Rev. Sun Myung Moon proposed the concepts of “the four great realms of heart” and “the three great kingships” at the beginning of the Completed Testament Age. It is important for us to understand these concepts clearly in order to realize the ideal family which is the basic unit of the ideal society. First, let me explain the four great realms of heart.
A. Four Great Realms of Heart
Concept of Heart
In order to understand the concept of the four great realms of heart, it is first necessary to understand the concept of heart. Heart refers to “the emotional impulse to seek joy through love.” In other words, heart is “the emotional impulse that can not but love.” It was due to His emotional impulse that can not help but love, that God created human beings as His object partners, and all things as the object partners of joy for human beings.
Realm of Heart
The realm of heart means the sphere of influence of one’s heart. The realm of culture means the sphere of influence of a culture, and the realm of sovereign power means the sphere of influence of one’s power. So, again, the realm of heart means the sphere of influence of one’s heart. Since heart is the emotional impulse to love, it necessarily accompanies the practice of love. Heart and love are two sides of a coin, and the sphere of influence of one’s heart is the sphere of influence of one’s love.
The four great hearts refer to the four kinds of hearts: heart of parents, heart of husband and wife, heart of brothers and sisters, and heart of children. Since heart and love are two sides of a coin, the four great hearts are the same as the four great loves: parents’ love, husband and wife’s love, brothers and sisters’ love, and children’s love.
Vertical Love, Horizontal Love, and Family Love
In order to understand the four great hearts or four great loves correctly, it is necessary to understand the direction of love, that is, the vertical and horizontal directions of love. Vertical love refers to a downward-oriented love, one which flows from above downwards, such as God’s love to human beings, and parents’ love to their children, and to an upward-oriented love, one which flows from below upwards, such as human beings’ love to God, and children’s love to parents. Horizontal love, on the other hand, refers to the love that flows horizontally, such as brothers and sisters’ love and husband and wife’s love. The brothers and sisters’ love includes love between brothers, love between sisters, and love between brother and sister. Parents’ love, husband and wife’s love, brothers and sisters’ love, and children’s love are all practiced in a family; therefore they are family loves.
Parents’ love, husband and wife’s love, and children’s love, are called the three object partners’ loves in the Divine Principle. When God is seen as the subject, parents, husband and wife, and children are His three object partners; therefore, parents’ love, husband and wife’s love, and children’s love are called the three object partners’ loves. The four great loves, which are based on the four great hearts, are the three object partners’ loves plus brothers and sisters’ love.
Four Great Realms of Heart and the Growth of Love
Rev. Sun Myung Moon teaches that love grows as one develops from childhood. An infant does not know well what love is like; but as he or she grows in parents’ love, his or her love for his or her parents will gradually grow. This is children’s love. The word infant here refers not to a son or daughter possessing particular sex characteristics, but to a child who does not yet have any consciousness of sexuality. In other words, the relation between children is not yet that of boy and girl, but that between children (for example, like twins) without any sexual consciousness.
Then, brothers and sisters’ love, namely, the love between brothers, the love between sisters, and the love between brother and sister, begins to grow among children, as it is stimulated by the love of parents. In the same way, as children’s love grows under parents’ love, so too, does brothers and sisters’ love grow under the parents’ downward love, along with the simultaneous growth of their physical bodies. This is accomplished in accordance with the inductive effect of love.
When brothers and sisters mature to the appropriate point, a brother will become engaged with the sister of another family or a sister will become engaged with the brother of another family; then, they will get married and become husband and wife. The love between them is a husband and wife’s love, which is also practiced under the inducement of parents’ love.
When children have thus grown, and have completed themselves, they finally become parents. The concept of parents here is not a concept imbued with any sexual character; rather, it is the more simple concept of those who are “opposite” of children. Parents practice parents’ love toward their children.
So far, I have explained husband and wife’s love and parents’ love as well as the growth of children’s love and brothers and sisters’ love. It should be noted here that husband and wife’s love does not appear all of a sudden once a brother and a sister have matured and get married; rather, as they grow, their love for the opposite sex, which is a stage prior to that of conjugal love, grows in them little by little. In fact, as brothers and sisters grow, they only gradually become qualified to become husband and wife. Thus, as their physical bodies grow, a love for the opposite sex (namely, the stage prior to conjugal love) grows unconsciously in them, in a vague form.
