We are about to welcome year 2010. I would like to express my sincere gratitude for your support to our Truth of Life Center in the Southern California Missionary Area for this year and also ask for your continued support in the year 2010. May the holiday seasons bring you all happiness, prosperity, health, peace and love.

            Our Founder, Masaharu Taniguchi, always encouraged us to have a dream. The year 2010 let us have a dream regardless of our ages. He wrote in his book, For Young People, as follows: “You must have a dream: whatever is of value in this world started out in the minds of people who bravely dared to dream.” He also encouraged us in this way: “Dream your dream now. No matter how poor you are now, you are already wealthy in the world of dreams. Regardless of how unfortunate you are now, you are already fortunate in the world of dreams. If you know right now that all things are created by the mind, it will be the same as if you had already left the impoverished, unhappy circumstances of the present and had been reborn in a new, wealthy, and happy world.” (from For Young People)

            Reading these words of encouragement always motivated me. Having a dream is a wonderful thing in everyone’s life regardless of one’s age. Almost thirty years ago I read a biography of Heinrich Schliemann, who discovered Troy using his own private means. This book is The Dream Of Troy written by Arnold C. Brackman. For centuries, discussion of the existence of Troy was a heated debate topic among academicians. According to the book, “One school of prominent academicians firmly believed that Troy never existed. ‘The siege of Troy is a myth,’ Professor Jacob Bryant, an eighteenth-century British authority, emphatically declared.” In that situation, though, Heinrich firmly believed that Troy had existed.

            When he was eight years old, Heinrich received a copy of George Ludwing Jerrer’s Universal History from his father. He was so fascinated reading it, from that point he started chasing Troy in his dream.

            As he grew up, Heinrich became a successful businessman and millionaire. He was not only a great merchant but also multilingual. He, a German merchant who later turned amateur-archaeologist, learned many different languages. In six months, he mastered English. Then he learned French, Dutch, Slavic tongues, Scandinavian tongues, and so on.

            Heinrich had amazing linguistic talent. This is really extraordinary. But a genius and a mediocre person are not so different. Both of them must work hard. The only difference between an extraordinary person and an ordinary person is “extra.” The genius must put extra effort into his hard work. All you have to do is to find this extra.

            In this way, Heinrich developed his language skill and his business chances were broader. However, he didn’t try to learn Greek. If he had learned it, he thought he would give up his work and start to seek his long-time dream, discovering Troy. He accumulated his fortune using many opportunities during the Crimean War and American Civil War. After the Crimean War, he started to study Modern Greek and ancient Greek vigorously. In 1858, at the age of 36, he abruptly and formally retired from commerce.

            Consequently, Heinrich developed his business and accumulated his fortune using many opportunities. He then finally started to study Modern Greek and ancient Greek vigorously in order to seek his long-time dream, discovering Troy. In 1858, at the age of 36, he abruptly and formally retired from commerce.

In those days, many people still believed that Troy existed only in the Western world’s first book, The Iliad, in which the poet Homer recounted fifty-one days in the tenth and last year of the monumental Trojan War. But Heinrich firmly believed that Troy had really existed. He spent the rest of his life, his private fortune and his knowledge to discover Troy. He found many historically valuable things and passed away in 1890. After his death, Sophia, his wife, provided the funds and continued seeking her husband’s dream. In his lifetime, he did not realize that he had found Troy but he had. He had discovered Troy, the Troy of Homer and the Troy of his fantasy, but he never knew it.

It is hard to believe an existence that cannot be seen or heard. Even if it can be seen, you cannot believe its existence when you do not realize it. But if something does exist, it will surely appear. The True-Image World, which is the creation of God, in reality exists somewhere beyond our physical senses but cannot be perceived. Those who believe the teachings of Seicho-No-Ie have a mission to realize the True-Image World into this phenomenal world. God is waiting for us to make this holy mission. We can do it because we are all children of God.

            Arnold Brakman described Troy and Heinrich Schliemann in this way: “For four thousand, nay, almost five thousand years, Troy had been waiting for delivery. Unearthing the phantom city, restoring her glory, this was the mission of his life, his destiny.”

            The True-Image World has been waiting millions and millions of years for delivery. Unearthing the invisible world, restoring the blessings, this is the mission of our lives, our destiny. Let us dream a great dream for the year 2010 and restore the world of God in this world.