by Rev. Zin Moon Kim-Sao Paulo, Brazil
This is the Sunday Sermon given at the church HQ in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on January 5, 1997 translated from the Japanese by Rev. Hideo Oyamada.
What is the heart of children, brothers and sisters, husband and wife and parents? I don't intend to explain the Four Great Realms of Heart, but the content of the education of heart. We have four responsibilities centered on love. Because of irresponsible love there is so much confusion. People love without responsibility. Because there are Four Great Realms of Heart, then there are four areas of responsibility.
Even children, whom we normally think are not responsible, have their own realm of responsibility. As children begin to walk, their learning responsibility should also begin. Because the mother takes care of children, the husband does not know about this early development of responsibility so much.
What is the difference between humans and animals? Responsibility. Animals have none; humans have it. If children are taught responsibility at 3 years old, they will be responsible till 100. A Korean and Japanese proverb says that what is taught the first three years will make a difference for ones whole life. After 12 years in America, I can see there are so many problems between husband and wife and within the family. Children are like a toy for parents; parents care for their children during the day, then they set them aside and are by themselves at night. In the Bible God first gave man responsibility, then freedom. In the Garden of Eden he first commanded them, "Don't eat." Later they were to have been given the freedom to eat. If a child is not given responsibility early on, then his or her reason will not develop. In the four areas of responsibility, that of children is the most important. Second is that of brothers and sisters. Then there is conjugal and parental responsibility.
The theme of this sermon is the content of education. Based on these four areas of responsibility, there are four types of education. The education of children is the curriculum of elementary school. The education in the responsibility of brothers and sisters is the curriculum of junior high and high school. Education of husband and wife's responsibility is the content of university education. Finally, education of the parents' responsibility is the content of adult education.
The irony in speaking about the content of education is that today the more educated people are those who cause the most problems. The less educated people don't know how to make problems as well as educated people do. For example, a person may kill another person. He then can be put in jail or hanged. But if Saddam Hussein and an American or other president, who are highly educated, fight and kill thousands of people, no one puts them in jail. Their education has given them the capacity to commit much greater crimes than less educated people, but they often escape any punishment at all.
So the content of education is a big problem: so often it is just about how to make money. Developing ones humanity should be the primary point of education, but making money, in reality, is the main point. If the child needs money, he can kill his parents and take the money. In human life, however, there are things that are more important than making money. If people focus on making money, then social problems will continue. I have been in America 12 years, in Africa five years, in Europe one
year and in Japan for two years. My experience is that America emphasizes making money too much and therefore has many problems. An FBI report on crime in America reveals how serious the problems in American society are. The two main problems in America are money and freedom. Why aren't there more blessing candidates in America than in Africa? Africans have no money and no choice. Americans have so much money and freedom without responsibility, so they have many problems and few blessing candidates.
A certain African family which immigrated from Africa to North Carolina aptly illustrates this problem of freedom without responsibility. The father was 67 years old. He graduated from Cambridge University in England, one of the top universities in the world. He had eight wives and 25 children. Not long after his arrival in America he was interviewed by the media. The interviewer asked him, "Is it not difficult to live with eight wives? Isn't it difficult to control them?"
"Before I answer, I want to ask you something," the African gentleman said. "If you answer well, then I will answer you. During my 67 years I have had only eight wives. Other then them I have had no other sexual relationships. I have only relationships with these eight women. How many women have you connected with?" The journalist estimated he had had sexual contact with some 80 women. "You have (sexually) connected with more than 80 women, but you have no responsibility for them. I have always been responsible for my eight wives. Who is worse, you or I?" The interviewer could say nothing because he was conscience stricken. People so easily seduce wives and leave the children and wives to fend for themselves. One sister, a 31- year-old church member, confessed a problem to me. She wanted to be a candidate for blessing, but she had been married three times. She had six children from and three ex-husbands from those marriages. I was angry with her and shouted. "To educate six children well is your responsibility. What kind of man can love you, such a woman?! If a man were to love you, it would only be a night job!"
So, the content of education is a problem. As it is now, it doesn't teach life for the sake of others. Some of our members are upset if they don't go to school, but leave school is not a problem; the problem is not to go to church. That is a serious problem. One of the most famous universities is Seoul University. Almost all the big criminals in Korea graduated from Seoul University. The same is true of American criminals; many of them went to Harvard or Yale. The most educated people are the biggest problem makers. So, education, as it is, is a major problem. It is far from ideal.
Now I want to explain what the content of the four kinds of education should be.
I. Elementary School: Education in Children's Love
The content of the elementary school curriculum should be education of heart. Especially children must be united with parents centered on parental love. They should be educated to understand the four types of love. That is vertical education along the axis of parental love. The parents have already experienced all types of love. They already understand this realm step by step. I will discuss the content of an ideal curriculum from elementary school through university and adult education.
Elementary education in Children's love should include four main points:
1. Children should be educated to be able to feel all kinds of love when they become one with their vertical parents.
2. Children should learn how to connect to higher positions: elders, parents. The family is bigger than the individual. They must be taught to connect to the higher realm.
3. They should learn to love not only oneself, but other people. Especially the must learn love for elders.
4. Finally, the should learn that the family is the foundation and base of the society. The family is the most important institution.
Current elementary school texts contain nothing about these four points.
II. Junior High and High School: Education in Fraternal Love
Junior high and high school should teach love of brothers and sisters. The content of their education should be:
1. How to embrace all of humanity. That is critically important. All students of junior high and high school should learn to think in terms of all humanity.
