Early Day Internal Guidance
Excerpts from the sermon given at the morning service on August 1, 1991, at Belvedere. Rev. Zin Moon Kim National Messiah to Antigua and Barbuda, ascended to the spirit world on March 3, 2016 (1.25 by the heavenly calendar). Rev. Kim and his wife Pak Gwi-ok were blessed as one of the 430 Couples in 1968.
by Rev. Zin Moon Kim
Part 1
Many of us parents don’t know that parents are the first teachers of human beings, and the home is the first school of human beings. We don’t realize that. Therefore, at home, children suffer internally and spiritually. Parents don’t realize they are suffering. These concepts (of parents as first teachers and home as first school) have been neglected by parents throughout history. This is a problem. When children are around six or seven years of age, they start school. School is another problem. School is the second home of human beings and teachers are the second parents of human beings, but these concepts also have been neglected by schools throughout history.
Children go to school, and they suffer internally and spiritually there. This fallen world is very bad for children. Wherever they go, whether at home or at school, they are neglected from the internal and spiritual point of view. They don’t receive guidance about how to grow up as a real person. The older he or she becomes, the worse person he or she becomes.
Jesus said that children can go to the heavenly kingdom. Why did he say that? Because as we get older, we get worse and worse. We learn to cheat, we develop a very cunning attitude, we become fake, and we lose our innocence.
Each one of us should evaluate our own self. We are much less innocent than our children. Me too. The ideology of education is wrong in this fallen world. At home, all parents, including me, should think we are the first parents of our children and the first teacher of our children. Most of us do our parental mission fifty or sixty percent, but almost ninety-nine percent of us don’t fulfill the mission of teachers to our children. So, our children become strange while growing up.
Responsibility
Parents need to teach their children responsibility. The quicker the better. A small baby needs small responsibilities, and big children need bigger responsibilities. We can evaluate our children; how much do they feel their responsibility as human beings, as a member of the family, as a member of this country, and as a member of this world? We can evaluate. I think they feel almost nothing. This is a problem. When these kinds of children grow up and marry, then their spouses will suffer very much. If both are the same kind of person, they will fight all the time and eventually get divorced.
God first taught human beings responsibility, not freedom, as we can see in the book of Genesis. God told them, “Don’t eat the fruit.” This was the first responsibility which God gave to human beings. We must also teach children responsibility first. Actually, God never taught the first human beings about free-dom. It’s instinctual to feel freedom, it’s not necessary to be taught, but responsibility is different. We need to teach responsibility to our children all the time. Korean schools are serious about teaching responsibility. They never try to give freedom, to the point where sometimes children suffer with too much responsibility.
One American educator evaluated the American education system and ideology. He thought the situation was very grim, so he visited Germany and Japan. He wanted to see what kind of ideology of education existed in those countries. When he returned, he released his result in a TV broadcast. Surprisingly, he said the Japanese system of education is A minus, Germany is B plus, and America is B minus. Now we can understand.
An American educator said the American education system is not good. I didn’t say these things, an American said them. He is a very honest person. He is truly an American patriot because he is so concerned about the education system. American schools don’t teach students so much about taking responsibility for their country. This is a problem.
We Unification Church parents should try to teach responsibility to our children all the time. We don’t need to just follow our children’s desires. If we accept the desires of our children all the time, what kind of children will they become? We must think about that. Just saying, “Oh honey!” causes big problems. If Mommy is soft, Daddy should be strict. If Mommy is strict, then Daddy needs to be soft. By my evaluation, it’s not one hundred percent, but in many cases, both parents are soft to the children. Do you know that strictness is also a kind of love? If we read Unification Thought, we can find this point.
Education
We have a problem with education in the fallen world because we don’t know the purpose of education. What is the purpose of education? Externally, a quick answer may be “to make money.” Many times, parents send their children to universities so they can directly or indirectly learn to make money. They are making their children slaves to money. So people have already become slaves to money. They fight and cheat each other all because of money. They even kill each other over money. This means that education makes human beings slaves to money. No one likes the word “slave.” But even some of us are slaves to money. This is really a problem.
