© 2013 Urantia Association of Spain
Carmelo Martínez is president of the Urantia Association of Spain. He is an industrial engineer and has a degree in Economics. He is married and has three children and one grandson. He is currently retired and lives in Getxo (Vizcaya).
¶ 1. How did you get to “The Urantia Book” and why do you think you found it?
I have been a follower of Benítez almost since he began writing as a journalist, back in 1973, and I have read several of his books (of course, the entire Caballo de Troya series). I vaguely remember that in an introductory note to one of his books he referred to a revelation and mentioned the name of Urantia. Later, at a dinner with friends, a friend commented to me, not without a touch of rejection, that the Horses was a plagiarism of a book published in Chicago. I don’t know why I related both data and set out to find that text. This happened in the 90s of the last century; I don’t remember the exact moment so I can’t specify more.
And the years passed. From time to time he remembered that he had to look for that text, but he always had something else to do and put it off. It was at the end of February 2002 when I finally made up my mind and typed the word Urantia into a search engine. And there it was! I got to the Foundation and the Fellowship websites and downloaded the text in Spanish (I don’t remember which one). I started reading it right away to see what it was.
In all those years that passed from the time I decided to look for the text to the moment I came across it, something reminded me from time to time not to forget the matter. But, in reality, I found TUB as one more step in a search process that began when I was about 20 years old and I rejected, as empty, all the religious practices and beliefs that I knew. Today, after having read the book several times, I could say that perhaps it was my adjuster or perhaps some guardian seraph who “blew into my ear” that I should not forget the matter, but I dare not say so.
¶ 2. What was your first impression when reading it?
The first impression was that the translation was lousy. I was used by my profession to read bad translations, and that was another one. But what I read and was able to understand seemed to answer many questions that I had in my mind (a consequence of years of searching and reflection) and I decided to read the original in English. I found it difficult to understand, but I found that there were answers to my questions there, so I thought it was worth translating as I read it.
¶ 3. At what point in the reading (document, sentence, etc.) did you accept that “The Urantia Book” is really what it claims to be?
Actually, neither in my first reading in Spanish nor in my first reading in English did I worry about whether or not that was a revelation; it simply absorbed its content. The ideas that TUB transmitted to me fit well into the general mental scheme that I had been developing over the years, in my vision of things. It was as if, during all the previous years of searching, I had been preparing a mold in my mind into which the ideas I read in the book now fit perfectly.
And now that I think about it, I have never doubted that TUB is what it claims to be. My first TUB readings were a process in which the concepts read gradually and naturally fitted into those empty molds of my mind. First there was curiosity and then, as I discovered and deepened the teachings and saw them work in life, progressive conviction, but no doubt about their authenticity.
¶ 4. How has “The Urantia Book” changed your life?
TUB has been like a magnet for me, not in the sense of attraction, but in the sense of guiding everything in the same direction. The image that illustrates this idea is that of a paper with metallic objects. When we bring a magnet close to them, they all point in the same direction. Well that has been the effect for me of TUB. All my ideas, purposes and intentions were on the paper of my mind without a specific orientation, and the TUB magnet has oriented them all in the same direction. The fact of knowing how all of creation is organized, what our destiny is and that the Father is developing his plan within it, has directed all my forces in that direction. The idea that we live to be perfect just as He is perfect, that the Father gives us opportunities to grow in the different circumstances that he presents to us in life, has become a new light for me to understand what happens to me. and a powerful engine to keep going over difficulties.
It is undoubtedly an internal transformation, but one that is necessarily oriented towards relationships with others. For me, the key idea of ULS in personal relationships is the statement that appears at the end of paper 56: “Love is the desire to do good to others.” The Father’s plan is infinite and, in our present state, we cannot understand it except in a small part, but what is clear to me is that it is about perfecting ourselves and perfecting creation, always acting with a love understood according to the previous definition. Now, in every decision I make I always try to guide my actions following that idea of love. I don’t always get it, far from it, because it is necessary to turn that decision mechanism into an automatism that cancels the previous decision automatisms that are the result of a lifetime, but I have the impression that I am getting it more and more.
This is how my life has been changing after reading TUB.
¶ 5. Has the faith you had before reading it changed? In what way?
