Blessing and Ideal Family Part 2

by Rev. Sun Myung Moon

6) The Tough Discipline of Love

Revelation in the Bible says that we should be hot or cold, not lukewarm.

The lukewarm attitude counts for nothing in the world of love. It is permissible to hold a whip if you have a loving heart. If the children neglect the love given by the parents, the parents may have to be cold to them. If children don't get scolded even when they misbehave, they lose any sense of distinction between good and evil. Father looks kind but in a way he is very tough. Father is very cruel toward evil, but very hot like a blast furnace of several thousand degrees toward goodness.

When Father heard that teachers have been sent to jail for spanking students, he knew that America is perishing. For the sake of gaining a good direction, students should willingly ask their teachers to punish them if necessary. Do you complain when you are hit by Father? Would you complain of being hit by Father, saying, "Being a Unification Church member already makes me feel pent up"?

A Korean proverb says, "Give one extra bowl of rice to the difficult person and hold a whip to the beloved one." Such is inevitable if one wishes to inherit the right tradition. You should be able to shed tears of gratitude for parental love, forgetting the pain.

Even a whip is precious for love. Anything accomplished in love is precious, even punishment or suffering. Love doesn't include only pleasant feelings.

Parents who let their children stop studying whenever they are tired are not true parents of true love. They should even spank the children to continue studying because they are concerned about their future well-being. Parents set their hopes on the future of their children.

It is goodness and love to hit children or close friends when they want to go in the wrong direction. By knowing this principle, everything should be included within the standard of goodness.


You are to give birth to children and rear them with true love. Then the family becomes one and if you love the nation centering upon the family, you will be called a patriot. Parents from time to time enforce discipline in order to educate their children to go the right way, so children shouldn't be dissatisfied or rebellious against their parents when they are spanked. They should reflect on their wrong behavior and endeavor to correct it. Such a person will grow righteously and will move closer to the center where God dwells.


I once scolded a certain person, who shed tears during the scolding. He still remains in my memory. I should check if he cries during a second and third scolding. And if he cries the fourth time, I will realize that I cannot scold him any more. The way of indemnity is like that. It is not the feeling of hate that makes parents scold children; deep love makes them spank children.

Can children curse the parents who weep loudly after spanking them? True love has the value of moving harmoniously in two directions. True love wants to die again and again. Even though you shout at your wife, she responds obediently. Who else will do that? If you scold a neighbor lady, she will definitely be angry. If you are deeply interested in and love a certain person, you can scold that person without feeling guilt.

The closer you are to a person, the more you scold that person. If a neighbor boy makes mistakes, you may pretend not to notice it; but if your son makes the same mistakes, you will chastise and spank him harshly. To hit a person out of deep concern is to love, but to hit a person without any concern is to commit sin. If you hit a person more than the degree of your concern about him or her. you will become that person's enemy-the worst of all enemies.


If you pour out continuous love toward your son, even though he is a rascal and even though he rejects it, he will ultimately return and repent. But if you scold a son three times and then boast how well you reared him, he will pack and leave right away. Then when you treat him with a greater love, shedding tears, he will come back. A greater love has the motive power to digest a smaller love and to make unity.

In the Korean War, I saw the following scene. A mother was carrying her five-year-old boy on her back, and the little child was singing, not knowing that they were taking refuge because of the war. On the way the mother got exhausted and powerless, and she let him walk. But the child was protesting, saying, "If you don't carry me on your back, I won't move." What should a loving parent do in this situation? The correct emotion and desire is to carry the child on her back. But in this case if she had tried to carry him, both of them would have died. Then she correctly let the child walk, even slapping his cheek and using threats, in order to reach safe refuge.

If you were the parent, what would you do? Would you abandon the son, kill the son, or bring the son by force? You should take the child with you to safety, even if you have to tear off his ear or pierce his nose.

That is true love. After safely arriving at the refuge, the child will appreciate his mother. If he complains of his ear having been torn off, worrying how he will get married with such an ear, he deserves to die by being hit by lightning. The torn ear should symbolize the greatness and dreadfulness of her parental love. You may think that Father allows you to eat, but otherwise just wants you to suffer. In assigning your work, I don't have sympathy, but once we live together, you will be filled with springtime love for Father.

Father should lead you to work even by piercing your nose. I should drive you out by kicking or hitting you. This is the righteous method. We have to even hit the grandfathers and grandmothers to force them to go forward. That's our mission.

We have to do that in order to enter the realm in which we receive God's utmost love. We are to go over the standard of past religions and completely devote ourselves to the establishment of God's nation, more than the people of any other organization, in order to occupy all of God's unaccomplished love. That's why this is a legitimate method and strategy. If you fail while trying this way, you can take revenge on me. I haven't perished by living such a way.

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