Sun Myung Moon
February 7, 1999
Cheon Seong Gyeong - Book 3: True Love - Chapter 2: Section 6.2
Photo date and location unknown
When you have come to know your parents, what do you have to do for them? You should carry out acts of filial piety and become a child of filial piety. Also, going beyond your parents, you should be a patriot in your nation, because your parents have had authority within the nation and the world. Before becoming a patriot, you should be a child of filial piety, and before becoming a child of filial piety, you should be a member of a family who can be proud of true brothers and sisters. "Family member" is a title that brings the right to sing the praises of your brothers and sisters. (30-220, 1970.3.23)
The reason a child of filial piety is precious is that he respects and serves his parents with unchanging love, whether in childhood, as an adult, or in old age. We call such a person a child of filial piety. (168- 161, 1987.9.20)
What do you have to do to be a child of filial piety? You must always align yourself with the direction of your parents' heart. The one who walks the path of filial piety does not do things separately from his parents. When his parents go east, he should also go east, and when they go west, he should also go west. There should be no question about it. Even if you are told to go a certain way and then to turn back ten times, you should again turn back and follow your parents. (62-32, 1972.9.10)
In your family you are asked to offer your filial duty, and this requires that you become a fellow traveler on the path of love your parents walk, centering on your parents. The parents' path of true love follows along with the heavenly principles. It is not just the parents standing by themselves, but there are invisible, vertical heavenly principles that are connected to them and work through them. Thus, exhorting you to be one with your parents is to ask you to go the way which connects the realms of heart of the vertical and horizontal history. This is the reason behind your fulfilling your duty of filial piety toward your parents. (136-203, 1985.12.29)
In the family, fulfilling one's filial duty toward one's parents is the responsibility of the sons and daughters. Why do you have to fulfill your filial duty? The path of filial piety is connected to the path of the patriot, like the sections in a bamboo shoot. What should patriots who faithfully serve their country do? They should walk the path of saints for the world. There has to be one straight line. From this viewpoint, if you have been unable to fulfill your filial duty yet have become a patriot in your country, your parents will not be able to say, "Ah, you have not fulfilled your filial duty toward me." They will say, "You have done so well." Even if you have not accomplished your filial duty and have abandoned your parents and left home, if you become a patriot in your nation, your mother and father – even though they may have died and gone to the spirit world – will praise you, saying, "You have done extremely well". (100-155, 1978.10.9)
What is a child of filial piety? It is the person, who in order to take responsibility for the parents' sorrow, seeks out the difficult places and fulfills his responsibility, thereby bringing joy to his parents. If the parents have done ten loads of work and the child has made effort to do fifteen loads, the parents will feel joy that corresponds to five loads. The one who makes effort serving the parents and thinking how to fulfill such a supplementary amount is a child of filial piety. (24-261, 1969.8.24)
What kind of parents are genuine parents? They are the parents who know no limits because they love their children eternally. Then, what kind of children are genuine children? Genuine children are the ones who reciprocate the love of their parents eternally with a loving heart overflowing with love. Such is the way of the genuine child of filial piety. (127-16, 1983.5.1)
What do you think God wants from His children? Is it for them to make a lot of money and become millionaires? Is it to be the president, holding the most power in the country? What God wanted from His son and daughter, Adam and Eve, was for them to grow up to be children of filial piety, patriots, saints, and divine sons and daughters. (299-117, 1999.2.7)
Have you ever thought to become a child of filial piety in the family, to become a patriot in the nation, to become a saint in the world, or to become a divine son or daughter before heaven and earth in accordance with God's own thinking? From the viewpoint of history, all the saints have been teaching about becoming children of filial piety, patriots, saints, and divine sons and daughters. (287-23, 1997.8.10)
When children have grown up in the tradition of love, do you think they could be indifferent if their parents wanted a divorce? Absolutely not. The children would all insist, "I am your child. I am the one in whom you are combined. For me, you have to make whatever negotiation is necessary, and you have to be great parents for me. I need you." We must make young people and parents awaken to the fact, that because of their children, parents have no right to divorce. (Blessed Family - 1009)