Cheon Seong Gyeong: Episode 118

Cheon Seong Gyeong Book 5: True Family
Chapter 1: True Families from the Viewpoint of God's Will
Section 3:The Family Is the Training Ground of True Love, 15-23

 

Three-object-partner love in the family

15  God is the God of love. The love of such a God reveals itself among us as the love of parents, the love between husband and wife, and the love of children. No matter how great someone may be, if he is a man he is bound to seek a woman, and if she is a woman she is bound to seek a man. When they marry each other they are meant to give birth to children.

16  God’s Will is to realize the purpose of His creation. His purpose of creation is to be fulfilled based on love, but how is that accomplished? In other words, how is the purpose of creation, where love is the center, to be achieved? It is through the completion of the four-position foundation. This is why, in the Divine Principle, the completion of the purpose of creation is explained as the completion of the four-position foundation. What does this mean? It means the father's love is the mother's love and the mother's love is the father's love; the parents' love is the children's love and the children's love is the parents' love. It also includes the siblings' love for one another.  All these kinds of love are one. Love can reach any place. From a vertical viewpoint, there are three stages, but from a two-dimensional viewpoint, all three stages become one. Where does that occur? It happens with the parents at the center. Therefore, centering on parents' love, a man and woman become one in love, and God becomes one with their love.

17  When a husband and wife realize perfect love, the four directions circle around and form a sphere. Happiness and satisfaction are possible only when we are in touch with the elements of love. If we take love out of the picture, everything grinds to a halt. The Unification Principle teaches that the purpose of creation is fulfilled through the completion of the four-position foundation and that this is not possible through the perfection of only the father and the mother. Not only do the father and mother have to become one, allowing God's love to dwell within them, but they at the same time have to love their children absolutely, so that God's love can reach the children through them. By love, I do not mean thinking or saying, "I have to raise these children well so I can take it easy when I am older and my life is coming to a close." That is not love. Parents are responsible to unwrap their bundle of love and convey it to their children in the family. Then the children will surely orbit around their loving family, which began from heaven, heading toward their ultimate destination. Parents, therefore, have to teach their sons and daughters how to serve and love God. The wife has to demonstrate how to love her husband and her sons and daughters, and the husband has to demonstrate how to love his wife and his sons and daughters. In the Unification Church, this is known as the perfection of love among the three object partners.

18  Love never starts from oneself. Love starts from the other partner. When we do not have a partner, love cannot even begin. When we see human beings as the center, even God becomes a counterpart. A woman is a man's counterpart, and children are counterparts to their parents; love cannot be realized without counterparts. In the Unification Church, we call this the love of the three object partners. A person who has not experienced the love of the three object partners cannot claim to have experienced God's love. Divine Principle calls us to be just as joyful when we bear children as God was after He created Adam and Eve. After creating Adam and Eve, God hoped to feel joy and satisfaction as He protected them and raised them. He nurtured the hope that "From now, you will have dominion over the world! Our family will become the center of the world! Quickly grow up! Quickly grow up!" and He was eager to see them marry. In the same way, fathers and mothers want to raise their children well and find them good life partners with whom they may become good husbands and wives. If they help their children have good marriages, their family will prosper.

19  Originally, had Adam and Eve attained perfection and the two formed a couple, this couple would have realized love and given birth to sons and daughters from their love. Taking a broader perspective, we see that before they realized love between husband and wife, the two were to have related with the love of siblings. Each gradually was to have attained perfection as an individual. Then based on the love of husband and wife, they would have advanced to the stage of giving love as parents. An individual is perfected as a son or daughter in the presence of God by experiencing first the love of siblings. Then comes the love between husband and wife and finally love for children. Had Adam and Eve attained perfection by aligning themselves fully with God at the outset as siblings, as husband and wife, and then as parents, they would have had to go no further. Nothing could be greater than this.  Adam and Eve would have been the first ones to attain perfection, give birth to children, and reach the position where they could affirm their love for their sons and daughters as perfected parents. Then God could have loved them all, and this would have enabled all the types of love in His creation to begin.

20  Although male and female family members grow up in the same home as brothers and sisters, because of their physiology their lives are different. Males tend to be wild and adventurous in nature, while females tend to have a quiet demeanor, being reserved and cautious. Females more than males tend to feel secure when they receive love, content within the boundaries of a home. For this reason, when the two come together and interact in the conjugal relationship, this realm of heart of husband and wife, based on the children's and siblings' realms of heart, will blossom.

21 After loving others as a brother or sister, when two of you become life partners and love each other as husband and wife, you will be glued to each other. As this takes place, you will bear the fruit of the parents' heart and siblings' hearts, and perfect the hearts of man and woman. In this way, in oneness, you can go directly to God's love, centered on the ideal of creation. Love travels the shortest distance. Thus, it always travels in a straight line rather than a curve. Then where do the two meet? It is on the perpendicular.  If the man takes one step forward, the woman also takes one step forward. Since they do not want to separate from each other, they finally bump together. In loving each other, the man does not want to lose to the woman, and the woman does not want to lose to the man. So they are on an equal footing. There is a core of love within the family. The love of parents, the love of siblings, and the love between husband and wife are all connected to that core.

22  Love is the basis upon which you can conform to the standard of the whole. Therefore, unless you have a husband or wife as your life partner, you cannot pass all the requirements God set for you to stand as a perfect being. The same principle applies to having a relationship with your parents and children. When it comes to having children, it is not enough to have only sons or only daughters. Those who have given birth only to sons ask for daughters. Why is that? It is because duality is lacking. We desire to reside within the love of parents, the love of a spouse, and the love of children. We should be able to receive a father's love and a mother's love. We should also be able to receive love from a husband or wife. We should be able to experience loving sons and loving daughters.

23   The public law of heaven and earth clarifies the proper positions for the father and mother, the husband and wife, and the son and daughter, and calls us to maintain them. The universe is based on this ideal and fundamental standard. When we are in complete accordance with this principle we experience joy, but when we cannot align with it, we are unhappy. Again, we are joyful only when we live fully embracing this principle. Whatever conforms to this principle is goodness. A person who builds upon this goodness is a good person, but someone who builds on what is bad undermines goodness and is evil.