The Way For Students

by Rev. Sun Myung Moon

1) What Is It to Study?

To study in school is to take in all the knowledge of your teachers and make it yours.

What is the meaning of accomplishing the will of God? It means to become one internally and externally, vertically and horizontally in all directions. This is accomplishing God's will. Having such will, God couldn't let Adam and Eve create there own rules as they were after they had been created. He laid down the ground rules. Did He say to them, "You, grow up, quickly!," or not? [He did] So, He told them "not to eat." Adam should learn many things after being born. Adam and Eve should have studied a lot of things. To be qualified to have control over all things Adam and Eve should know their own characters and special qualities, and their likes and dislikes. Without knowing those things they couldn't be qualified to be the dominators. (134-121)

You must know you study not for your own well-being but for becoming friends of the people in a miserable condition and for teaching the unlearned, and for liberating them from their shackles and bonds. (33-289)

Anyone who says, "I am going to be an able man," must study. Why does he have to study? Because he knows the value of that field. (63-214)

What do you study for? Anyone who studies for the sake of studying is a failure. Your study must be for the world, and your eating meals must be for the world as well. (63-214, 33-209)

Your study is not for your family or for the Unification Church, but for the world and God. And you have to study harder to save the world and God. (130-321)

For a man who studies, the future is assured. (98-293)

A man who didn't study and played hooky in his youth will go through hardships when he becomes old. Anyone who didn't play away his time, but instead put his blood and tears into his study. The man who goes along with the stream of the nature is happy. (98-55)

Well, listen. Why do you study? You go to school for today, don't you? [For future] It's for the present, now. [For future] Yes, you got it, for the future. Are you living for the future? [Yes] I don't know at all. [laughter] If your parent hits you and yells, "Go to school, little rascal," you, being hit should go to school shedding tears. How miserable it is for you. But if you could go to school even with tears in your eyes, there would be hope for you. There is hope, I mean. It would be better than not going, crying out, "no, I won't."

What does it mean? It means which would you like to choose? Are you going to live for present, or for the future? There are those who live for the present and those who live for the future. Which one do you want to be! [those for the future] Why? What for? [more valuable] Which is more valuable? Why is it valuable?

Those who live for the present will not have any way to go to as soon as the day is up. They might take a detour or take a wrong turn. On the contrary, those who live for the future, even with tears in their eyes, will advance on the way. They can continue to go tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow. In short, the man who lives for today, the day being finished, should retreat, or leave the road. Leaving the road, they should go down, for they cannot advance. But the man who lives for the future, however painful it is, even walking with shaky steps, can advance. Therefore, it is more valuable. That is because what is valuable is to have depth, height, and width. The man who lives for today will come to an end here. He is valueless. He doesn't have depth, height, or width either. He has to retreat, or go back to zero. He becomes less than zero.

When you tell the students to study, they say, "I don't care to study. I'm OK without studying," and play away their time. It would be fun for the time being. They contract a bad habit, and spoil their life failing into evil ways. (17-319)

1) The Purpose of Study

There live many people in the world; what do they live for? What is the purpose of their study? I am sorry to say that they don't study for self-perfection, but study only for the pursuit of knowledge as a means to expand their material wealth condition in their daily lives. The same may be said of power. Acquisition of wealth, they think, is a means to form their free sphere of the economical foundation. (126-225)

You say, "I study to be a great man," but it doesn't mean you are a great man even though you are a Ph.D. You cannot realize the idea you have studied for, until you establish the subjecthood of the ideal subject position in a reciprocal relationship. Therefore, you give yourself to studies for your reciprocal object. That a farmer sows seeds is also for the reciprocal object to harvest in autumn. This is the goal of the phenomenal world, or actual world. (109-121)

What do you study for? The man who studies for the sake of studying is a failure. The man who makes money for the sake of money is a failure. And then the man who has power for the sake of power is also a failure. How beautiful do you imagine they might be if they substituted "love" for their purpose? Then even God would say, "Yes, this is the knowledge I need. This is the money I need, the power I need." Understand? Don't you understand what I mean? How about you? [Yes, we do.] (129-285)

To attain distinction on the foundation of your desires can be yours forever. But the success on the wrong foundation by hook or by crook must be snatched by Satan. I mean God will let it fall apart. (76-270)

It is the same for your study. You would say, "I will become a Ph.D. through this study, and I will live in luxury." But it will be in vain. You should think about it seriously. You should take members' children and support them to get doctorates rather than make your own children do for the world mission.