We need to know the purpose of education. When we read the Bible, we can find the answer in Genesis. It means education starts from Genesis. God gave three great blessings. Everybody knows the passage, Genesis 1:28. The Blessing is given to make human beings happy. The purpose of education is to make human beings happy by enabling them to accomplish the three great blessings.
The first blessing is to have a perfect personality. To have a perfect personality we need to know the cause of human beings. What and who is the cause? What is the purpose or reason why this Cause was created? For what kind of heartistic purpose did He create human beings? If we find the answers to these three questions and then live based on those answers, then we can achieve a perfect personality. No school in this world teaches these things. Some schools look like they are trying to teach this, but they achieve less than one percent. Only the Unification Church is teaching this. The Unification Church is a real school.
Many parents think their children must not be absent from school. They allow them to be absent from church, but they must not be absent from school. Many parents have this kind of idea. I am pushing my children very much to participate in church gatherings. I tell them, “You can be absent from school, but you can never be absent from church gatherings. Please don’t miss any kind of church gathering. You must participate in them because the church teaches righteous things. The school teaches only how to make money, directly or indirectly.”
Roughly speaking, maybe the Ph.D. side teaches this indirectly, and the other fields like chemistry, physics or engineering directly teach how to make money. A heart makes money, money doesn’t make a heart.
I worked in business for five years. Many times, I was thinking about my salary and how to increase it. But when I came back to the church, I had no salary. I never think about it, I am very free. At Unification Church national headquarters, they received a small supporting salary, but this month it was cut. They were told to go fundraising on Friday and Saturday and from that they can survive. All the rest of the church is doing this. I think they are suffering now because they are accustomed to receiving money. I must change the attitude there. In a sense, they will dislike me very much. But I never take even one cent from HSA Headquarters.
To perfect their personalities, our children must understand who and what God is. If we don’t teach this to our children, our children will be animal-like and become slaves to money. No parent wants that.
To make a perfect family means to make a perfect organization. The family unit is the smallest organization. A good family member can be a good member of a company and a good citizen of the country.
To make a perfect family, the family members should know the position he or she has within the family. According to the position, each person’s mission is different. By enabling a child to understand his or her position and mission within the family, you enable them to be a perfect member of the family and eventually of any organization. Many of us don’t know our position within the family, so we can’t understand what kind of mission we have.
Human beings can have many kinds of positions, depending on time and space. Here, you are in the position of receiver. My position is that of a giver. My mission is to carefully give a speech for you to understand. Your mission is to carefully receive it and to practice it in your daily life. So depending on the position, the mission is different. Some so-called elder members sit down far away and as the lecturer writes the title, “The Fall of Man,” they are already evaluating, thinking, “I know he will say this, this and this.” They are neglecting their position and their mission. Then no good atmosphere is being created.
In-Laws
I’ll give one example. When a lady marries a man, by Western tradition she must change even her family name. It means she does not belong to her former family. She must belong to her husband’s family. She needs to go to her husband’s side. Then suddenly she has three different positions. Her first position is the daughter-in-law position to her parents-in-law.
The second position is the wife’s position to her husband, and the third is the mother’s position to the children. Because of those positions, she should be doing three missions. She needs to serve her parents-in-law, serve her husband, and take care of the babies; three missions. What is the first mission? Serving parents is the first mission. Almost all of us are neglecting that. So, we can’t make an ideal family. Our family will always have some unhappy things happening. If we don’t try to make a good heavenly relationship between ourselves and our parents-in-law, our children will have problems.
I even ask myself, “Reverend Kim, how can you make such a conclusion?” But there is evidence. Some American professors tried to find out why there is so much juvenile delinquency in this country. Their conclusion was that most of these children lack grandparents’ love. Anyone who is full of grandparents’ love usually won’t become a juvenile delinquent. If Mommy and Daddy don’t respect and serve their father-in-law and mother-in-law or father and mother, then the children can’t have the chance to enjoy being with their grandparents and they are apt to develop emotional problems.
