I headed down 63rd Street toward Central Park. Just at that moment, a very short Japanese lady named Tomiko came up to me. She was very confident and friendly. I thought she was very brave to come up and talk to me, a stranger, in the middle of New York City when was having difficulty speaking English. That made me think she must have something very important to say. I liked her immediately. She was a real “no nonsense” type of person. In the first few minutes that I met her, she asked me, “Are you searching for the truth?” I said, “Yes!” She invited me to take a walk up 5th Avenue, towards the building where the Unification Church was located at that time. I walked into the building on 71st Street and felt like I had entered the United Nations! There was every nationality and language there before me: German, French, English, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Belgian, Mexican and so on.
I felt such a peaceful atmosphere and a sense of being in the right place at the right time. I thought right away, “Who is the leader who could bring people together like this?” I turned around as I looked about the room, and there was a picture of Reverend Moon. “Who is this man?” I wondered to myself. His face looked so peaceful. Then Tomiko asked me if I believed in God and began to speak about God’s hopes for humanity. She said that something tragic had taken place for God and tears involuntarily came down her cheeks. I was really surprised. I had never met anyone as sincere as she was. When she asked me to listen to a lecture, I said no at first. I was sick and tired of lectures, having just graduated from college. But I could not say no after a while because she was so sweet, and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
The first thing I heard that day was called “God’s Ideal of Creation.” It struck me then that I must not only know who God is, but God’s will and desire. The lecturer, a Dutch woman, drew a diagram on the board of the “Four-Position Foundation,” the ideal of the family with God at the center as the basis for harmony in the family, society, nation and world. This was when I heard as a shout in my mind, “This is it! This is what you have always been seeking—and not only you, but all of your ancestors have always been searching for this!” I began to feel a great flood of tears coming up, but I did not want to cry in front of others.
She finished the lecture and I was just quiet. It struck me with such a peace inside. I thought, “This is not an ordinary truth. This is not the postulation of a theory, not a defense of a position, or the argument of someone’s opinion, or just some information about life and the world. This is really a message, some words from God.” That is what I felt. It was a truth about life, rooted in the heart of God, not just an intellectual exercise. I just cried with joy. I had found a spiritual oasis in the desert.
From I Am in This Place, pp. 47-48.