The same thing can be said about parents’ love. It is not the case that children grow to become parents and then all of a sudden parents’ love appears, but rather they already experience parents’ love unconsciously while they grow. Since children grow under parents’ love, they experience what parents’ love is like. Thus, there is a growing of love not only in children’s love and brothers and sisters’ love but also in husband and wife’s love and parents’ love.
Inclusiveness of Love
Inclusiveness means that something is included in another thing. Therefore, the inclusiveness of love means that a certain love is included in another love. Those including other loves are brothers and sisters’ love, husband and wife’s love, and parents’ love.
Brothers and sisters’ love includes children’s love, since brothers and sisters are related with each other in a family where they grow as children. Next, husband and wife’s love includes both brothers and sisters’ love, and children’s love, since a brother and a sister have grown up from childhood to become husband and wife. Of course, it is not the case that a brother and sister within the same family become husband and wife, but that a brother in one family and a sister in another, different, family become husband and wife. Finally, parents’ love includes all those loves, namely, children’s love, brothers and sisters’ love and husband and wife’s love.
Seen from the aspect of heart, brothers and sisters’ heart includes the children’s heart; husband and wife’s heart includes children’s heart and brothers and sisters’ heart; and parents’ heart includes all these hearts. To put it another way, the realm of children’s heart is the narrowest, the realm of brothers and sisters’ heart is broader, the realm of husband and wife’s heart is even broader, and the realm of parents’ heart is the broadest.
Concretely speaking, for children’s love (or heart), there is one object partner, the parents. For brothers and sisters’ love (or heart), there are at least the two object partners of parents and siblings. It may seem that conjugal love (or heart) has only one object partner (the spouse), but this is not the case. In the Divine Principle view, a husband represents all the men in the family, and a wife represents all the women in the family. In other words, the husband represents the grandfather, the father, and a brother, and the wife represents the grandmother, the mother, and a sister. Hence, for husband and wife’s love, there are at least three object partners of parents, spouse, and siblings.
Next, the realm of parents’ love is broader than the realm of husband and wife’s love since parents are parents to their children and at the same they are husband and wife. Here must be added the fact that these four kinds of love, namely children’s love, brothers and sisters’ love, husband and wife’s love, and parents’ love, are all practiced under God’s love; therefore, all the family members can be grateful to God and, at the same time, they can regard God as their object partner of love consciously or unconsciously. The breadth of the realm of the four loves can be shown by four concentric circles as in fig. 12.1.
Husband and Wife’s Love as a Representative Love
Among the four loves mentioned above, the most representative one is the husband and wife’s love. This is because, as already mentioned, the husband represents all the men in a family and the wife represents all the women in a family; moreover, each represents one of God’s dual characteristics. Furthermore, the husband represents all men, half of humankind, and the wife represents all women, the other half of humankind; the husband represents the yang aspects of all things in the universe, and the wife represents the yin aspects of all things in the universe.
Husband and wife’s love, therefore, represents the masculine and feminine loves in a family, in all humankind, and in all things, as well as the masculine and feminine loves in God. In other words, husband and wife’s love includes all the kinds of love in the created world as well as God’s love. Thus, husband and wife’s love is the representative love in a family.
Center of the Cosmos and the Fruit of Love
I have clarified above that the husband and wife’s love is not only the love between a man and woman, but rather it is a synthesized love wherein God’s love, family love, and the love in all things are united. When such love is synthesized, there is a multiplying effect, which engenders a strong impulse which can not be repressed. The position of conjugal union represents the cosmos, namely, it is the center of the cosmos, and at the same time it is the position of the second Creator where the ideal of creation is accomplished. The True Parents of humankind (messiah) are the model, the second Creator. Thus, the position of conjugal union is very precious and holy; it is the position wherein human beings most resemble God.
The foundation for all the various types of love beyond the family―one’s love for the nation, love for humankind, love for all things, love for one’s fatherland, and so on―is conjugal love. This is because conjugal love is not only the love between a man and woman, but rather it represents all the different types of love between all subjects and objects. That is to say, conjugal love represents the love between principal element (or individual) and subordinate element (or individual) as well as the love between subject and object in the sense of Sungsang and Hyungsang.