I sent money to the enemies' children and made them study without letting them know. I am such a man as to have fed starving enemies. (130-315)

Judging from the families in the world, they live only for their own children and family. Even though they study they have no idea whom they are studying for. They say they study for rising in the world and for becoming someone to dominate the world. They study for themselves, their family, their people, their countries. Anything more than that they have no idea about. (65-34)

When you accomplished your own goal in your study, you might be very pleased. The value of the accomplished goal must be applied and can be utilized throughout the world, but you have to recognize that the value is limited in an extremely narrow sphere. As a matter of fact, you all know you are pursuing the value beyond the limited sphere. (50-11)

There are big differences between saying, "I study for myself and my family" and saying, "I study for the country and the world." Well, what do you generally study for? You study for yourself and your family only. You must study for the country or for the world.

What is the ideal attitude of your study, then? It surely is ideal to study for oneself. But it is more ideal to study for the family than for yourself, for the country than for the family, for the world than for the country, and for the universe than for the world. It goes like that. (118-214)

Born as a woman, you grow up, study, and get married just as others, but you must be different from those in the world. It is enough for them to study, but the member of the Unification Church has to fill a dual purpose with study and path-finding for restoration at the same time. (43-252)

So then, for whom do you study and graduate from the university? There might be some who say, "Exactly, for the wife I will meet and for the beautiful children we will have." But when you say, "for the country and for the world I study," you will be sustained. The countries do need such a person. The world does need the man. Right or wrong? [Right] How about God? [So does He.] Make sure to understand this.

1) No One Likes to Study

Does anyone of you like to study? [Yes] You like to study? I don't think so. To study is bad. To stay is good. Let me see. You can freely. . . When you send your children to the primary school or the elementary school, do they say, "Sure, I will, Mom," or "Oh God, I don't care to go." Which have you seen? Which have seen more? When we think of the students going to the kindergarten, they know about only the kindergarten itself. If they were asked to go the kindergarten after they had known about primary, middle and high school, and university or the doctor courses they should go on to in the future they, I think, couldn't go. They couldn't. Do you think they could go? In the middle of class they would run away. Don't you think so?

In the same way, in your case, you come here to the primary school for restoration. You are the same as coming to a primary school for restorational providence. As you know nothing, you only follow. "Let's go! Let's go!" as I lead, "Let's go!" If you knew all about. . . . By good luck, you don't know anything. This is true. (laughter) Do you any how want to know? [Yes!] (laughter) You are going this way with nothing.

Let's say a family was climbing a path up a big mountain, and there a pack of tigers always came out. The father and mother knew it, but the baby on his mother's back didn't know anything about the danger and felt at rest. If the baby knew that a pack of the tigers would come out on the uphill path, what would have become of him? Think of what would happen to him. If he knew he would be the first victim in case of being attacked, would he want to go there? Therefore, to know nothing often makes you have good luck. Concentration on what you are doing makes you pass through it easily. (97-119)

If a child in a kindergarten knew all the educational system from kindergarten to primary school, middle and high school, and the university he should go to, he would say, "Oh, God. I can't." If he came to know what a difficult thing it is to go to the university and to get through the courses for his doctorship, he would not want to go to kindergarten. No kid, I think, would want to. (97-98)

When you are asked, "Which do you like, to study in the class, or to go on a school excursion?," you prefer to go on a school excursion than to stay in class. But you should know it is not easy to go on a school excursion. You should digest strange things outside of the school. In case you cannot, you might be a dropout or a straggler. (115-99)

It is hard to study, isn't it? But can't you do that? Why not? The reason you study is to apply yourself to the social system. The society doesn't apply to me. In the same way Tongil [Unification] Church doesn't come to you and receive you warmly, but you have apply to it. (139-79)

Is there anyone who likes to study in school? Who on earth likes to study? But why do you have to do it? You cannot spare yourself from doing it. You have to study even at the cost of yourself, or you might become a straggler. (137-157)

There are no parents who teach their children a wrong. There is no bad parent. Even a bad teacher gives his students good lessons. Those who say, "yes, yes" may be doing well in their class. Is it true? [Yes] (17-314)

If you repeatedly say, to your son going to school, or to the son who is studying, "Study hard. Study hard. Study hard," he might get to feel very disgusted with his meddler. But, in case that he goes into the society as a failure because he didn't study hard, he would say, "I should have listened to my parents. . ." He could not slander his parents.

