moved to take over the dominion of this world. As they were growing up they had not understood God's teachings. They fell not because they knew what it was, but because they didn't. Our ancestors didn't know the path of righteousness so that their descendants cannot surpass their ancestors in this knowledge.
We have had many great historical figures and religious leaders, but none has been able to provide the correct path that God had taught. No religion, no philosopher, no statesman, has been able to illuminate the path. Because of this, our history continues the heritage of our ignorant ancestors, deviating from God's principles. This is what I see. So, we must educate the ignorant humanity. This is a problem. A good education can restore God's knowledge but a bad education has prevailed. That's our current state.
Because of the fall, we need a messiah. Without the fall, we would not need one. Because of the fall, we lost our God. Because of the fall, we lost our basic human character. Without the fall, we would have retained the basic knowledge of God. But this is not the work of God, not the work of God. That's the condition already established for us. We need no more. If we were one with God, there is no knowledge lacking in our midst. We would not need any education dealing with the fundamentals of man.
What is the basic problem of man? It's food. Then survival. Then, after those two are taken care of, love emerges. Have you learned how to eat since you have been born? We were born with the natural ability to eat. We must eat. When our mouth touches something, we naturally want to eat it. Therefore we naturally seek to fulfill more than eating, surviving, and loving. We should move from these goals, on to the world of solid feelings, then on to the world of solid values in order to avoid the fall. However, because we have fallen, everything is in reverse. We must make right what is in reverse. When a baby is born, he comes head first, his buttocks last. This must be reversed. We look like humans but we are not. It's our dilemma, all because of our fall. Therefore we must struggle against this fall concept. What must we realize in order to reverse this state of being? Controlling the fall concept is more important than wanting a messiah. We must fight the fall concept. Our strength gets stronger as we increase our struggle.
The individual is a product of history, as are the family, the nation, and the world. Among all the products, how large is the product of good? How much good has the world produced altogether? I want to know. In your own environment, what percent consists of good? In your own personal character, what percent consists of good? I want to know. When we consider how much evil and how much good there is, we recognize that good is surrounded by evil. There is no education needed to do evil. It's easy to do evil, no education needed. Our history began with evil so that no one needs to learn to do evil. Do you need to learn to do evil? We need to learn to return to human morality and the dictates of conscience as our standards. What kind of education? Even with one that centers on good and on conscience, how many of us live up to the standards? Anyone can do evil without any learning. Anyone can pass that course.
Do we need an education for evil? Don't we? No need to learn about evil. No need to teach to do evil. If you just leave them alone, they naturally turn evil. Just follow the body and evil takes over. Isn't that so? [Yes] Hey, you grandpa there, if you follow your body, is that good or evil? [We become evil] No, you can't even think about being good. You surely become evil.
3) Family Education through Religion
Did Jesus have a family he could love? Did Jesus love his mother? No, he couldn't. Did he love his father? His father was a stepfather. Did he love his brothers? He couldn't love his brothers. Whom did he love? As the epitome of love, Jesus wanted to love his mother and father but couldn't. Because Adam and Eve did not learn about love, Jesus tried to teach his mother and father how to live in love. But his mother and father did not listen to him.
To teach love, one must transcend Judaism and the Bible. Because Jesus came as the representative of God, for the father, for the bridegroom, for the brother, Mary's household should have treated him as God's representative. Jesus should have addressed Joseph, "Hey, you, Joseph!" as Joseph was not his father. He should have addressed Mary, "Hey you, Mary!" as Mary was not his mother. They should have received education from him. Did they accept the education?
From a human perspective they were father and son, but from heaven's perspective Jesus was Lord, God's representative; they should have followed his education in the ways of love. Jesus should have taught his parents, his brothers, and should have told them about the kind of woman for him. Did Jesus give that kind of education? Does it say so in the Bible? It's all about empty rhetoric on how go to heaven.
Historically, Koreans are similar to the Jews. Koreans are the Jews of the Far East. Korea was the reason for the Sino-Japanese War, as it was for the Russo-Japanese War, and the War of the Pacific. Korea is the thorniest problem of Asia, as it is the most talked about country at all international meetings at the United Nations. Isn't that strange? But through all these trials and tribulations, Korea has not disappeared. The Korean people are excellent as individuals. They are as good as anyone one-on-one. But their parental education was poor. Since our real father failed in educating us, we must be educated by a stepfather to create a great people. That's the task of the Unification Church.
What does religion teach? Does it teach you to eat, drink and be merry as the body dictates? It's getting more and more difficult to teach the young as time passes.
Heaven is made up of heart and soul, not a kingdom of religious theories or religious denominations, just heart and soul. Why is God seeking people and holy persons? It is to make sons and daughters. What kind of sons and daughters? The kind of sons and daughters whom God can take into his confidence and confide His feelings to.
4) The Limits of World Education
We live in a world full of uncertainties about learning and teaching. One can learn evil very easily. Nor can one rest his mind easy. The Communists are everywhere, right next door. One can get into a wrong argument, with a terrible consequence.
People up to now have taught their sons and daughters so that they can have a good family life. That's all in reverse. Our days are all turned upside down. We must achieve a good heaven, a good world, a good nation, and a good society to achieve a good personal life. This principle has been turned upside down because of the fall. People say, "If I can live well, then my family can live well, then our society will live well" -- which is all in reverse. It's all up side down. Heaven looks at this kind of world and wants its humanity to end this upside down way of thinking. "To revert back to restoration, you must beat your bodies," it says. Christianity has been persecuted because of this insistence, as have been the Christian family, the Christian nations, and the Christian world.
