© 1989 David Hepworth
© 1989 ANZURA, Australia & New Zealand Urantia Association
Dianne, my wife, had been fascinated with the concepts and reportings surrounding death. As such she was intuitively searching for a better explanation. This search had resulted in the study of Astrology in which she reflected the comparisons or patterns of human behaviour between the study and he personal experience. In the course of her many sojourns to th Malvern Library she picked a variety of books relating to Astrology and Astronomy, one of which was (mistakenly) The URANTIA Book.
On reflection, Di said the book nearly fell into her hands as she was searching. She only read the first couple of headings … “Central & Superuniverses”, “The Local Universe” … which was of interest. Had she read further “The Life and Teachings of Jesus”, the book would have been on the shelf before you could wink. Both of us were so put off religion by the double standards and ritualistic “mumbo jumbo” we had been exposed to, that we had built up mental “barriers”. An equally dogmatic intolerance as destructive as the dogma we were protesting about.
While Di was gaining knowledge about human behaviour through books and Astrology. I was looking at personal development through the study of business cassette tapes, seminars etc. We had both started to look for better answers to personal growth and greater human understanding. We both had started to rapidly change our perspective on life, becoming receptive to expansive life changing concepts that intuitively felt right.
The discovery of the “Book” became an instant fascination and inspiration to explore new ideas, concepts and knowledge by other great thinkers in religion, philosophy, psychology, and business. I was interstate on business when Di originally discovered the book, she spend the next 16 hours reading; she could not put it down.
While we both are active readers of the “book”, we have come to realise the old adage “the more you know, the more you know you don’t know”.
From a purely personal positive point of view, one of the great insights “The URANTIA Book” has given me is a cosmic perspective of where we have come from and where we are headed, plus how important each of us are in the total scheme of things. With this insight, I have found the dissemination of information and focus on how I behave to situations clearer, personal change easier. With changes to attitudes, I have experienced changes in my personality, which in turn has “opened the focus” to experience even more life changes. A mushroom effect!
I think it’s a bit like … the more you experience changes that add to your wisdom, the greater your visions of the future become.
As a result of both of us becoming more loving human beings we decided to have another child. Getting a better perspective on life and a feeling that one of the major contributions we can give and receive in our community is to add a well loved, balanced child into its midst. Naturally, our primary feelings centred around our family desires to share and receive more love.
Quite a lot of planning, personal difficulty, and … baby Alexandra Elizabeth, number 3 child arrived.
Our desire is to have her enter a loving family, in a positive environment, in which all of us learn from cumulative knowledge & experiences in our search for wisdom and truth. In short, striving to know God and be like him.