Cheon Seong Gyeong: Episode 144

Cheon Seong Gyeong Book 5: True Family
Chapter 4: The Education of Children and the Kingdom of Heaven in the Family
Section 4: Children's Education, 05-15

 
(5)  Needless to say, you have to educate your children well. But in addition, you should guide them to receive the Blessing at an early age. When three generations have received the Blessing they can be bound together. Before you die you need to have three generations blessed. This is how you can fulfill your responsibility. Just as the Israelites were connected through three families, Adam, Noah, and Abraham, the standard for you to be connected is three generations. What should you do to achieve that? You should create your own tribe based on your sons and daughters and relatives who are to fulfill the same conditions. On that foundation, you can be free and accommodating with your tribe and they can be the same toward you.

(6)  Toward your wife, you should think, "In terms of receiving God’s three kinds of love, she is the best. She is the best daughter in the world, she is the best wife in the world, and she will be the best mother who has ever existed." You have to educate your children so that they can say proudly, "My father and mother are the best in the world. No one except God is better than they are." Education within Unification Church families should achieve this standard, and it should be publicly recognized. God should be able to say, "That's right," and your descendants should say, "Yes." My children say to me, "After God, my father is the best." You too have to teach your children to think this way.

(7)  Parents teach their children to love their brothers and sisters and to love their mother and father. At the same time, they need to teach them, "As much as I love you, I love my country. Please love your country as much as I do." If you teach them in this way, they will understand. You do not need to educate them in other things. In the end, they will understand, "In my family, my father and I live like this, and all other families in the nation should also live like this. Establishing a nationwide and worldwide foundation together with my family means becoming a patriot in my country."

(8)  You have to teach your children to love the world more than they love their own country. I am teaching not just the way of a patriot for the nation but the way of a saint for the world. Since this way of the saint involves the laws for governing a nation, I am also teaching you how to fulfill the dutiful way and become a prince or princess in the kingdom of heaven.

(9)  You have to be true mothers and fathers who, even while racing ahead, can say to your children: "If I die now, you must take this baton and keep running. I am going this way of suffering to save the world. I must do this in order to enable a new world to emerge. That is the hope of God, the hope of True Parents, and the hope of your father and mother. And that must be your hope too. I believe this unchanging hope will allow everyone to find happiness; that is why I am going this way." At the moment of your death, you should be able to say this to your children and ask them to commit to carrying on your work.

(10)  As parents, we need to have the educational resources by which to teach our children. We should be able to testify: "My beloved sons and daughters, you should not be indebted to your parents, brothers, and sisters, or neighbors. I tried my best all my life, applying myself intensely, to avoid debt, until my fingers became bent and their skin as coarse as horsehide. My hands became like this through serving our neighbors and living for the sake of others."

(11)  A true teacher is not one who teaches academics but one who teaches love. Of course, parents are one with their children based on love and the blood relationship, but they should also be teachers of love. That is why we parents should teach our children saying, "You should behave this way as brothers and sisters, you should behave that way as husband and wife, and this and that way with your relatives." Thereby we can educate them with love so that, through harmony and unity among family members, they can bring prosperity to the family and finally become owners of love. This is the duty of parents.

Parents must show the example

(12)  Brothers and sisters need to follow the example of their parents loving each other. Daughters represent the mother and sons represent the father, and they need to learn the tradition of love with which the parents love each other. However, since there have been no true parents from whom to learn such love in Satan's world, we now have to teach our children to follow the example of the True Parents through the way of filial piety. In the Unification Church, in view of our relationship, and the relationship between my family and your family, your children will take after the heart that you have toward me. Children learn heart from their parents. You have to be people about whom your children can say, "My parents carry on, no matter what difficulties they face. Their way of life transcends time, the environment, and their standard of living." At the same time, you have to set the tradition in your family that your children will listen to your directions and follow you in any circumstances. Your children should be able to say, "This is the way our parents went, so we have to go this way too.  Considering all the circumstances, isn't this what we should do?" You should have your children follow your example by serving your own parents as a couple. By doing so, you set the standard by which to educate your descendants.

(13)  Parents should educate their children about Heaven. In teaching your children, the first step is for you to set the example. Before instructing your children about filial piety, you should be a child of filial piety. If you first become a devoted son or daughter, according to Heaven's law, you will establish Heavens tradition of filial piety. On this foundation, you then teach your sons and daughters the way of loyal patriots in the heavenly nation. If your children cry for the Republic of Korea, teach them, holding their hands and with tears in your eyes, "You are people who actually have no nation. This nation is not your true nation. There is another country that, in a real sense, we have to serve." You should feel God's concern as closely as you feel your baby's breathing when you hold him or her to your bosom. You should teach your children while shedding tears and feeling God's concern. Only then can you expand the depth and breadth of your children's education.

(14  You need to have the mindset that whatever you own belongs to the Father. Sons and daughters should offer everything to the Father. For this, you should inspire your children to emulate Jesus in their loyalty to Heaven. In every possible way, you parents need to encourage your children to follow the right path of the Unification Church. This is what you need to do. To achieve this objective, it is you who first has to follow this path, for only then can you teach and educate your children to do the same. It violates the heavenly principles if parents try to educate their children to do something they have not done themselves. I teach you only that which I have established as a foundation, by bringing victory through my own practice.

(15)  Personal fortune should support family fortune; family fortune should support that of society; the fortune of society should support that of the nation; the nation's fortune should support that of the world; the world's fortune should support the fortune of heaven and earth, and that in turn should support God's fortune. If you live with the heart that your daily life is connected with the world's fortune and God's fortune, your life represents the realm of life on the world level. No one under Heaven can stop such a person. Do not become a husband who brings shame to his wife. Your wife is God's envoy. Your children are God's envoys. Their role as envoys is to serve as your closest aides, monitor you, and educate you to follow the right path. You must not be a father who feels shame before his children. Do not feed these envoys from Heaven with stolen goods. You cannot attend Heaven or your ancestors after committing fraud.