Rearing Monarchs #5:

A child’s unique individuality, part 2
Unification Thoughts, October 2021

Welcome back
And if you’ve four seasons where you live, then happy Autumn!

In this fifth installment of our series, we’ll continue examining the special contribution that elders can make to the development of children, and of course for we Golden Agers, to the development of our grandchildren. To be clear, the source of these ideas is the thought of Father Moon as it is expressed in the books New Essentials of Unification Thought and Cheon Seong Gyeong. Specifically, these are the sections on a Fifth Realm of True Love and Three Great Kingships. So it’s still appropriate to use to the figure below, as a visual starting point.

It also bears repeating the explanation for regal language, since it clearly promotes a different perspective:

“…the original concepts of grandparents, parents and children are very precious, and the conventional concepts are not able to convey the same noble sense as do the original concepts. There is no better means of expression than to use the concept of king in order to express their nobility, importance and gloriousness… Parents should not treat their children casually, even when their children are young. Rather, they should treat their children just as a king would treat his prince and princess… Therefore, from now, parents should not neglect their children. And children should attend their parents, regarding them as king and queen, and attend their grandparents, regarding them as honorable king and queen mother…”

• New Essentials of UT, p. 545

With that in mind, let’s proceed. In the September article, I’d mentioned two ideas that are crucial to developing a child’s self-image: one, the idea of each person’s unique individuality and two, the idea that each person is uniquely gifted by God.

I think that the idea of unique individuality is well-supported by four ideas from Unification Thought:

1. There’s more to know about the starting point of creation
2. God designs created beings with painstaking care and effort
3. Each being has an individual image
4. There’s a crucial difference between the individual images of humans and all other beings

Last time, in the starting point of creation, the intention was to present a true picture of how the created world came about, because that has everything to do with the singular value of human beings, which generally is not an idea that young people learn in their school years. We’d seen this diagram:

This first point presented Father Moon’s remarkable perspective on the origins of the worlds. It counter-proposes commonly accepted ideas and stresses the importance of the human being.

This time, we’ll look at the remaining three points, which continue to develop a reasonable argument for a (young) person’s understanding of their own unique individuality. So here we go, with the second point, which is:

2) God designs created beings with painstaking care and effort

Having explained how the cosmos was conceived, Unification Thought takes a step closer to present some detail about God’s design process:

“Once the purpose for creating something—such as a bird—is formed by heart… God thinks… ‘How can I realize the idea of a bird? What color should it be? What should the shape and structure of the feathers be like? How should the bones and muscles be constructed?’ Next, He makes a specific plan for creating the bird. Seeing the plan, He feels with his emotion, ‘it is not good,’ or ‘it is fine.’ If the plan is unsatisfactory, He corrects it. Then He decides, with His will, to realize the plan…”

- Explaining UT, p. 35

Here, it is clear that there is a thought process using intellect, balanced by a feeling response with emotion, followed by a decision using will. And if something isn’t quite right yet, the cycle to refine the concept repeats. Clearly then, it’s not a simple, easy, magical process—it takes effort. Which thought sets up the rhetorical question I’d pose to young people at this point: “If HP invests this much care in creating the design of a bird, then how much care do you expect HP would invest in a divine child?” (i.e., you)

Here, it’s also worth repeating part of a quote from our previous article:

“Creation requires an investment of energy. An artist’s great hope is to create a masterpiece. …A masterpiece appears only when the artist gives everything, and feels he cannot give any more. …God invested Himself. But how much did He invest? Some people think that when God created through the Word, saying, ‘Let there be this, let there be that,’ it was like a game. But no, God completely poured out His true life, true love and true ideals. We do not love something unless we have worked hard and invested our flesh and blood into it.”

- Cheon Seong Gyeong, p. 87–88

(I need to digresss a bit in order to explain that UT doesn’t claim that every child is the result of an idea that HP first designs and then brings into existence.¹

Returning to the main point, it’s that if HP would pour Himself out to design a bird in painstaking detail, more would certainly be invested in His own children. Which leads us to the third point:

3) Each being has an individual image

Here’s a quote that presents this point:

“...every existing being has some individuality... which comes from the Individual Image in God. From the countless Individual Images in God comes the individuality of each person and each being in creation.”

- Explaining UT, p. 18-19

The figure below depicts how this Individual Image is created. First, moved by heart —which desires and indeed requires an object of love—HP thinks, feels, and decides with the “acting“ part of mind. The objects of interaction are concepts, mathematical principles, and natural and moral laws. The outcome of that interaction is a particular, specific idea, what UT calls the Individual Image of a being.

