Cheon Seong Gyeong: Episode 136

Cheon Seong Gyeong Book 5: True Family
Chapter 3: Principles and Order in the Family
Section 2: Ideal Couples and the Parent-Child Relationship, 10-19

(10)  When you try to serve each other and work for the sake of others, the whole world of creation will follow suit and heavenly fortune will chase you faster than a speeding automobile in a car chase. When heavenly fortune comes your way, you will be able to fly. Because heaven and earth protect couples that follow the way of Heaven's Principle and live for the sake of others, they will never decline. They will only succeed and prosper. That is Heaven's law. Once you become a couple of true love, you need to plant the seed of true lineage. When they unite based on true love and have a baby, they connect with the tradition as a mother and father and reach the point of family settlement. A couple with God's original nature of one mind, one body, one thought, and one harmony, who become one with the principles of absolute sex based on eternal love, who display absolute faith, love, and obedience, who invest and then forget how much they have invested, and who are a model of heavenly principles, will flourish even when things go poorly and flourish even more when things go well. Satan cannot enter such a couple.

Ideal parent-child relationships

(11)  Parents who have given birth to and raised children understand the desire to receive blessings and feel happiness through their beloved sons and daughters. If they can establish a foundation of happiness and blessings, they want to bequeath it to their offspring for eternity. Even fallen parents hope that their children will grow up as fine people whom all nations can follow, revere and praise eternally. The parent's heart seeks to protect children from harm and is anxious about them day and night. Even fallen parents have this heart. A mother accepts the smell of her baby's urine and feces. While nursing her child, she whispers and sings lullabies, while continually wishing for the child's success in life. Every parent has such a heart. If a child is incompetent or lacking or suffers from a disability, the parents' hearts suffer to the point of breaking. If this situation is then resolved, their relief and joy go beyond the pain they had felt.

(12)  Unification cannot be brought about by force. If it could, the world would always be controlled by the one with the greatest strength. Nonetheless, when you talk about having love, the greater person is the one who gives greater love. The greater person lives for the sake of others. The person who is higher should serve the one who is lower. Unification occurs not by domination but through service. That is why all children go to their mother's bosom when she is near. It is possible only in love. Parents who are suffering and in difficulty have their energy and stamina restored when their children come to hug them. We might think that a strong hug would cause more pain but, in fact, it generates more energy. Love and hugs are sources of happiness. A collision with love revives and reenergizes people who have become tired and worn out.

(13)  From the viewpoint of a parental heart, a mother, no matter how attractive she may be, will feel happy if a passerby compliments her baby, saying, "Wow, he's so much better-looking than his mother!" Even though this implies she is less attractive than her baby, no mother would protest and grumble, "What? Is he much more attractive than I am? Does this mean I am much less attractive?" Rather, she would be unable to contain her joy. This is an example of the maternal heart.  Whose heart do you think this resembles? Mothers are resultant beings, not causal ones. A family that hopes that the son will achieve less than his father will decline. If the father is the president of his country but his son's accomplishments fall short of his, and if this pattern were to continue for some generations, that family might gradually decline and end up in a miserable state.

(14)  What is the source and motivation of parental love? The love between a man and woman is changeable, but parental love toward the children born of conjugal love is unchanging. Why? Parental love, which is unchanging love, does not originate from the horizontal conjugal relationship. Parental love originates from a certain vertical flow. Who is the source of that vertical love? It is God. We need an absolute subject partner of unchanging love in the original position with whom we, as object partners, can establish a steadfast relationship. Vertical love is not the kind of love that a husband and wife can enjoy for their own pleasure. Vertical love does not adjust to your self-centered desire to love or not love. But even if you try, you cannot sever it. Your horizontal position affords you no power to change it. Thus, the love of parents toward their children never changes.

(15)  The moment a baby's umbilical cord is severed, a loving heart naturally arises in the parents. Every life form, whether on a high or low level, is created such that it cannot resist loving and protecting its young. Because the act of loving inspires parents to invest and offer their lives as foundation stones for their children, it is clear that parental love is the closest to eternal and unchanging love. This does not mean that parental love can match that absolute nature. It cannot become absolute. Nonetheless, it can serve as a foundation for humankind. It can become a firm foothold in this world, an eternal foothold. Where did parental love come from? It is not learned from the advice of one's father or the Admonition of one's spouse, and it does not come from one's own decision to love. It happens naturally. Love is something that comes naturally.

(16)  As a child, I would often observe bird nests. Once I climbed a tree to look inside a nest and the mother bird started pecking at me. I brushed her aside. She flew away but returned repeatedly, desperate and willing to die to protect her nest. Observing this behavior, we cannot deny the powerful instinct of animals to risk their own lives to protect their young. The same can be said of people. You should be able to invest your life for the sake of love. That is the way of a true person.  Which people are truly good? They are those who establish love as their root and try to protect their loved ones even at the cost of their own lives.

(17)  What is the limit of parents' love for their children? Parents love their children beyond their childhood years, through adulthood, and even into eternity. If a relationship is established between a parent and child, through which both feel increasing worth and value, then infinite strength and infinite stimulation—something infinite and new—will arise within that relationship.

(18)  What is the origin of love? Love comes from your parents, not from you. There can be no result without a cause. Because you know that you are not the owner when it comes to love, you should not impose your will on others.  When you come before your parents, you should say, "Yes, mother and father, you are right." When your parents remind you, "No matter how great your reputation or power, you cannot do things that deviate from your duty to your parents," you need to reply, "Yes, yes, yes, mother and father, you are right." This is based on love. It is because parents are the subject partners and children are the object partners. The subject partner serves the object partner and the object partner follows the subject partner.  This is the principle of heaven  Because he is born in accordance with heavenly nature, even an ignorant or uneducated person has a basis for understanding this heavenly principle. Therefore, even the mightiest champion needs to bow his head before his parents. If this principle is violated in a family, that household will lose all its value and collapse.

(19)  Parental love is the first love. We learn of the love between father and mother through our parents, and children who observe their parents' love for each other feel incomparable joy. Children who have been raised with the empowerment of true parental love become well-rounded people who understand the dynamics of love. They experience receiving one-to-one vertical love when loved by their mother or father and receiving two-to-one vertical love when loved by both parents. This unique inheritance is possible only through parental love.