1) What Is a Child of Filial Piety?

What is a child of filial piety? He is the one who always thinks about what the parents like and tries to carry it out. He longs for the realm of heart where all his five senses operate with his parents as the center. He wants to get rid of bad things for the sake of his parents, keeping only good things, making them better. (161-132)

2) The Reason Filial Piety Is Important

The world cherishes filial piety. Filial piety is the formation stage, do you understand? What is a child of filial piety? He should be able to serve his parents and grandparents. He should go through three generations. Next, what is a patriot? It is the same. A patriot serves the sovereign as parents and serves God as grandparents. (96-31)

It is edifying to say that we should become filial sons and daughters. We commonly hear that there is a generation gap between parents and children, but is there a gap between two generations with respect to love? Why are you being told to practice filial piety? This means participating in your parents' path of love. The heavenly decree follows your parents' true path of love. Since this path is not just trodden by your parents but is connected to the invisible heavenly decree, being one with the parents means inheriting the heart of both aspects; that is, the vertical history of the heavenly decree and the horizontal history. This is the meaning of filial piety. But you have not realized this so far. Nowadays, people think, "What is the use of being loyal to parents?" This is how they think in America. They say, "When our parents gave birth to us, was it for our own sake? But they do not know the Principle. In any history, the vertical standard must be erected first in order for the horizontal standard to be established. When you construct a building, you have to arrange the vertical structures first. Unless the horizontal structures are put together after the vertical, this building will fall down. Likewise, the fact that human beings exist already means that they are aligned to the vertical standard. (136-203)

3) How Do We Become Children of Filial Piety?

We should be in line with the direction of our parents' hearts. What is the secret of being children of filial piety? The internal and external standards must agree. (12-174)

A child of filial piety is valuable because he serves his parents with an unchanging love, from the time of childhood to the time of old age.

Such a person is called a child of filial piety. (168-163)

In order to be a child of filial piety, you should always be in line with the direction of your parents' hearts. The one who follows the path of filial piety never acts apart from his parents. He follows his parents everywhere, whether to the East or to the West. When the parents suddenly want to turn back, he should turn back without dissent.

When they tell him to go and turn back ten times, he should do so and still follow them. If he protests, "What kind of parents are you, changing your minds like crazy? Father and mother, I don't like this," then he cannot keep the way of filial piety all the way to the end. When parents do crazy actions, the child should also do the same. He should be able to act crazy when the parents order him to. Acting crazy is undesirable, but this is done under the parents' knowledge.

Then why do parents perform crazy actions? It is because that is the only way to pick the best child of filial piety from among many. When there are one hundred loyal children, parents will act crazy in order to find the best of them. They will turn around one hundred times and change their minds one hundred times. They may change around even one thousand times. But if a child takes this capriciousness as truthful and absolutely obeys the parents with his life, he can be the king among children of filial piety. In other words, he can rule over the children of filial piety. Don't you think so? Then he should be able to do crazy things as his destined mission. If he says, "Oh, this does not fit me, so I don't know," then the way of filial piety is blocked for him. So there must be the way of filial piety on a global level that can break through the most challenging obstacle. Then what kind of person is God? He is the parent of humankind, the king of kings, and the center of everything. In order to become His child, a loyal child in a family should become one with Him on a global level. Isn't it so? (62-32)

4) We Should Be Able to Experience Our Parents' Heart and Situation

We should follow the way of children of filial piety. If God is serious about the world situation, is there someone who can experience this heart and struggle to become God's child, forgetting himself and forgetting sleep with even more seriousness? This is what the question finally comes down to. (62-35)

What is a child of filial piety? He is the one who takes responsibility for the parents' sorrow and goes to difficult places in order to resolve their sorrow, thereby bringing joy to the parents. When the parents work ten hours, the child works fifteen. Then the parents will feel joy that corresponds to the five. A filial son is one who considers how to supplement what is missing. He serves the parents. (24-261)

Isn't this the case in the village? When you receive an award for filial piety, is it because of your doctorate degree? Is that a part of the condition of filial piety? No, it is not. The question is how much you have loved your parents with all your mind and body. When you absolutely serve your parents day and night with an unchanging heart, as if you were serving the country and God, then you will be called a child of filial piety. (147-232)