What use is there in today's American educational methods? You must cut off everything at the root, must cut off everything, cut off everything completely.
What is it that the American young follow in pursuit of their individualism, their self-interests? It's pragmatism, and this philosophy of profitable life must be completely, 180 degrees, reversed, and turned right side up. What happened to a nation once based on Christianity? This is not the work of God, but of Satan who plays with them. Do you understand what I am saying? [Yes] I also understand that you have been getting an individualistic education in America and have grown accustomed to the self-centered way of life, and all this makes your work very difficult.
As I travel across America I feel revulsion about living in America. I also feel our children should not be educated in America at all.
5) Goodness Is the Purpose of Education
People everywhere want to be good and hope to be good. Don't our teachers stand behind the podium and teach, saying to their pupils, "You must become good Koreans in the future"? In the same way, we teach students in middle school, high school, and in college to be good people as the purpose of education. There are absolutely no good persons who live for their individual self. What kind of education, what kind of moral standards do we have in Asia? For the attainment of good.
Many people don't understand that goodness brings its reward. But, do we understand, however difficult, the importance of moral beliefs as the purpose of our education and the goal of the humanities? No. But, why not? We prefer the higher plateau of perfection to our low, fallen position. Heaven cannot educate us all in one-to-one teachings so that, through education, it teaches us indirectly and symbolically. We must recognize that the teachings tell us to be good and do good.
What is good? It is the locomotive of progress. Therefore we must give. Give what? Not the rejects, not the hand-me-downs, not the leftover foods. We must give our lives. Not only our lives, but also our only true love. This is parental love. For this, we of the Unification Church try to give parental love, working like slaves, sweating for the earth, shedding tears for mankind, and bleeding for heaven.
6) The Most Important Lesson
Why do you like Reverend Moon when you meet him? Why do you feel that way? You feel that way because through him, more than through your husbands, your national leaders, your other teachers, you feel you get closer to the heavenly principles. It's not his human accomplishment; it's just the way of truth. Love must precede education. There was love before the Creation. That is the truth. All things, including the humans made up of all things, want to return to God's love. That's the truth.
All of you are like that too. Which do you prefer, to die in God's love or to die without it? Which do you prefer? [To die in God's love]
You will choose to die in God's love.
So, do you feel confident about dying in God's love? [Yes] Raise your hands if you believe that. If you believe it, your flesh and blood will be the flesh and blood and energy sources of your people. It is the same principle, isn't that so? All good leaders want to die for love.
What is the most important lesson to teach in education? The most important lesson is: "If you have to die, die for love." This lesson is more important than a degree from Harvard University. Do you understand what I am saying? [Yes] What do you think we, the Unification Church, should do? What do you think we should do? "Let's die for the highest love, the love for God and humanity," that's what we should do.
The movement was put into motion, and the direction set, for this purpose. Men and women were created for this purpose, fathers and mothers began everything for this purpose, sons and daughters began everything for this purpose. Everything in the universe was given as a gift of love for this purpose. This is the only lesson there is in our education. There is no more. If you live by this principle, you will stand firm before God without shame. Do you understand this? [Yes]
Now, God is in heaven, an ideal heaven. Who can live in heaven close to God? One who is like God himself. If God says love your enemy, then the person who does everything to love his enemy is the one who sits close to God in heaven. How is it, isn't that so? [Yes, it is so] Don't you like that? How about that? (Laughter)
Looking at it this way, what is the most important lesson in education? What is the most important cultivation of mind? In all education and the cultivation of mind, we must learn and cultivate to love the enemy. That's the only conclusion. Patience in Chinese character consists of a dagger above a heart. Did you know that? That's the meaning. If you want to accomplish a large task, you must endure the dagger hundreds, thousands, and millions of times.
7) Rearing, not Bearing, Is More Important
Parents shouldn't be overjoyed that they have a son. They should worry about how to rear him as a worthy son. Only then can they say they understand heaven's principles. It's wrong just to bear sons without this understanding. One should worry as to how to make the son worthy of and useful to his nation. If one wants a son for his nation, then everything begins from the nation. This is very important. Are you now standing before God as his true sons and daughters? Then you are free to move in any direction, east or west. You are moving horizontally and are progressing on the plane. Then you can reach the goal no matter which direction you take. Then you will do well either in school or at work. It's all right for the person to go to college as long as he keeps his correct bearing. It's all right for him to have a job with his correct bearing. Various styles and directions come to the same goal, although it may appear that one is not moving on a straight line.
You all recognize how tough it is to raise children. Children are your flesh and blood. They shed tears if their mothers shed tears. They lament if their fathers lament, all in one mind. It is tough to raise these children, however. When we look at it, we realize that we are not God's children. We simply look the other way when God sheds tears. We simply shrug when God laments. It's because we have inherited Satan's flesh and blood. Rather, we rejoice when God laments. We laugh when everything is in ruins. Think about the labor that God must endure to guide and reform this humanity. How can God work through human history if he cannot find the hundreds, thousands, ten thousands that would lament along with God?
You think Reverend Moon's way is sure to bring about his ruination. No, his is history's splendid way. I have been persecuted and chased by the world, but who is the successful one? All those who persecuted me are dead now, and all the foundations that I laid are now coming my way. You've seen the movie "The Ten Commandments," where the sea is split to allow the Israelis to cross, and you know it matters not whether you are on this side of the sea or the other, because blessings come across the sea, even across the Pacific Ocean. They come looking for their rightful owner. With this much evidence, do you think your teacher Reverend Moon, the fighter, is on the verge of ruination? "No." You must teach your children well. Why do I say this? Because we must teach the tradition centered on the Abel family.
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