While you enjoy your comfortable rest, you are losing everything. Your are letting things get stolen. It is the same as while others were studying in the class you played hooky and met an accident. And what would become of you? You would be a repeater, a failure. (91-313)

No matter how intensely you may exercise control over him, if it is from your desire to make him brighter and better, it can be your condition to make efforts for him. For example, even though you have made your child be silent and interfered with everything day and night, and made him study by flicking a whip at him when he had bad conduct, it was not for the parents yourselves but for your child's future, waiting patiently and sacrificing yourselves, your child would think it a moment of great pleasure and the source of blessing when he reflect on his early days.

When he is successful in his life, would he say. "Well, my mother and father were dictators," or "well, they took great pains for me"? [the latter] You got it? [Yes]

What is bad? Where is evil and good divided? When the behavior seems to be the same but the content is different, it is extremely different. When you flicked a whip at someone, who did you do it for? When you hit him for his sake, for his future, and for his blessing, it can be good, but you did it for you, saying, "Do this for me," it becomes evil.

Therefore, you must know the standard of good and evil clearly in this viewpoint. Without knowing the standard of good and evil, you should be so confused that you cannot know which is God's responsibility and which part is your responsibility. Understand? [Yes] (87-123)

For a student in school the teacher's urging, "study hard, study hard," is the teacher's daily instruction. Why does the teacher always do so? He means through the instruction to inherit all the profound gift of knowledge 100 percent whole to you. It means "Do your best, and snatch all treasures from this school," but they set a condition for the student to hold. They would be pleased, being stolen, to see the student do his best with his whole heart more than anyone else. In the case that he did not do his best and invest his whole heart and became a cunning or cheating person, he would be kicked out.

Therefore, those who could inherit will not always get praised by his master. Do you understand? [Yes]. The teacher always says to the students, "Study hard. Be students of good moral character. Be different from another students. Don't take the road all students take, but take a different road." He drives you into a thoroughly opposite way, or a lonely way. Why! To inherit the most precious thing to the students. Are you pleased for all that, or aren't you? [Yes, we are.] You are happy? [Yes] (101-170)

1) Study Attitude

There are different meanings of the word "way;' for the businessman, the way of the business; for the scholar, the way of learning. Everyone lives with a "way" of his own way. The word "way" we mention does not mean the way of the world but means the way of God. (186-53)

When you study something, you should do your best with your whole heart. When you read even a page of a book, you should read it with whole your heart thinking God. But it is never an easy thing to do. (26-145)

Teacher studies with such a state of mind. Why do you feel tired when you study? You feel tiredness because you study only for yourself. Why don't you have a mind that a critical situation involving life and death depends on this page, or this sentence, and that if you add a word you can make people live, on the contrary, if you leave out a word you will lose them. And then, you should try to add a word with your whole heart in a serious mind. There might be no room for tiredness. Who on earth says you are muddle-headed? Listen! can you forget any serious situation that occurred? Have you ever heard the sound of a beating heart? If you are serious it can be heard. Can you forget any determination you made in such a serious condition? That you are slow-witted is a matter of degree.

Your memory doesn't work well because your mind is scattered. In a case where you were in front of the jaws of death, suppose a bright idea strike you. Can't you memorize that bright idea? When you study a page of a book you should bury yourself in your study centering on the page.

In other words, you should do your best at the risk of your life. When I began to think seriously about something in the Bible, I used to devote myself to find the answer for one year, two years, or three years. The questions should be brought up by all means by me. The road you take for yourself drives you to despair.

