Raising Children in God's Will

by Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Section 5. The Reason Parents Love Their Children

1. In Order to Inherit the Right of Creation from God

If Adam and Eve had not fallen, where would they have been? They would have been in the place to be able to get God's blessing, namely in the place for God to wish them blessing. The love of God, the blessing of God, is the most valuable one among all the blessings. What is the next blessing to them? It is the blessing for us to inherit the right of creation from God.

After God created Adam and Eve, He felt happiness. Just as God did, so the human beings can inherit the right of creation and be happy at their creations. What makes you love your children? Why can't you help loving your children? It is because we inherited God's great work of creation on the horizontal level of substance. So we feel the same happiness as God does. Thus, we inherit God's right of creation and God's love. (76-45)

2. Because Man is Within the Range of a Vertical Love

Man is destined to be born because of love, to live by love, and to go back to his father for love. Now that man originated from the seed of his father, the seed of love, man has to put forth his branches to the world, making lots of relationships with others, and then harvest the seed of love. This is all that man ought to do on this earth. The seed of love is filled with every element of love for wife, parents, children and Heaven. Man lives as the seed lives.

Man whose life is given by God is to harvest such an outcome on this earth as the seed lives its life. Then, man will be reaped by God. What makes parents love their children in this world? Why should parents sacrificially love their children more than the children do? It is because parents are in the vertical range of love and because both parents and the children are vertically connected to each other. It is natural that even animals should sacrifice their lives for the sake of their young.

What makes them do so? It is for them to establish and connect a vertical relationship of love. Man has to build the vertical relationship of love even at the cost of his life, which is in a horizontal position. In the same manner, those historical functions are working in the world of all things and animals, not to mention of in that of human beings. A husband and wife are in a horizontal relationship with each other. However, because love is originally vertical, they also need to love vertically. In order for them to do so, they are required to love God more than they love their partner. Why should they do so?

Love is vertical, while husband and wife's love is horizontal. So if they keep loving each other, they make the horizontal relationship with each other. In the same way, parents should love their children more than they love their partner. Then, they can make a vertical love. If they don't do so, it's impossible for them to make the vertical love. So it is said that you should "love your sons and daughters as you love God" (speaking while writing). Centering on the parents and God, a family, clan, race, nation and world will be connected to one another. Do you understand? [Yes] (130-163)

3. In Order to Reach a Greater Standard and Goal of Life

Man can't make a relationship by himself. The word, relationship, can make sense, only when there is a condition, which means a relative object. The relative condition means the condition that both subject and object make a mutual relationship with each other. In order for a subject and an object partner to establish a mutual relationship, they should have something in common. Without it, they can't make it.

When you want something, you surely want something better than what you have at the moment. So both a subject and an object are going forward together, pursuing something better in common. We can't speak of a relative condition without speaking of a subject and an object. And they are giving and receiving each other. In giving and receiving, giving is more valuable than receiving. They are doing so for they have some greater purpose. Nobody gives or receives something that damages himself.

The reason that parents love their children is not because parents want some reward for doing so, but because they want to love the children on a higher spiritual level in every way. Then, what is the purpose for parents to love their children? They love their children not because they expect anything in reward for doing so, but because they hope to reach a greater standard and goal of life.

For this reason, parents not only love their children but also they hope that their children will be someone who is needed by the people, the nation, the world and a greater being, as well as by the parents themselves. Parents do not love their children for the sake of the parents themselves but for the sake of something greater. That is parents' love toward their children. (49-180)

4. Because the Children are a Reflection of Parents

Who are son and daughter? They are born and involved in their parents' love so that they are like one body with their parents. It means that your life and your parents' life are mingled with love. Why can't parents help loving their children at the sacrifice of themselves? It is because the children are a reflection of the parents themselves. The children are the resultant substance of their love, the incarnation of their love. The children show themselves as evidence of the parents' substantial union of love. A baby seems to reflect God, his wife... The more often one sees one's baby, the more mysterious the baby seems to be. Mysterious. That is love. So can you dare to be unfilial to your parents? Can you be separated from your parents? [No] (106-80)


Why do children miss their parents? It is because they are the home of love. On the contrary, why do parents miss their children? It is also because they are the home of love. Because of the home of perfect love. (137-141)

5. In Order to Exist

When we look around the world of all things, we can find that plants or animals are composed of relative relationships. It means that they are made up of mate and female elements which look different. So is a tree. There are male and female aspects in all trees. There are male and female aspects in each flower. In the same principle, without any exception, the relative relationship will exist in the world of mammals, birds, animals and even human beings.