5) We Should Be Able to Bear Our Parents' Burdens

If the parents want to do ten different things, a child of filial piety should take responsibility for the most important of those and carry it out. If there are ten sons, who is the most loyal? The one who takes over the most difficult job on his own and shows love for the parents will be most remembered by the parents. Thus, it is clear that the one who bears the duty of filial piety through the most difficult path rather than the one who tries to go the easy way will truly realize filial piety. (62-23)

When a child understands his parents' sorrow deeply, he will sincerely wish for the resolution of their sorrow, going beyond his environment of living. If someone worries about the parents' sorrow more than his own, then he can be called a loyal child. But if someone expects his parents to worry about his troubles while the parents have their own suffering, then he is still not united with his parents.

According to the principle of filial piety, the one who forgets about the parents' situation cannot make a relationship with the parent at a crucial moment. If a child insists that his sorrow be recognized and resolved, putting aside the sorrow of his parents, he will be a treacherous son.

This is what we experience in our daily life. What is the value of a child of filial piety? Filial piety starts when a child worries about his parents' difficulties more than his own, adding theirs to his own, and accepts this as a matter of course. On the other hand, a breach occurs in the relationship when the child overlooks his parents' difficulties. The way of filial impiety starts there. When you regard your brother's difficulties as less important than your own, the brotherhood relationship becomes distant. (62-178)

6) The Words "Child of Filial Piety" Are Accompanied by Misery

The way of the child of true filial piety is not smooth. Filial piety and patriotism are in fact words of misery. Filial piety cannot be practiced with a self-centered attitude. Where do you have to be in order to become a child of filial piety? You have to stand on the road of death and greatest tribulation. (62-37)

Where is the root of filial piety established? It is established in a most miserable place. A miserable place is a place of death. The root is established in the most miserable, dying place. Is this right or wrong? Suppose that there is a child of filial piety. Children of filial piety must exist in each age. Among them, who can be chosen as the best? It is better to practice filial piety at a young age rather than at an old age. There are great varieties among children of filial piety: they are rich, poor, menial laborers, beggars, and so on.

A living person cannot be a true child of filial piety. Why? It is because so many people have died for filial piety. When someone who is still alive receives a prize for filial piety, he will be accused by those children of filial piety who offered their lives. Thus, a child of true filial piety appears after death. Among those who have died, some died practicing filial piety. Some might have died on the way to getting medicine for their parents. When they went to get medicine, some brought their own money, and some borrowed money. The more difficult it was, the greater the value, right? As for those who died on the way to getting medicine, if one had his own money and the other had worked for a few months in order to get the money, who will be elevated as the model child of filial piety? (The latter.) It is the latter, right? Everyone knows that. Restoration is possible because you know that. The more complicated, difficult, and miserable it is, the better it turns out to be.

Now, which is better: dying on the way to getting medicine or dying after offering the medicine to one's parents? It is better to die after offering it. From this, we can see that the more difficult it is, the higher the rank of the child of filial piety. There is no objection here, is there? (49-280)

In a family, a child of filial piety is in a miserable situation. He cannot eat as much as he wants, for instance. When there is delicious food, he must hold on to it and shed tears, thinking, "My parents are close to eighty years old. How much longer will they live? How much more can they eat? The remaining days of their lives are only a fraction of mine." With such a heart, you should diligently serve your parents.

A child of filial piety is someone who cries, unable to eat. When you start crying in the middle of eating, people will call you crazy. You will really look like a crazy man in some ways. They will think, "If he likes the food, why doesn't he eat it? Why is he acting like that? How miserable it is!" But a filial son cannot live as he likes.

When a filial son sees good scenery, he wishes to share it with his parents. If a good season comes, he also thinks about his parents. When this longing is expressed in tears, that seems miserable. Tears themselves are painful, and yet this is not a place of unhappiness. Isn't it so? A life of tears is not a bad life.

If there is a group of people who cannot eat good food or wear nice clothes because of national and public things, although they look miserable, there are eternal tears of consolation for them. They are surrounded by eternal songs of glory. Furthermore, the eternal kingdom of hope is prepared for them. Then how can we say that they are miserable? Although they look miserable, they are standing in a place of glory with the right to victory. (51-326)