2. Horizontal love. I am a representative or microcosm of the whole world or global society.
3. Life for the sake of others. That is the most important content of the curriculum at this level.
At the 40-day workshop in Chung Pyung Rev. Kim experienced how a deficiency of education in life for the sake of others seriously affected the workshop experience of several otherwise very capable second-generation participants. They were students at top universities. In the beginning of the workshop, they seemed to be having a good experience, but within a week, they were having a hard time, feeling down about the workshop. I felt some strange feelings from them. They clearly did not know how to live for the sake of others, and this was seriously affecting their workshop experience. They knew how to receive from parents; they didn't know how to give. Theirs was an individualistic life style. Because their parents did not teach their children to live for the sake of others, they do not have the standard of living for others.
Daemonim took bad spirits (along with their bad habits and customs) away from workshop participants and sent them to Heung Jin Nim. So, after a short time at the workshop there a tense atmosphere developed. Among the trainees, the self-centered people, especially these second generation participants, were attacked by bad spirits. The spirits were looking for a chance to invade or to maintain their abode in their host. Finally, the attacks became so strong, because of the poor conditions established by some participants, that they were advised to leave the workshop so that they not become even more evil. Among those asked to leave were these second generation members. You must teach blessed children to live for the sake of others. This is a big problem and challenge.
In Sutaekri training center in South Korea True Father spoke with some 5th or 6th grade elementary school children. "Did you do pledge service every Sunday?" he asked them. Only about 16 children raised their hands. They were honest, as they usually are at this age.
Father did not accuse the children because he knew this was the fruit of their parents inadequate standard and training. Babies are so cute, but they become bad because of their father and mother, especially of their mother. True Father advised the children to have pledge service every Sunday. Some children raised hands and told Father, "I want to do Pledge Service on Sunday, but my parents never wake up on time."
Father smiled, but he was angry inside.
Life for the sake of others is the most important content of junior high and high school education. These children will soon be spouses. They will soon be a candidate for the Blessing. After high school they are the age of marriage. But among our blessed children there are so many problems. Such children are not well prepared for the Blessing because the parents did not educate them properly. We ourselves never learned such content in high school.
III. University: Education in Conjugal Love
The curriculum of University education should focus on how to love husband or wife. It should include these points:
1. Unity between husband and wife. That is unity between heaven and earth. We should teach that marriage does not have a single meaning, that is, of a single man and woman coming together for their own sakes. It is also the marriage of heaven and earth, of macrocosm and microcosm.
2. The vertical axis of love.
3. The horizontal base for receiving this vertical love.
Usually True Father teaches us that the foundation of unity between husband and wife is not just external, but that they should be united on the foundation of God's love. If the husband has a nice job, he can forget God and True Parents. His love, then, becomes purely horizontal, and he is a heartistic thief.
IV. Adult Education School: Parental Love
(Pointing to one sister) She has been embracing her baby during the whole service until now. Who gave her the baby? (God did.) That is easy to forget. We should always say, "Thank you, God." If you embrace your baby, you feel so good. But I have to check myself whether I am a spiritual thief. First say, "Thank you, God and True Parents," Before doing our job also we must express such gratitude. Then Heavenly Father will always be beside us.
The content of the curriculum of adult education should focus on parental heart, the love of parents for children. There are two main aspects of the education of parental love: 1. Parents have already passed through children's, brothers and sisters' and husband and wife's love. Parental love includes the other three, so it is all- inclusive and can be united with God's love. Parents become the substantial embodiment of God's love, God the creator. Such a person should clearly understand we are second God. We have dominion within our family. That is a kind of love. We should emphasize that the whole family should become the realization of God's ideal of creation. There is, therefore, a great deal to learn about the education of parents. 2. The first blessed family in a tribe becomes the center of the tribe. If that family fulfills its responsibility fully, it will be able to possess the kingship.
Leaders should write this sermon down and educate the members. This is not the Catholic church. Here we learn and educate our children. After my sermon I will examine you. The Unification Church is not a church where we can afford to learn and forget. We learn and then teach what we have learned.
If we go to spiritual world without these four kinds of education, this is a big problem. Especially we want to ask the husband: "Did you love only your young and beautiful wife, or did you love her at every stage of her life?" If his wife was educated in all the four realms of
heart, then she will always be young and beautiful in the spiritual world. A husband who has been educated in all the four realms of heart can see both the young face of his wife and the old face of his wife.
True Father said the first generation was going to hell. What is the content of hell? The fire-and-brimstone image of hell is symbolic. The real content of hell is that there we cannot do what we want to do. Centered on the four heartistic realms, maybe Rev. Kim will go to hell! What is the criterion or standard centered on heart, that is, the dividing line between heaven and hell? If we were not educated centered on heartistic love, then we automatically go to hell. Buddhism says hell is fire and snakes. That is a kind of textbook for not being an evil man; that is hell on an intellectual level. It is a very symbolic education.
We must ask how we educated our children in the four great realms of heart to prepare to go to heaven. The education of the Unification Church is 100,000 times better than secular education.
One 430 couple husband was proud that his child was going to Harvard. But he never visited the church. For him Harvard is absolute! Rev. Kim felt very short tempered with him for this attitude and shouted at him: "Your children never visit the Unification Church. You should be ashamed. Your children should learn Divine Principle well and practice it in daily life. That is what is absolute!"