Rearing Monarchs #22:

Rearing Monarchs Summary
Unification Thoughts, February 2023

Welcome back
Last month, we closed our discussion on Dominion and Creativity. And we’d promised to next summarize the three kinds of education we’ve been discussing for the past 17 months. You’ll likely recognize the ideas that were discussed before, so they won’t be repeated in full here. (But if you do want a refresher, there will be links for you to access the relevant articles.) And in case you’re joining us for the very first time, it’d be helpful for you to take a look at the purpose and focus of this Rearing Monarchs series, of which this article is the 22^nd.¹ Otherwise, let’s get started.

What we’ve been doing for the past 17 months

We unpacked Unification Thought’s Theory of Education

I say unpacked because we’ve not presented the Unification Thought Theory of Education as succinctly as it’s written in New Essentials of Unification Thought. Rather, we’ve broken it into its parts and tried each month to explain one or two that are relevant to Golden Agers.

We defined parents’ and grandparents’ primary responsibility to children

The Theory of Education explains that:

…in its most fundamental form education is the guidance that parents give to their children so that their children may fulfill the three great blessings. …Therefore, the original place of education must be the family where parents and children live.

• New Essentials of Unification Thought, pp. 248–249

Since the ideal of a family has three generations, this means that a family’s grandparents should be the locus of the deepest guidance for its young ones.

But first, a personal observation

When I sought concrete examples to help explain Unification Thought’s Theory of Education, two came to me. The first were the teacher-student relationships I’d experienced through studying Unification Thought and also martial arts.² The second was through my work in the movement. Those memories led to an epiphany for me, because I realized that the Theory of Education revealed the precise goals and methods which Father and Mother Moon had used to help me understand the heart of God as well as the greater meaning and value of marriage and family.

Being sent out to meet people—through pioneering especially—was intended to help me attain my first blessing. Through that kind of field experience, I could start to grasp how God experiences people and feels about them. I learned for the first time in my life to pray earnestly over folks, and then I’d hear within me Yes. But I don’t have a mouth to speak or hands to act. You do….

And Father Moon’s long discourses about marital love in the many sermons I’d sat through at Belvedere—reinforced by constant immersion in team experiences—were aimed at preparing me to attain my second blessing.³ The epiphany I experienced was that Unification Thought’s Theory of Education broke it down for me—it made it clear to me what was happening to me and why it was happening. And by clarifying this, it made the experience replicable. Otherwise, I’d have only been able to marvel at how I was developing while remaining mystified at why and how it was happening! And I’d be incapable of guiding others to discover valuable things, as I’d been guided to them.⁴

To explain this epiphany, I’ll start by explaining how Unification Thought describes the two aspects of what it calls a Balanced education. The two are called Universal education and Individual education.

Universal Education

This first aspect of education is described in this manner:

An education of heart and an education of norm constitute a ‘universal education’ since they must be given universally to all people.

• New Essentials of Unification Thought, p. 262

The textbook then goes on to explain what these two entail.

Education of Heart

Normally, this first form of education could be understood as guiding a child to be a loving person. But Unification Thought is much more specific than that. What this form of education actually means is an education that helps a person understand the heart of God. Here’s what it states:

…how do children come to experience God’s heart? The first step is for them to have a clear understanding of God’s heart. …God’s heart has been expressed in three ways during the process of creation and the dispensation of restoration. These three forms of God’s heart are His heart of hope, His heart of sorrow, and His heart of pain.

• New Essentials of Unification Thought, p. 250

This was the very quote that revealed the explosive importance of this small passage in the Introduction of the Divine Principle:

The new expression of truth should be able to reveal the Heart of God: His heart of joy at the time of creation; the broken heart He felt when humankind, His children whom He could not abandon, rebelled against Him; and His heart of striving to save them throughout the long course of history.

• Exposition of the Divine Principle, p. 8

As I’ve said before, those three hearts are the very essence underlying the Creation, the Fall, and all of History in the Principle. It was through Unification Thought’s chapters on The Original Image and Ontology that I could understand the first heart, through the theory of Original Human Nature that I could understand the second, and through the Theory of Education that I could understand the third.

Father Moon actually did mention one more heart. It’s the …heart of hope for a new world after restoration is completed. This is in Cheon Seong Gyeong on p. 53 and I believe that it’s relevant and extremely important for us now, since we are in the post-Foundation Day, CIG Settlement Age.

The main point here is that understanding someone’s heart is important because that’s what changes a person: it’s what or whom we love the most. In love, our intellect thinks of that person, our emotion longs to be with that person, and our will makes decisions that would bring happiness to that beloved person. So in regards to God, Unification Thought says:

…In human beings as well (as God), heart is the core of the personality. Accordingly, the perfection of one’s personality becomes possible only when one experiences the Heart of God. …(Normally) people find it difficult to love others, but once they become one with God’s Heart, their life as a whole is transformed into one of love.

