01Children result from a concentration of parental love
Children stand before loving parents as representatives of the world. (Blessed Families and Ideal Kingdom-934)
Why do they call childless people lonely? Our children are there to enable us to deeply experience the circumstances of the heart of God, the subject who created the entire universe through love. Our children are born through us, on the basis of our own motivation, but by having and loving these children, we come to realize, “Ah, this is how God loved people.” (136-201, 12/29/1985)
The reason why parents sacrifice themselves for their children is that they want to return to God through their children. They come to deeply experience parental love while loving their children; this leads them to feel and be aware of God’s love, which is a manifestation of something original. Since those who cannot have children can neither feel parental love nor come to understand God’s parental love, their love is always incomplete. (Blessed Family-1002)
What kind of children can reside in the Kingdom of Heaven?
They are those that pay off the debt of parental love on their own. When their parents become old and senile, the sons and daughters should endure the difficulties of their care with the same heart their parents had toward them when they were little, cleaning up their urine and bowel movements. Only then, will they be children of filial piety. (35-241, 10/19/1970)
Even when a child is spanked or scolded by parents having love, the child is still happy. (Blessed Family-1027)
Parents have given their very lives for the sake of their children. Children should likewise sacrifice their lives for the sake of their parents. Since life comes from love, sacrificing one’s life in front of that essential love is a logical conclusion. I say that this is not a contradiction. (Blessed Family-1009)
When children strive not to be indebted to their parents, the parents feel their worth. (Blessed Family-1009)
When parents use a stick with loving hands, and cry loudly after spanking their child, can the child fight back and curse them? True love carries dual values in harmony. (Blessed Family-1027)
A great mother embraces her children while teaching them the principle of becoming a person of goodness who can move the world: being able to endure whatever difficulties are encountered. This type of mother has penetrated the heavenly principle. That goodness does not perish. (13-238, 03/24/1964)
You give birth to a child, give your milk and think he/she is cute, but because of whom do you adore your child? You should adore your child on behalf of heaven and earth, on account of this nation, this world, and God.
The power of heavenly fortune in accordance with God’s love is moving beyond the world to embrace heaven and earth. The mother who embraces and breastfeeds her sons and daughters should do so with the eager heart that she is embracing God’s beloved sons and daughters on behalf of heaven and earth. (8-105, 11/22/1959)
Parental love is the basis of a child’s pride and happiness. Children receive life from their parents who have created harmonious oneness in true love, and they want to be raised in such love. The most precious responsibility toward children is not just to raise them externally but also to provide the life elements of true love that will make their spirituality complete. (277-200, 04/16/1996)
No matter how much a father loves his child, his love cannot match the mother’s love. (Blessed Family)
The mother has devoted herself more than anyone else and has suffered more than anyone else; hence, we can say that she is more loving than anyone else. In this sense, women have an elevated and precious position in the arena of emotions. No matter how much a father loves his baby, he does not know that love to the degree the mother does.
For this reason, if anyone goes to heaven, women will go to the heavenly kingdom of heart. From this standpoint, it is not bad to be born as a woman. You will come to see that God is fair. (85-166, 03/03/1976)
02The way of true children is filial piety
When you have come to know your parents, what do you have to do for them? You should carry out acts of filial piety and become a child of filial piety. Also, going beyond your parents, you should be a patriot in your nation, because your parents have had authority within the nation and the world.
Before becoming a patriot, you should be a child of filial piety, and before becoming a child of filial piety, you should be a member of a family that can be proud of true brothers and sisters. “Family member” is a title that brings the right to sing the praises of your brothers and sisters. (30-220, 03/23/1970)
The reason a child of filial piety is precious is that he respects and serves his parents with unchanging love, whether in childhood, as an adult, or in old age. We call such a person a child of filial piety. (168-161, 09/20/1987)
What do you have to do to be a child of filial piety?
You must always align yourself with the direction of your parents’ hearts. The one who walks the path of filial piety does not do things separately from his parents. When his parents go east, he should also go east, and when they go west, he should also go west. There should be no question about it. Even if you are told to go a certain way and then to turn back ten times, you should again turn back and follow your parents. (62-32, 09/10/1972)
In your family you are asked to offer your filial duty, and this requires that you become a fellow traveler on the path of love your parents walk, centering on your parents. The parents’ path of true love follows along with the heavenly principles. It is not just the parents standing by themselves, but there are invisible, vertical heavenly principles that are connected to them and work through them. Thus, exhorting you to be one with your parents is to ask you to go the way which connects the realms of heart of the vertical and horizontal history. This is the reason behind your fulfilling your duty of filial piety toward your parents. (136-203, 12/29/1985)
In the family, fulfilling one’s filial duty toward one’s parents is the responsibility of the sons and daughters. Why do you have to fulfill your filial duty? The path of filial piety is connected to the path of the patriot, like the sections in a bamboo shoot. What should patriots who faithfully serve their country do? They should walk the path of saints for the world. There has to be one straight line.
From this viewpoint, if you have been unable to fulfill your filial duty yet have become a patriot in your country, your parents will not be able to say, “Ah, you have not fulfilled your filial duty toward me.” They will say, “You have done so well.” Even if you have not accomplished your filial duty and have abandoned your parents and left home, if you become a patriot in your nation, your mother and father – even though they may have died and gone to the spirit world – will praise you, saying, “You have done extremely well”. (100-155, 10/09/1978)
What is a child of filial piety?
It is the person who in order to take responsibility for the parents’ sorrow, seeks out the difficult places and fulfills his responsibility, thereby bringing joy to his parents. If the parents have done ten loads of work and the child has made an effort to do fifteen loads, the parents will feel joy that corresponds to five loads. The one who makes effort serving the parents and thinking how to fulfill such a supplementary amount is a child of filial piety. (24-261, 08/24/1969)
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, 05/01/1983)
What do you think God wants from His children? Is it for them to make a lot of money and become millionaires? Is it to be the president, holding the most power in the country? What God wanted from His son and daughter, Adam and Eve, was for them to grow up to be children of filial piety, patriots, saints, and divine sons and daughters. (299-117, 02/07/1999)
Have you ever thought to become a child of filial piety in the family, to become a patriot in the nation, to become a saint in the world, or to become a divine son or daughter before heaven and earth in accordance with God’s own thinking? From the viewpoint of history, all the saints have been teaching about becoming children of filial piety, patriots, saints, and divine sons and daughters. (287-3, 08/10/1997)
When children have grown up in the tradition of love, do you think they could be indifferent if their parents wanted a divorce? Absolutely not. The children would all insist, “I am your child. I am the one in whom you are combined. For me, you have to make whatever negotiation is necessary, and you have to be great parents for me. I need you.” We must make young people and parents awaken to the fact, that because of their children, parents have no right to divorce. (Blessed Family-1009)
END OF BOOK CHAPTER