Children’s problems are caused by parents. So, the wife must do her first mission, which is to serve her parents-in-law. Second, she must serve her husband, and third, serve her children. This is the order. If we disturb this order or if we neglect one or two of them, then we cause problems. We have many kinds of problems because we don’t do these kinds of missions clearly. Human beings have an exact position in time, space, and circumstance. So, each human being should be able to discern their position quickly and do the appropriate mission according to his or her position. Then he or she can become a good member of any organization. This kind of education cannot be found in schools. Only the Unification Church teaches this.
Dominion over matter
The next point concerns dominion over all things. The first and second points should be the foundation for the third point. The third point is quite well practiced in schools today. It concerns mainly how to make money. It’s physical, visible, sensual, or external. Through raw materials, we can make money and enjoy ourselves. Or we can look at a puppy and enjoy that. All those things come under the third blessing.
Schools are doing something to teach the third blessing, but usually, they forget about the first or second which are the foundation for the third. Because of such an unusual situation, generally, the more highly educated a person is the bigger the problem he or she can create. Who is killing more people, highly educated people, or less educated people? In the newspaper, we see if a less educated person kills one person it makes a big article. One man killed seventeen people in Wisconsin; we hear about it on the news every day. But the media never accuses the person who has killed thousands and thousands of people. Instead, they give them a big decoration. Who is that? The national leaders and lawmakers! Most of them are highly educated.
For example, the presidents of Country A and Country B are both highly educated people. They start a war and fight each other, and thousands of people are killed. One general is responsible for many people dying, yet when he comes home many people shout out, “Welcome home! We got victory. Hurrah!” What they are really saying is, “We like that you have killed many people!” What a problem. A human being can’t kill another human being.
Life was given by God, not human beings, so human beings can’t take life away. When the American troops came back from the Gulf War with a victory, we gave them a historical welcoming parade. If big countries like France, Britain, and America, all come together and defeat one small country, how can we boast? If a small country, for example, Vietnam, gains victory over big America, they can really celebrate. This is a general problem of human beings; any country would do the same. If an adult beats up a small boy, can we cheer and feel victorious? It’s stupid. So, the purpose of education is to make human beings understand who God is and what God is. And then what is his or her position through which they can feel responsibility. Based on that education, we then need to control all kinds of materials, plants, and animals to have a good environment and a happy life. This is education.
Real education
In front of Father, a doctorate doesn’t have much meaning. Father himself had just entered the university when he became a member of an independent group that was against the Japanese government. They put him in jail and kicked him out of school, and he had no more schooling. Yet today, many Ph.D.s follow his lead. If achieving a doctorate was so very wonderful, then every year we would make many doctors. Then every year our problems and confusion should become less and less.
But the more doctors there are coming out in society, the more problems we see. So, we don’t need such doctors. It doesn’t work toward improving society. They usually make money by getting big titles and positions. They work mostly for themselves.
We need to know such things when we are raising children. Which education is more important? A Unification Church education is much more important than a Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Princeton, or Stanford education. In 1638, Mr. Harvard established Harvard University to make Christian ministers. Today, what percentage of Harvard graduates become ministers? It’s a sorrowful thing. Until the end of the seventeenth century, around fifty-seven percent became ministers. Now it is maybe two or three percent.
After Harvard became a problem, Yale began. They said they would produce the best ministers. But also, today very few Yale graduates become ministers. All schools are a problem. Almost all of them are just places to make human beings slaves of money. Until now we’ve had to send our children to outside schools because we don’t have our own schools. Therefore, at home, we must have very a good standard of life centering on the principle. That way our children can be influenced by the principle more than being influenced by the school and they can survive.
We need to get up early in the morning and bow in front of True Parents’ picture, and then husband and wife should bow to each other with deep respect. Next, the children should bow to the parents, and then, as a family, read from the Divine Principle or Father’s speech and pray for others. What a beautiful tradition. If we do such a thing in the evening and morning continually then our children won’t have problems.
To be continued …