The road for the country and the world always lead you to hope. Why? The nation and the world are coming to life again. If you live your life working with this thought you will remain long in history though all things don't turn out favorably for you now. (35-38)

We want to enjoy the pleasures of daily life. Though we want to be pleased, we cannot be pleased by ourselves. It is matter of course that one cannot be pleased by oneself. One can be pleased through man, or material, or any literature, etc. Even in the middle of a happy life the gladness itself cannot be continued unless the object can be developed more and more as time goes on. In other words, to be pleased one absolutely needs objective stimulation.

When you set up a purpose, there must be time and process for the purpose to be realized. The question is how to tide over the process. It is very important to receive the objective stimulation centering on the purpose in your life circumstance.

You can sustain the purpose in your determination for the time being, but without the continual objective stimulation for the purpose, you might be in the situation of falling down, retreating, or despair which can be the primary factor for failure. Therefore, you should have good stimulation, or ideal stimulation in your daily life and practical life. It is absolutely necessary to receive good stimulation in the circumstances where you might meet with various obstacles. When you have set a purpose to accomplish through your study, the matter of your success and failure will depend on how you feel stimulation centering on the motivation of the purpose. No matter how strong your determination to accomplish a certain purpose, without such stimulating factor in your desire, you may give it up halfway or leave it half done. (66-37)

Anyone who wants to be successful should digest the present condition. In the same way you should study hard centering on the present condition. It doesn't mean to welcome the present condition to study hard. You cannot go the way of success and happiness without taking a position of denial to the present situation.

Everyone in your class cannot become the best at the same time. Never. There are failing students too. If you failed in school, you are worse than those who do not know failure because he doesn't go to school. If any negative obstacles stand in your way, you must overcome them. In that case you have to try as many times as you endeavor. To win public recognition and to ensure your future position, you have to go as many times the way of ordeal as you need to. If you did not have such results in the present situation, you have to give a satisfactory analysis of the reasons.

When you go to school, you have to be the best to represent all the school. It is not easy to be the best. If you would pride yourself on the fact that you were bright and clear saying, "I'm bright and clear you might once become the best, but you will be the second to those who devote themselves to study.

Then, how do you endeavor? You should spend a great effort more than anyone else to break fresh new pathways. You should endure hardships longer than anyone else. Through the process of your life the foundation for the glory of victory can be established. You can understand this from you own experiences.

Then who will meet the bright future? It is not the man who enjoys the present fun and gets into step with the present pleasure, but the man who can tolerate and endure the present ordeal to set up the future value in the sphere of the present situation and pay a high price with his life to become the heir to the future. (45-31)

Many people want to learn more these days, so they study. They devote all their energies to a certain field of study to be distinguished scholars through the world. What do they try to get? They try to digest the concepts and contents left by many people through the history in the major field of his study and to make use of them by all means in a short time. (28-261)

You have to win the victory. What do you have to win the victory for? You have to fight with so strong a will, that you will win twice while others win once, and that you will sleep half an hour while others sleep one hour, and that you will eat half a meal while others a whole meal. Here is the secret of the victory. It depends on how many hours you can spare for it and how much labor you can put in, and how much capital you can invest. Like a student preparing for an entrance examination for university, you have to fight with time, determination, and endeavor.

The failures must be those who ate more than others, or who slept longer than others. In other words, they must be those who spent their lives more comfortably than others even in one thing. (19-143)

You must make it a hobby to devote yourself to your study all night long. (67-225)

"Those who want to die will live, and those who want to live will die." It is a good teaching centering on the principles of the universe. We cannot ignore the truth of this teaching. Anyone who wants to succeed should devote himself to his motivation. Such a person can succeed quickly, can't he? Can he, or can't he?

If a man wants to realize his object through the higher civil service examination, he should spare no pains and put his heart and soul into his motivation. And the time for him to succeed to pass the examination will come near. Even though you pray for it to go away, rather it will come near. It is a natural principle. (61-269)

If you are sleepy at a desk, you should say with tears in your voice, "Where are your manners, my hands and eyes? Don't you know God is waiting for me?" In the case that you are overpowered with drowsiness, you should bury yourself in your work, pinching yourself to drive the sleep away, shedding tears and praying until dawn that you can be connected to the Heaven's blessing. In short, a ladder from Heaven is set for you. (130-312)

Therefore, I will make you study until you become all skin and bone. I mean you having a straight back shall be crooked. (184-315)

When you study, are you going to bury yourself in your study, or study with an abstracted air? Are you going to be an honor graduate who has had no sleep, or a failed student who has slept? [honor graduate without sleeping] Fortunately, you want it. (97-71)

As you know about education, when you want to finish the course of the primary school, your effort must be merged with your teacher. It is the same case in the middle school, high school, and the university.