• New Essentials of Unification Thought, p. 164

And so the most revered saints always endeavor to guide people to love God first. But enough here; we’d devoted the entire eighth article in this series to this topic. If you’d like to revisit it, please click here.

Education of Norm

This next form of education provides the standards of God-centered conduct in interpersonal relationships, starting with those in a family. Unification Thought explains:

…the education of norm is, first of all, an education designed to nurture man and woman to the point of resembling God’s harmony of Yang and Yin, all the while observing the commandment of God. …it is the education necessary for one to achieve the qualification to become a husband or a wife.

• New Essentials of Unification Thought, p. 259

Through this form of education, children learn the moral and ethical virtues that will guide them through every aspect of an enlightened lifetime. They will understand that these virtues are not outdated cultural artifacts, but timeless expressions of our universe’s natural laws. This was explained in article 9 of this series. Then, articles 10 and 11 discussed the virtues and the manners, customs and duties through which these internal virtues are outwardly expressed—and through which love is conveyed—in the day-to-day relationships within families and especially with spouses. And articles 13, 14 and 15 discussed the broader application of morality and ethics in the community and larger world.

Individual Education

This second aspect of education is focused on guiding a child towards attaining its third blessing. So it’s fittingly called an Education of Dominion.

Education of Dominion

This form of education is comprised of three parts, an education of intellect, an education of technique, and physical education. You might recall that these were discussed in detail in articles 16, 17, 18 and 19 of this series, so our description of them here will stick to basics.

Regarding intellectual education, Unification Thought states:

In order to perfect one’s nature of dominion, one must first acquire knowledge about the objects over which one is to have dominion. Intellectual education, or the education of knowledge, is necessary for that purpose. …Intellectual education comprises various fields including the natural sciences, politics, economics, social studies, cultural studies, and so on, according to the field of dominion.

• New Essentials of Unification Thought, pp. 260–261

Regarding technical education, Unification Thought states:

…one needs to be educated in those techniques through which one can express the creativity necessary to have dominion over objects. That purpose is served by technical education. …Since technology is a direct means of exercising dominion over all things, technical education serves as the core in the education of dominion.

• New Essentials of Unification Thought, pp. 260–261

Regarding physical education, Unification Thought states:

…for us to become the subjects of dominion, our physical strength must be developed. That purpose is realized through physical education. …the promotion of physical ability is important for a dominion over all things.

• New Essentials of Unification Thought, pp. 260-261

And then, there’s an explanation of how the education of dominion is individualized:

…an education of dominion should be given to people according to their abilities, interests, and desires. Some may major in natural science, others in literature, and still others in economics, and so forth. Thus, the field a person chooses varies depending on that person’s preference and aptitude. In this sense, an education of dominion becomes, in principle, an ‘individual education’.

• New Essentials of Unification Thought, p. 262

A critical caveat

Unification Thought cautions us that there’s a danger when education focuses solely on training children’s intellectual, technical and physical abilities: they can develop incomplete and unbalanced characters. The concern is put this way:

An education of dominion must be carried out on the basis of, and in conjunction with, an education of heart and an education of norm. Only when based on heart (love) and norm can one’s intellectual, technical, and physical education become wholesome, and one’s creativity be fully manifested.

• New Essentials of Unification Thought, p. 262

And particularly relevant to this age of expanding extreme technology such as advanced A.I. (artificial intelligence), it points out:

Only through such a balanced education can science and technology be guided in the proper direction.

• New Essentials of Unification Thought, p. 263

I have to agree that this observation coincides with my own experience as both a design student in college and later on as a presenter in the movement and a professor in college.⁵ What’s worrisome is that through working with young people for several decades, I’ve observed that this narrow focus continues to happen. Allow me to digress a little to explain why this is disturbing.

Because of the values of the age, education focused predominantly on the education of dominion, especially at the advanced levels. So institutions produced individuals who were intellectually, technically and physically accomplished. But after understanding Unification Thought, I noticed that although many working people are quite adept in their professional life, these same people can also be challenged, unsuccessful or quite inept in their personal life. That’s a direct outcome of neglecting an education of heart and norm.

I say this because I’ve observed that a weak or missing education of heart leads to disconnection from God—which manifests as being atheistic or ambivalent, being dismissive of faith, and considering religion irrelevant to life. Such attitudes obfuscate one’s path to their first blessing.

I’ve also observed that a weak or missing education of norm leads to deficiency in personal morality—which can manifest as moral ambiguity, substance abuse or even to amorality.⁶ It also leads to a deficiency in interpersonal ethics—which manifests through serial relationships, dysfunctional families, and abusive behavior to others. Those leave one’s second blessing completely compromised.