And the last remarkable point to understand is this one:

4) There’s a crucial difference between the individual images of humans and all other things.

UT states it this way:

“There are countless spiritual molds used in creation, all different from each other. In other words, each mold corresponds to an individual image. Since in humans the individual image is different for each person, the role of each mold is completed when once used. In contrast, the individual image for all things is for one species, and therefore, a single mold can provide for the many creatures that all belong to that one species.

- New Essentials of UT, p. 71

This is an absolutely critical understanding, so I’ll restate it: All individual beings in a species are able to come from the same “mold”. For human beings however, each individual person has his/her own unique “mold” that’s used but once and never used again.

UT then provides some food for serious thought—and prayer:

“Why is the DNA of each person different? Each person’s DNA is different because the Individual Image, which exists within God, dwells in the chromosomes in the form for DNA. In creating human beings and all other creatures, God envisioned a form and nature (particular) to each…. The (specific) form and nature exist as an idea in God’s (mind). That idea is precisely what the Individual Image is.

- Essentials of UT, p. 14-15

We already know that the DNA of individuals is uniquely different but UT gives a remarkable explanation of why this is so—God’s unique individual image of that being is encoded in its DNA. (I’ve noticed that according to epigenetics, even so-called “identical twins” can be different. They can affect changes in their genes by the choices they make and the way they conduct their lives, thus insuring their uniqueness.)

UT goes on to say:

“…The individual image of a human being is… (specific) to each individual person. That is the reason why the faces and characteristics of human beings are clearly distinguishable from one another. Thus, in the case of animals and plants, the individual image differs according to each species, while in the case of human beings, the individual image differs according to each individual person.
The first manifestation of human individuality is the uniqueness in a person’s appearance; though there are over six billion people in the world, no two individuals have exactly the same face. The second manifestation is in behavior, which is different from person to person. If we regard appearance as the unique characteristic feature of one’s (body), then one’s behavior can be regarded as the unique characteristic feature of one’s (mind), because behavior is a direct manifestation of the mind. The third manifestation is creative activity. Not only artistic creation, but any activity in which one’s creativity is expressed is included in the concept of creation. This creative expression will differ from person to person. In this sense, if one lives one day to its fullest, expressing his or her creativity in everything they do, the footprints of that day become a work of art. Furthermore, the footprints of one’s entire life course become a life work of art.” ²

- New Essentials of UT, p. 162

All this information made me take this one statement in the Divine Principle much more seriously:

“Every human being possesses a unique individual character. No matter how many billions of people are born on the earth, no two will ever have exactly the same personality. Each person is God’s substantial object partner who manifests a distinctive aspect of God’s dual characteristics. Hence, that person is the only one in the entire universe who can stimulate that distinctive aspect of God’s nature to bring Him joy.”

- Exposition of DP, p. 164

Could that actually be true, particularly if I fulfill or at least approach my potential? Could it be that there’s never been anyone just like me in HP’s life? And that there never will be, ever again, for all eternity? That’s remarkable beyond belief. However, if HP can create all the heavenly bodies in this still-expanding universe, can anyone state with certainty that there’s only a certain finite number of individual images for human beings possible within the infinitely creative mind of God?

I don’t think that a radical thinker’s ideas should be dismissed just because they differ from current understanding. History and science record many “fantastic” ideas that eventually turned out to be accurate. And in Father Moon’s case, he does have a background in the physical sciences.

***

This has been a long article though I’ve tried to keep it simple. The reason I think that it’s relevant for Golden Agers is that HP depends on us to represent HP’s position in our families. And so we need to be able to see our third generation grandchildren as HP does, so that they can learn to see themselves this way: as precious and beloved children of God who are absolutely unique, precious and irreplaceable in the life of God. Where else and from whom else will they learn this? What would this understanding do for their self-image and self-esteem? When the young people begin to hear such ideas from True Parents’ thought, a light goes on for them. I’ve seen it; I can’t forget it; and I always earnestly hope that they don’t forget and that the light doesn’t go out…

So at last, this:

“Man and woman were created to be God’s true love partners. We were to have God’s absolute and unique value. …How much is the value of each person’s life? In this light, the value of each person’s life is infinite. Even the entire universe cannot replace the value of one person in the eyes of God. …We stand as the eternal object of God’s true love”

• TM Anthology, Book 2, “The Blessing and Eternal Life” (Jan–Apr 1998)

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