To complete your purpose 100 percent is extremely difficult. Then, what is the attitude of the man who can fulfill his purpose? What attitude should you hold? To do so you should think about only one thing, not many different things. To study you should concentrate your whole attention upon your purpose and make every possible effort. If you say, "After breakfast, I will play away my time. This afternoon, I will meet my friend," you would be wasting your time. (104-95)

When you say, " He is good at his studies," what does he have to do to be good at his studies? He may of course have a clear head and make utmost efforts, but he should be a student who always thinks about his studies and thinks his studying is the priority of his life.

Such a student may be good at his studies. He doesn't have any different things such as wanton thoughts in his mind. Consequently the teacher's contents are recorded clearly in his head. When he studies a foreign language, he should first think which nation's language he is studying, and should go into the sphere of life and took and feel all things in the situations. And then he should associate the language he is studying with the facts he found to come into a perfect understanding. Such a student could be good at his studies. (161-130)

1) Abilities that You Need for Study

You need the inner abilities to love God. How can you foster the real abilities? Are they gotten casually? You can get them only in the situation for you to be at the head of the world and overcome the ordeal. (35-150)

Cultivate your abilities. The day will come soon for me to drive you into the actual battle. I (Teacher) am also devoting myself to study. (14-96)

To pass an examination you should study the night away. To submit a thesis you should take great pains night and day for months, or years. (111-121)

You should advance a theory and put it into practice. And you should have the abilities to teach it. And then what? Endeavor. You should become a man who has the actual results. After that you should make love the core of your activity. What is the next? You should become a man for God to control. It is very important. (118-125)

Every student has a wish to keep the best record in his school. It is the student's desire to exceed the historical foundation of the school and to be a record breaker from the past to the present. Centering on this new record the new historical tradition of the school can be established and developed.

Centering on the standard of the best marks recorded, the higher it goes up, the higher fame the school establishes and develops. If any record which a student established ten years ago still cannot be broken by the marks of any student, that school is said to be an undeveloping school. As long as the school is in the position to run back over the past, it cannot stand in the position to go forward for the new record in the future. On the contrary, if today is better than yesterday, and tomorrow will become better and better than today, the school will be eternally developing. (41-13)

The student with brains doesn't have a day to feel relieved. With good marks in the exams he still feels uneasy about his future.

Getting 98 marks on an exam, he would say, "Oh, no! It isn't 100 marks" in anxiety. In this case, if he says, "I missed 2 marks, I will try much harder," he will become the best. On the contrary, if he says, "Yes! It's good enough with 98 marks. I am satisfied with 98 marks," he is going backward.

Let me talk about school. Who is the better, the man who studied very hard passing through the complicated processes, or the man who thinks it is so complicated that he wants to be at the tail end? Which is easier? Zero is a hole, isn't it? It is easy to go out anywhere through the hole. Which is easier, to try to make a hole on a cliff, or to go out through a way of escape? Which is easier?

To talk about the number "100," 1 think the beating stick 'T' is to keep watching the bottom man "0" in front of it. This hole "0" cannot keep close to another "0" as it wishes even in case of being beaten. It must keep a certain space between them. They are in good order. But, is it good? Anyone who's seeking easy things will meet despair. On the contrary the man who does not seek to avoid hardships will meet hope. You have to know it is the nature of the cosmos. Do you understand? (96-190)

Do you want 100 marks or 120 marks, adding 20? All of you want to get 120 marks, don't you? I received as much as 105 marks when I was in school. (laughing) How did I get 105 marks? My homeroom teacher then was struck by me. Do you have to be put on trial for getting 105 marks? It means you can have those marks if you don't have to be. I wonder what marks your love can have. (33-281)