To restate the obvious, the outcome of an insufficient or absent education of heart and norm can produce a person with an advanced degree or two, but who also disdains relationship with God and isn’t interested in or successful in faithful commitment to another person.

*In recent decades, of course, education has prioritized inculcating students with values that are far from those espoused by Godism. I won’t tackle that here—it’s a large discussion—but I’ll just say that it would be best addressed in a discussion of Unification Thought’s Axiology, which is a study of value.

A Balanced Education

For all the reasons I’ve mentioned above, it’s important to understand this point that Unification Thought makes:

It can be said that universal education and individual education are in the relationship of sungsang and hyungsang. The reason is that an education of heart and of norm are a more spiritual education, that is, an education of the mind, whereas an education of dominion is a more material education since it is for exercising dominion over all things. Accordingly, a universal education (an education of heart and of norm) and an individual education (an education of dominion) must be carried out together in a relationship of subject and object.

• New Essentials of Unification Thought, p. 262

This position is illustrated in the following figure from the New Essentials of Unification Thought textbook:

The ideal image of an educated person

Unification Thought explains that when these three forms of education are administered, there are three corresponding outcomes: a person of character, a good citizen, and a genius.⁷ Because they’re connected to the three blessings, I paraphrase these goals as a person who loves God, loves their family and community, and loves nature (and related to that, loves their vocation).
 

To wrap this all up, here’s a thought-provoking quote for elders to think about regarding the young in their families:

Before unconditionally focusing entirely on studies, young people must realize what they want to do in life. They must make a determination to use their talents to help the world rather than just serve themselves… Unless you have a purpose in life, your studies will lack the passion needed for happiness.

• A Peace-Loving Global Citizen, p. 324

I think that it’d be an important part of our responsibility as the grandparents in our families to try to guide our grandchildren to reach these resolves.

Conclusion

In an earlier version of Unification Thought, which I’d pored over when I was doing my independent study of Unification Thought in the seminary long ago, the chapter on the Theory of Education closed with a sentence that inspired me deeply:

On the basis of the education of heart and of norm, unity of heart, unity of thought, and unity of action—the three elements of the Unification of cultures—can be expected.

• Explaining Unification Thought, p. 230

The unity of heart refers to a deeply shared love of God and humanity and the unity of thought refers to an embrace of the altruistic moral and ethical values of Godism. The resulting unity of action conjured for me an image of sincere, exceptionally gifted people from every field and profession, cooperating with devotion and enthusiasm to create heaven on earth. Even now, that vision still sustains me.

We’d opened this article with this quote, but now we’ll read a bit further:

…the original place of education must be the family where parents and children live. Along with the development of culture, however, the amount of information and learning has increased, and it has become impossible for parents to convey the entire scope of education in the family. Naturally, therefore, the place of education was extended from the family to the school, the professional place for education, where teachers educate students on behalf of parents. Therefore, teachers, as the representatives of parents, must instruct students with a parental heart. This is the original way of education.

• New Essentials of Unification Thought, p. 249

We are reminded here that although we depend on schools, the essence of education falls to the elders in our homes. This is critical especially today, when the education of heart and norms is omitted in schools and the emphasis is on the education of dominion and the supplanting of religious values. So the education of heart and norm must not be abdicated and passed wholly to Sunday school, annual workshops or to special programs, regardless of their quality, value and importance.

I sometimes remember that in our own youth during the 40-year Wilderness Age, we had submitted to discipline in order to indemnify the sorry failure to receive Father and Mother Moon when they began their mission in the 1960s. But in this post-Foundation Day, Settlement Age of CIG, Father and Mother Moon have urged us to actively, imaginatively, and sincerely contribute to the creation of the new world. That’s why Father Moon increasingly shifted his teaching to focus on ideal ways of life and love in his later years, after the transition into the new age was declared.⁸ I’d suggest that one important way to step up to this is to study the thought process and the resulting way of seeing and doing that our True Parents modeled for us, which UT begins to expose to our understanding. I think that would be the level of attendance which They would most appreciate from adult children. As Mother Moon explained:

According to heavenly law, parents were meant to be true parents, as well as true teachers. The education that children need most is not the education of knowledge or techniques. The most important education for children is ethical and moral education. This education for life is essential and can be taught only by parents at home. Children learn, feel and resemble their parents’ most valuable examples of love and the basic order of life. Children need a model they can learn from and follow. …There is no teacher more important than parents who can show a child the correct direction in life.

• Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, Anthology Book 2, Part 2, Ch. 2, § 3

As the basic premises of this series make clear, the original centers of families are its grandparents. Heaven can work through the constant presence of their love and experience to raise up children who will administer the future with Heaven’s benevolence and wisdom. And so, for a family’s elders, this Golden Age is an opportune time to fulfill what could be our finest regal offering.

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