As a matter of fact, a husband (man) represents heaven, and a wife (woman) represents the earth. In other words, the relationship between husband and wife is like that between God and the created world. Accordingly, conjugal love represents the love between God and created beings (human beings).
In principle, the husband takes the initiative and his wife acts according to his directive; therefore, the relationship between husband and wife is that of subject and object, in the sense of Sungsang and Hyungsang. Furthermore, conjugal love represents the love between spiritual beings, and physical beings in the world.
Also, in principle, the husband is the head of the family, and his wife is his support. Hence, the relationship between husband and wife is that of subject and object in the sense of superordinate and subordinate. Teacher and student, government and people, the sun and the earth, a cell nucleus and cell cytoplasm are all examples of such a relationship.
Furthermore, the husband is the representative of all men, half of humankind, and his wife is the representative of all women, the other half. Accordingly, the union of man and woman relates to the unification of humankind, and thus conjugal love is a love for all humankind. Also, the husband represents the yang aspect of the universe and spirit world, and the woman represents the yin aspect of the universe and spirit world. Hence, the conjugal union is the representative center of the cosmos.
It can be concluded that conjugal love represents all the types of love in the created world. They are all manifestations of God’s love. Therefore, husband and wife’s love, which is the representative love and synthesized love, is none other than God’s love. Hence, the position of the union of husband and wife, where such synthesized love appears, is the center of the cosmos, the position of the second Creator, and the position of the perfection of the ideal of creation.
Original conjugal love is indeed boundlessly broad and deep, and the children born through such a conjugal love are the fruit of this holy, synthesized love. Since conjugal love is the love that synthesizes God’s love and the love of the whole world, the children (new beings) who are born through that love are God’s children, who are the integration of the universe and, therefore, they are microcosms.
It is important to realize here that all phenomena take place first in the heavenly world, or the spirit world, and then manifest on the earth. Hence, the image of children being born and growing as brothers and sisters, and becoming husband and wife and then parents, namely, the phenomena that human beings are born and grow, while experiencing love step by step, take place first in heaven or, more precisely, within God’s mind. That is to say, the growth of children, growth of brothers and sisters, becoming husband and wife, and then becoming parents first takes place in an ideal form in God’s mind before they appear on earth.
To put it another way, before creating Adam and Eve, God envisioned such a content in His mind, and then, in accordance with that vision, Adam and Eve were to be created as His children, and were to grow as brother and sister, become husband and wife, and then parents. Thus, the “envisioned” Adam and Eve, children, brother and sister, husband and wife, and parents within God’s plan can be called mental Adam and Eve, mental children, mental brother and mental sister, mental husband and wife, and mental parents respectively. This is illustrated in fig. 12.2.
A Global Realm of Heart as the Extended Form of the Four Great Realms of Heart
The four great loves are family loves, and the four great hearts are family hearts. The realm of children’s heart, the realm of brothers and sisters’ heart, the realm of husband and wife’s heart, and the realm of parents’ heart are all the realms of heart in the family. Thus, the basic form of the four great realms of heart is that of the family.
According to the Divine Principle, in the original society all human beings attend the True Parents of humankind. That is to say, in the original society all humankind becomes one great family centering on the True Parents. In other words, in the ideal world of creation, human society is a great family society existing as an extended form of a family, and each family is a miniature of the great family society, namely, it is a small family society.
Therefore, the realm of children’s heart in the family can be extended even to the global realm of children’s heart; the realm of brothers and sisters’ heart in the family can be extended even to the global realm of brothers and sisters’ heart; the realm of husband and wife’s heart in the family can be extended even to the global realm of husband and wife’s heart; and the realm of parents’ heart in the family can be extended even to the global realm of parents’ heart. Hence, the great family society of humanity is the global society of the four great realms of heart.
As already explained, the realm of heart refers to the realm of object partners of heart, or the realm of object partners of love. The global realm of the four great hearts, therefore, refers to the global realm of object partners (all humankind) of the four great loves.
Those who belong to the realm of children’s heart (children’s love) in the family are their parents, the object partners of children’s love. Then, who belongs to the global realm of children’s heart? They are adults who are about the same age as their parents: those persons all over the world whom children will respect and attend like their own father or mother.
