Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: Episode 183
Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: A Selection of True Parents’ Speeches
Book 4: The True Family Movement
Speech 14: True Families: Gateway to Heaven, pg 647-650
Chapter 1: The Family is the Central Model for the Kingdom of Heaven
Section 3: A training ground to enter the kingdom of love
Section 4: A textbook for the heavenly kingdom
Section 3. A training ground to enter the kingdom of love
God’s Will is to realize the kingdom of love. In other words, God’s Will is to develop and globalize the ideal world of love. Thus the family is the training ground where people earn credits, all the way from an elementary school certificate, to a bachelor’s degree, and finally a doctoral degree.
Expand the family, and you have the world. Look closely at the world. This is a world where grandfathers and grandmothers live, a world where adults like your uncles and aunts live, a world where people like your elder brothers and elder sisters live, a world where young people live, and a world where children live. So this world is a place where people of all ages—old people, middle-aged people, young adults and children—live together as one family, a family of great dimensions and a vast number of people.
The family is the smallest unit in the kingdom of heaven. It serves as a training center and a study guide. It has all levels of people: grandparents, parents, husband and wife, and siblings. Each of these levels can be expanded to include people in the world at large who are of similar age. This expansion encompasses all humanity. Only a family that loves all humanity as much as it does its own members, in whom the parents live for the sake of the world as much as they do for their own sons and daughters, can inherit the kingdom of heaven. This is an amazing fact. The special right to inherit all the power and authority of heaven and earth created by God is derived from this.
The family is the textbook of love that lets us obtain the right to be registered in the palace of peace in the kingdom of heaven after we die. So the family is a training ground of love. The extension of this family is the world. This is a world that resembles the grandfather of the family, a world that resembles the grandmother, a world that resembles the father and mother, and a world that resembles the son and daughter. Expand the family, and you have the world.
So if you can love the people of the whole world as much as you love your family, as much as you love God with your family at the center, then this will become a straight road leading to the kingdom of heaven. This is why the first commandment is, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
The second is, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If you love God and love humanity, everything will be realized. If you cannot do this, any spiritual training you may have will be of no use. No matter how great a religious person’s spiritual discipline may be, that person will be unsuccessful if he or she does not know how to love God, humankind and the universe.
The family is meant to provide the formula course that trains us to experience love that encapsulates the whole universe, so we can go out and express that love to the whole world. The training ground you were meant to inherit, where you experience this kind of love, is the family where your mother and father raised you.
If you love your parents and your children more than you do your spouse, if you love all humanity and even God more than you do your spouse, everything will be realized. This doesn’t mean that you abandon your spouse. If you love everyone this way, everyone who has received your love will love your spouse. Is anything more glorious than this? If you want to love your spouse, this is how you do it.
Section 4. A textbook for the heavenly kingdom
What kind of good fortune does a person in the child’s position receive? They inherit the good fortune of the grandparents and parents. Why do we need grandparents? It is because they represent the past. Grandparents represent the living history of the past. Parents represent the present, and children symbolize the future. The family encompasses East and West and also North and South. It is the center of the whole. It is the center of the grandparents, the center of the parents, the center of the children and the center of God; in every case true love is the center. When you love your grandparents and respect them, you do this to inherit the past completely and to learn about the world gone by.
From your parents you learn about the present, and by loving your children you learn about the future. What do you inherit through your grandfather and grandmother, and father and mother? You inherit true love. You are saying: “Our grandfather and grandmother are old, and they are as one in true love, and our parents have become as one, too. So let’s be the same way and inherit the future.”
Unless we become an absolute true family, we cannot inherit the future. When we look at the three generations of a family, it is like looking at the universe. The love of the universe exists in a true family that represents the present and future. In the animal world as well, the male loves the female and the female the male. This is a textbook teaching us about the love of the universe.
If the grandmother is away, there is a feeling of uneasiness. The same is true when the grandfather is not there. It is the same for each of them. Only when both are together can they move just as they are into the kingdom of heaven. Only when the grandparents, father and mother, and children are all there can the family go into the kingdom of heaven. The person who has loved the true grandparents, the true parents, the true children, the true family, the true nation and the true universe can enter the kingdom of heaven. The model and textbook for the kingdom of heaven is the true family.
The family is a study guide that enables us to establish the kingdom of heaven. It is a textbook created by Heaven. No matter where you may be in the world, if you can love every old man you see, as you would love your own grandfather, you will go to the kingdom of heaven. If you can love everyone you meet of your parents’ generation just as you would love your own parents, you will be welcomed everywhere. It will be the same in any country. If you are like this you will face no boundaries, even when you go to the spirit world.
If you have a heart that thinks of all the young people of the world as your own sons and daughters, you will be able to travel freely within the kingdom of heaven, even if there are twelve gates of pearl and four directional quadrants. The family is a study guide that shows us how to connect ourselves to the kingdom of heaven. When we apply this to the nation, we become patriots. When we apply it to the world, we become saints. When we apply it with heaven and earth at the center, we become God’s sons and daughters; that is, His divine sons and daughters. This is a desire shared by every person.
You must be able to embrace the sons and daughters, as well as the grandsons and granddaughters, of all races. You must stand in a position where you, as a true parent with God’s true love, are the owner of a family who has loved all the world’s people. You can enter the kingdom of heaven only when you stand in a position to represent the standard of a family of true love, through a relationship with the original parents who have God’s true love at their center.
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