Then, why should they have such a relative relationship? [In order for them to give and receive true love] Why do you need it in giving and receiving True Love? Why do you need a partner? Nobody has known such a simple fact yet. People speak of a give-and take action, a principle, a harmony etc. ... but don't know about the most simple and important point. What is that? The point is for them to exist, to survive and to connect history.

But for such a relative relationship, there wouldn't be the worlds of plant, animal and human beings. There would be nothing at all. One ought to leave a seed, especially, a good seed. Then, how can we leave a good seed? We can say that one needs a good seed and a good fiancée. When you ask all men, what will their answer be like? They all will make the same answer, "I want a good fiancée." Why? It is because they want to leave a better seed. That's why one needs a good partner. That's the conclusion. Do you agree with me? Probably you have never thought of it until I told you this. From this point of view, when you are asked what the purpose of God creating Adam and Eve is, what answer can you make? Do you answer, "In order to make them love each other and make them a couple," or do you answer, "In order to leave a good seed"? Which?

For what do you love someone or something? [Happiness] What is the result of love? It is the children. Then, what are the children? The children are the beings to continue to exist. In other words, it is the resultant being that ought to exist. Then, why do you need a fiancée?

You may think in your mind that it is because of love. That may be right. But what is on a higher level than that? It is children. The result of love is children. Parents cannot but love their children. Why is this? It is just because their children are resulted from the love with their fiancée. This is how the theory goes. (118-285)

6. Because Love Is Involved There

What do men like best? That is the most important question in human history. People on the whole most likely want something related to themselves to be the best. They want their family, nation and world to be the best one. Then, what is the most proper way of thinking? It is the way to think in the other's shoes. That's a relative concept. One can't escape from the relative relationship.

From this point of view, what is the best in a family? It is not money, knowledge or power but parents. What is next to your parents? It is your lovely husband and wife, and finally your children. Then, why do you think parents, husband and wife, children are good? It is because love is involved in each part. In other words, there are a parental love which is essential to the children, and a conjugal love which is essential to the husband and wife as well as brotherhood love and children's filial heart to parents. (112-290)


Speaking of iron, just as a type of iron which has more magnetic elements is stronger in a magnetic force, so you feel a different extent of feeling according to the depth of relationship. So, it is natural that the same brethren are inclined to feel more intimate and love. It is because of the historically close relationship by which they are bound together. Why do mothers and fathers love their children? It is because the children originate from their parents. Therefore, if the characters of parents were taken out of their children, there would be nothing of their own characters left. Whether it is a son or daughter, he or she stems from the parents. One is born, taking after the character of one's parents. Without his or her parents' characters, a child will become a being who has neither nature nor relationships. (50-264)

7. Because One Was Born to Testify to Love

Why was I born? Why was I born as a man or a woman? Were you born to eat? [No] If so, how sad it is. Were you born to study in the school? What a headache that would be. However, when you say, "I was born to love," you will surely move everybody. Repeatedly, the question is what made you be born. Love is the motive for your birth. You were born by the motive of love as a resultant being of love. Is that right?

Thus, man is to be born and to be loved by his mother and father. Then, why do your mother and father love you? Why do even birds or animals love their young? It is because they all were born as testifiers to love. In other words, all of them originated from love. To deny one's cause and effect is the same as denying all things in heaven and on earth. Man is not allowed to do so. Namely man is destined to follow the way of love so that man can't help loving his sons and daughters. Do you understand what I am saying? [Yes] That is love for the sake of love itself. That's why a mother and father live while loving each other. It is good thing that your mother and father live, being in ecstasy of love. It will be very happy for children that they live, filled with their parents' love.

But, what about American children? Actually, many of them insist that they do not need their parents. Then, what does that mean? To put it in another way, it means they have lost their family, which is the foundation and nest of love. (104-19)


Why do you think your son and daughter are important? Do you know why you want to love them even at the cost of your life? It is because your son and daughter are the beings who show up in your family on behalf of heaven and earth. For this reason, where is the place that God wishes to go and wants to live in? It is the family. Thus, God has been eager to live in the family together with His sons and daughters. (8-107)

8. Because of God

Moral principles teach people to love their parents, to love their husband and wife, and to love their children. Why do you have to love your parents, husband or wife, and children? Have you ever thought of this? Man has lost the Master who is in charge of love. God talks about an endless love. God also says that love will remain forever. This love is God's love. You should know the reason and purpose why you miss someone or something. You love someone or something because of God, not because of yourself. Look at the one who loves others because of himself! See where he goes, after he dies. (8-105)

 Download entire page and pages related to it in ZIP format
Table of Contents
Information
Tparents Home