Approaching the First Blessing, part 2

photo credit: Gerry Servito

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.

Rearing Monarchs - #31

by Prof. Gerry Servito

Unification Thoughts, December 2023.

At last, we’ve reached the final month of the year. I think it’s fitting to close it by keeping our focus on the Heart of God and how understanding it helps a child approach their First Blessing. According to the Unification Principle:

The key to God’s first blessing is the perfection of individual character. … for an individual to perfect his character, he must form a four position foundation within himself whereby his mind and body become one…with God as their center. …They experience the Heart of God as if it were their own.

• Exposition of the Divine Principle, Creation 3.2, p. 34

This notion is central to Unification Thought. Its theory of Education takes up this statement and develops it:

An education which enables an individual to grow to the point where he/she resembles God’s perfection is an education of heart. To resemble God’s perfection…refers to the state in which one’s spirit mind and physi‐ cal mind…engage in give and receive action centering on heart…. In order for the heart to become the center of the human spirit mind and physical mind, it is necessary for human beings to experience God’s heart and be united with it. …Accordingly, an education of heart turns out to be an ed‐ ucation for the perfection of the individual.

• New Essentials of Unification Thought, p. 250

The Unification Principle poses this challenging question:

Can we ever grasp the Heart of God? The new expression of truth should be able to reveal the Heart of God: His heart of joy at the time of cre‐ ation; 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, Introduction, p. 8

And Unification Thought’s Theory of Education singles out these “three hearts” and brings our focus to them in this way:

…In order for children to become such people, it is necessary to guide them in experiencing God’s heart. Then, how do children come to experi‐ ence 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

Unification Thought explains that these three hearts correspond respectively to the Principle of Creation, the Human Fall, and the History of Restoration. It then focuses on revealing the powerful emotional narrative underlying these sections, through which a child can begin to understand the Heart of God. It was that realization that transformed my own relationship with the Divine Principle.1

So, since we had looked a bit into the first of these “three hearts” last month, we’ll continue by looking a bit more deeply into the “second heart” of God, i.e. the “heart of grief and sorrow”.

About this heart, the Principle’s definition of the first blessing concludes:

Sharing all the feelings of God as their own, they would never commit any sinful acts that would cause God grief. This means they would never fall.

• Exposition of the Divine Principle, Creation 3.2, p. 34

Given the “progressive” values that inundate our children, the finality of this assertion merits very serious consideration. When a young person is away from home—in a dorm, perhaps—what would make him or her behave in the way the Principle as‐ serts? Would it be their strength of will? Or their intellectual understanding of the Principle? As the Principle explains, heart is the deepest part of the soul. It’s at the core of intellect, emotion and will. And so, more than those three, the strongest de‐ fense they have is what or whom they love the most. That is what can give them the strength to resist temptation.

And that’s why knowledge of this “second heart” of God is so critical. Knowing it could deepen their concern for God’s heart and provide the power to resist tempta‐ tion. That’s the intent of the readings we will be looking at this month.

The readings are directly from the movement’s source materials; they’re not sup‐ ported by any comments or explanations. So, as I’d suggested last time, it would be helpful to pause for a moment or two and step into a more reflective, perceptive state of mind and heart. And then we can proceed to the material by clicking on this link.

Endnotes

1. I’d previously shared a memorable personal experience about that here.

Gerry Servito was appointed by Dr. Sang Hun Lee to the Art and Culture section of USA’s Unification Thought Institute. Currently, Gerry is Senior Teaching Fellow of RIIWT. He found Unification Thought after spending college looking into philosophy (especially existentialism), the Gita, and doing transcendental meditation. He was very grateful to find a spiritual path that pursues not only centered mind-body unity, but a second and even a third Blessing—all for the greater purpose! A first granddaughter arrived in October 2022.