by Cheryl Roth-Orlando, FL
We understand through studying the Principle that subject means initiative and object means responsive, and there is a reciprocal relationship. But what do you really believe? What evidence is there in your life to show that you understand the value of subject and object?
Historically there has been a lot of misunderstanding and pain centered on this point. Since the fall of man, humans were left with an incomplete and immature understanding of the ultimate subject/object relationship, which is God and His whole creation. Therefore, all of our relationships have been based on misunderstanding. This has widespread and deep implications.
Part of the problem has to do with our understanding and application of words. In this article I want to focus on the value of primary and secondary, vertical and horizontal. Sometimes we have associated words improperly, and sometimes we simply have a post-fall understanding rather than knowing God's original heart.
What does primary and secondary mean? We often associate numbers with values. "You are number one" means that you are the best or most important. Winning first prize is the highest honor in a contest. Many of us make this kind of association between subject and object; however, this is a very wrong concept. There are often times when "first" does not mean "better" or "best" or "more important."
Let's think of another application of these words, such as in primary school and secondary school. Here "primary" means basic and fundamental. "Secondary" means more advanced, more developed.
Think about it for a moment in relation to God and the whole cosmos. God contains the fundamental, basic, primary components of subject/object, internal/external, masculine/feminine, completely harmonized within Himself. Father said that God created to complete Himself. So He created the spiritual world and the physical world in all its vast array and complexity, giving it the potential to multiply and develop endlessly. Every generation of sons and daughters has the potential to be greater than the one before. Father has told us that God desires for His children to be even better than Himself. So "object"-in the secondary position-can mean "more advanced, more developed"!
We have to change our concepts. We are influenced-conditioned-by our fallen ancestry and history. Even the greatest religions until now- even the Unification Church-could not completely separate from the fallen mind, which does not know the original ideal.
We were pushed to believe that horizontal was bad and vertical was good. This kind of thinking might have seemed useful to reverse the fall because we were immature. Now that we are in the Completed Testament Age, we can understand that humans are the divine horizontal manifestation and multiplication of the divine vertical Being.
Christianity didn't fulfill as the bride of the Messiah, so its internal growth was stunted. The Unification Church was created to fulfill the uncompleted mission of Christianity, and Father has painstakingly been trying to raise up to understand the true value of the object position. However, some of what is necessary during the course of restoration is different from what we need to establish in the Kingdom of Heaven. Now that Mother has totally restored the true object position, we can all come to understand our value more deeply. Father said man is subject because man contains the seed of life. What is man going to do with that seed by himself? Nothing-no fulfillment. God created woman to complete man in the same way He created everything to complete Himself. Subject and object are attracted to each other for the purpose of existence, development and multiplication. Regardless what position you started in, once a relationship is established, the positions will constantly be exchanged. Only when one position is less mature does the other have to constantly give and sacrifice more.
Man is not whole without woman-woman is not whole without man. God is not whole without His creation. Each part contains the balancing components the other needs to fulfill itself. Everything is meant to be part of one organic whole with God as the central heartbeat and motivator. how much do we act like we are part of the body of God?
The first relationships began in a state of separation from knowing the true value of subject and object. We were born and matured through the ideology of separation. Now we must reeducate ourselves with the ideology of wholeness.
God, like man, has the seed: the ideal filled with energy and motivation to fulfill its potential. His creation, like woman, has the womb and the egg to complete, nurture and develop the potential to its fulfillment. The result of the give and take between God and His object (the cosmos) is the creation of a new being with unlimited potential-the Kingdom of Heaven. The development of goodness, beauty, love and joy is endless.
If you feel your object is less important or less valuable than yourself, you have limited the potential love, goodness and joy that can be multiplied in your relationship. If you treat your body as though it has less value than your mind, it may rebel and make difficulty for your mind to fulfill its potential. If you treat your children as though they have less value than yourself, they will have self-esteem problems and difficulty to experience the love of God.
If you have loving parents who sacrifice themselves for you, and you become smarter, richer and more powerful than they, will you forget them? No matter how great you become, you would feel it was because of them; all your potential came from them and their love. They would always hold the most special place in your heart; and they would feel so much more joy and pride because you became smarter, richer and more powerful than they.
Father has sometimes said that women are closer to God because they were created as objective beings-and therefore they can understand the value of the object position more easily than men. Why does Father often criticize American women for being too subjective? Because Father wants them to learn how much power and influence they have from the object position. He wants them to find their true value. In the past century, women have been trying to focus their value on their subjective character traits, because there has been no true model or understanding of the object's value.
Why do you think Father has been pushing Mother so hard these past few years? Do you think he might want Mother to be as great as or even greater than himself? I think Father knows his own value; therefore, he would not feel insecure if Mother or the children went on to accomplish something more than himself. Man can be secure in his position as subject to woman only when he understands his value as an object of God, thereby understanding the true value of man's object: woman. Each of us contains many subject and object attributes in our character beyond being just man and woman. Some men are soft and gentle by nature and some women are naturally strong and aggressive. If men would give value to the feminine aspects of their own character, it would free them of a lot of false ideas and help them love their wives more. Both men and women must find themselves first as a child of God and be free to express that through their many subject and object attributes.
Regardless of whether you are a man or a woman, you are a subjective being in that you were created as an individual truth body. The triple objective purpose is that as subject of your own realm, you make God your first object, your spouse your second object, and your descendants your third object. Objects of love. Subject is the initiator of true love.
The subject position has its unique value. The object position has its unique value. Each is different but one can not exist without the other; therefore, their value is equal. Only through understanding our incredible value as an object of God, and our incredible value as a subjective being in our own realm can we really fulfill our true potential.
We have to understand subject and object as complementary rather than greater and lesser in order to love God fully and love each other fully. This kind of thinking does not devalue God, the Messiah or men; it only liberates us all to fulfill our greatest potential together. There are many spiritual people who understand some of this already without having studied the Principle. We must open our hearts and minds to see and live the original ideal of God. The Completed Testament Age is the time to establish the ideal.