The same thing can be said of the realm of brothers and sisters’ heart. The family realm of brothers and sisters’ heart includes brothers and sisters in a family, while the global realm of brothers and sisters’ heart includes all men and women about the same age as one’s brothers and sisters. Accordingly, wherever you may go and happen to meet men and women of about the same age as your own brothers and sisters, you can express love to them as if they were your real brothers and sisters, and you can receive love from them as well.
The same thing can not be said about the realm of husband and wife’s heart, however. The realm of husband and wife’s heart is different in character from the other realms of heart in this regard. When a woman meets a man of the same age as her husband, or when a man meets a woman of the same age as his wife, can she give him a love similar to that which she gives to her husband? Can he give her a love similar to that which he gives to his wife? Absolutely not! This is because the husband and wife relationship is a monogamous relationship incorporating a sexual life. Since husband and wife’s love is necessarily accompanied by their sexual life, conjugal love can not be allowed beyond the parameters of their relationship. Instead, one should express brothers and sisters’ love toward men or women of the same age as your husband or wife, in the same way that you love your brothers and sisters in your family.
As for the realm of parents’ heart, the same thing can be said as regards the realms of children’s heart and brothers and sisters’ heart. Wherever you may meet children of the same age as your sons or daughters, you should relate to them with a parents’ heart or parents’ love in the same way as you do to your own children.
B. Three Great Kingships
Significance of the Three Great Kingships
In speaking of the three great kingships, one may wonder what difference exists between the three great kingships and the three great subjects. As already explained, the three great subjects in the three great subjects thought refer to the centers of the family, the school, and the workplace. The king of a country is the center of the country, and therefore, he is the subject. Then, one may think that the three great kings of the world are the three great subjects, but this is not the case.
The king in the three great kingships does not mean the king of a country as it is understood in the mundane world. The kings in the three great kingships are the centers or the heads of a family. The heads of a family are the parents, and the three great kings in the three great kingships refer to the parents of the three generations: grandparents, parents and children.
Kingship means possessing the authority of a king. In the secular sense, the king is the central figure who governs the people with kingship, or, the figure in the highest position. In contrast, in the Kingdom of Heaven, as mentioned above, the king is the center and the head of a family, namely, the parents. Thus, the parents of the family are the parents and the king and queen of the family. The king of the country is the parent and the king of the country. In an enterprise, which is an extended form of a family, the president and his or her spouse are the parents and the king and queen of the enterprise.
In a family, there is only one set of parents. Then, why is it said that there are three kings in the family? Because there are three kings: the king of the past, the king of the present, and the king of the future; namely, the parents of the past, the parents of the present, and the parents of the future. Thus, three kings in a family refer to grandparents, parents, and children. The grandparents are the king and queen of the past; the parents are the king and queen of the present; and children are the kings and queens of the future. Since the grandparents, parents, and children are all kings and queens, the authority of king is given to all of them; namely, the three great kingships. Yet, the three kingships are different from each other in character.
Characteristics of the Three Great Kingships
Grandparents belong to the past and they are the king and queen of the past. It means that they were king and queen on earth in the past. Then, what is their status now? They are still king and queen. However, they are no longer a king and queen representing the earth, but a king and queen representing the spirit world. Furthermore, they are a king and queen representing God. In other words, grandparents represent the spirit world and God. Accordingly, the four position foundation centered on God as explained in the Divine Principle is also the four position foundation centered on grandparents in the original world. Therefore, from now on, grandparents will be the center of the family four position foundation, representing God and the True Parents of humankind. Hence, the position of grandparents is that of God, which is the highest in the family and, therefore, children and grandchildren have to attend their grandparents in the most respectful manner.
Parents are the king and queen representing the present world, while grandparents are the king and queen representing the spirit world. Also, parents are the king and queen in the family. Children are the future head of the family. At present, they are princes and princesses, and in the future they will be kings and queens of the family, and of the world. Children also represent all the descendants, namely, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and so on, who are also future kings and queens.
The Reason Why the Term “Three Great Kingships” Is Necessary
One may raise the following question: Why do we need to call them kings instead of just saying grandparents, parents and children? It is because the position of king is the most noble and respectable position. The conventional concepts of grandparents, parents and children are quite different from those in the original world. Through the Divine Principle, we have learned the preciousness of the family, namely, the preciousness of grandparents, parents and children. However, there is still a great difference between those concepts as conceived by God, and those which are conceived by human beings. We express the most supreme nobility with the term king or prince. Originally, every human being was to be a noble being like a king. With the study of the Divine Principle, however, we may not yet have fully realized the true nobility of the human being.
Suppose there is a prince of a country who is hiding himself in a village in a remote mountain area and wearing shabby clothes, separated from his father, the king, due to the betrayal of his men. If the elders of the village realized the truth, they would apologize to him saying, “What has happened to Your Highness? We did not know that you are such a noble person, and we have committed a great crime. Please forgive our disloyalty.” Then, with the greatest sincerity, they would respect him and attend him, placing him in the highest position. The greatest sincerity, the highest position and the best attendance that the prince would receive all express the nobility of his position as prince. The value of a human being in God’s eyes is much like this, or even greater.
Thus, 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, since the king occupies the most supreme of all positions on earth. Thus, in the original world, where humans are so precious, the nobility of grandparents, parents, and children is expressed through the concepts of the three great kingships.
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. Once the king has decided on his son as his successor, no matter how young he may be, the king will not ignore the prince’s words. 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 (king and queen of the spirit world).
Kingship and Its Concept
A king possesses the authority of a king, namely, kingship. The kingships of grandparents, parents, and children are together called the three great kingships. In other words, authority is given to the three great kings. From this viewpoint, we should look at the members of our family, and other families, as those who are as precious as kings and queens. Hence, a home is a royal palace.
After bequeathing his throne to his child, the king becomes the grandfather in the royal palace, and stays in the central position as the great king, representing the spirit world and God. A home is as precious as a royal palace. A family constitution therefore is the constitution of a royal palace. The family of the True Parents is its model. When the ideal world is realized, all the families of the world will resemble the True Parents’ family.
Finally, let me explain about the power of kingship. Conventional power is what makes people in the object position obey the sovereign subject, usually through fear and reverence. Secular power is enforced physically. It has the authority to make people obey the sovereign compulsorily by using police or military force. In contrast, power in the Kingdom of Heaven will be that which inspires the object to obey the subject with a grateful heart, and it will be based on God’s true love.
Power in the Kingdom of Heaven, however, also has a certain authority which gives people, as objects, a certain feeling of fear. This is the fear which arises from the intuition one possesses of the spiritual death which would accrue with one’s separation from or one’s opposition to God’s true love. Since love is the source of life, and the loss of love is connected with the loss of true life, or the death of true life, should one disregard or oppose the love of the subject figure, one’s subconsciousness would perceive its inevitable result (that is, the death of life) and feel fear. This is why one would feel fear even while feeling happiness in God’s limitless love.
There is a difference between the obedience of people to the subject (the dictator) in the Communist world and the obedience of people to the subject in the Kingdom of Heaven. The dictators in the Communist world made the people obey compulsorily, threatening them with death. In the Kingdom of Heaven, however, people will want to obey the sovereign, centered on true love. This is the precise point of difference between the two worlds.
However, both worlds are the same in that the people suffer if they do not unite with the sovereign. In the Communist world, if one does not obey the dictator, one is risking one’s life, or risking being purged at once. In contrast, in the Kingdom of Heaven, if one disobeys the subject’s order which is based on love, one feels a shrinkage or risk of one’s life, to a greater or lesser degree, at once or after a certain period of time, depending on the degree of disobedience. Thus, love is accompanied with authority.
In the Bible, there is written an expression conveying the authority of God:
When Abraham was prepared to offer his only begotten son, Isaac, in order to indemnify his failure in his earlier, symbolic, offering, God said, “now I know that you fear God” (Gen. 22:12). This passage makes plain that God’s love is accompanied with a certain authority and fear. Thus, secular power is enforcement with compulsory power, while power in the Kingdom of Heaven is the power of true love which induces people to obey voluntarily. Kingship is to be exercised. The exercise of the three great kingships is that the grandparents, parents, and children demonstrate such power of love over their object partners.