Before I found TUB I was an atheist (and I like to say, half seriously and half jokingly, that I still am, and not without reason), so faith was not something that was present in my life, at least not in concept. term religious. I had faith in myself, in my abilities, and I had faith in humanity; I thought that, despite the atrocities that were being done on the planet, humans would end up overcoming the problems and building a just and balanced society. But he had no faith in any celestial being, in any God, because he was not sure that he existed; in fact, I thought we didn’t even need it to exist.
In TUB I have discovered, amazed, a Father who does not impose his presence on us, who does not demand anything of us, who sets us free and wants us to use the tool that He himself has given us, the mind, to make decisions freely according to our own personality (which He has also given us); not to a threatening, punishing and vengeful being, but to a loving being (of an infinite love!). A Father who has prepared a journey and a destination for us thinking of us, of our good (we are His “others”). I think it’s a Perfector of Wisdom who says it’s hard not to love someone like that. Once this Father is discovered I find it difficult not to have faith in Him, not to choose to follow His plan.
That is why now I have faith in the Father, in His creation and in His plan, and before, no. Although this faith bears little resemblance to the externally imposed, blind, irrational, and enslaving faith demanded by traditional religions.
¶ 6. Is there a point (or points) of the revelation that you find difficult to accept?
I have some scientific background and have always been interested in the mechanisms of life and artificial intelligence techniques. Over time, I developed the idea that life arises spontaneously as soon as sufficiently complex organic molecules are formed. Also that intelligence (more or less developed) arises spontaneously in a machine if it is provided with the appropriate programs. It is an atheist and evolutionist conception that fits very well with the ideas of science today.
TUB categorically denies those ideas. He affirms that life does not and cannot arise spontaneously, that the “breath” of the Infinite Spirit is necessary. According to TUB, complex molecules can be organized in a laboratory, but no scientist or any other being can never create life without the intervention of the Spirit. Life is something different from matter and is not inherent in it.
Likewise mind (of all types) is bestowal of Spirit. There can be no mind without the participation of the Spirit. We can load into a machine the most complex program we can produce, but it will only be capable of imitating already programmed behaviors or reproducing already imagined behaviors. It will not have an atom of the originality that characterizes the mind; for the mind to arise it is necessary that it be granted by the Spirit. The mind is a tool in itself and is not inherent in any machine (not even the biological computing machine that is the brain).
I know that this is the case and I believe it, but it is very difficult for me because they are concepts that clash head-on with my previous ideas. It is the only TUB teaching that does not fit, neither well nor badly, with those mental “molds” of which I spoke before and with which everything else fits so well.
¶ 7. What is the part that has most deeply impressed you?
Initially I was impressed by the entire text itself, the absolute and complete coherence of its 2097 pages. But as I read it and delved into its teachings, what has definitely impressed me, what has left an indelible mark on my mind, is the idea of the Universal Father. This concept of a being who prepares an infinite plan out of love for his creatures, this idea of a God who loves me personally (just like all other creatures) with an infinite love, and this conception of a personal religion as a direct, intimate and friendly relationship with the Father himself, seem to me the most profound teachings of all TUB and those that summarize all its transformative capacity of the person.
¶ 8. How do you understand that of doing “the will of the Father”?
I think I have said it before, doing the will of the Father is acting in the direction of that infinite plan that He has prepared for us. Apparently the phase of that plan in which we are now immersed is to perfect ourselves from the finite point of view and to perfect the seven superuniverses. It also seems that the perfect functioning of all creations is based on selfless service to others. And in any state of evolution of the personality and regardless of our acting capacities, the key to this service is love understood as “the desire to do good to others”. The will of the Father is that we become perfect just as He is perfect, and this is achieved, as deduced from TUB, seeking in all circumstances the good of others (just as the Father has sought/seeks/will seek -eternally- the good of his creatures).
¶ 9. Have you become aware of the presence of your Adjuster?
I don’t think so. Sometimes ideas have arisen unexpectedly in my mind that I did not know where they came from, even that surprised me, but I am not sure that their origin was my adjuster, so I cannot guarantee that I am aware of their presence.
¶ 10. Have you tried to put the Master’s teaching into practice? What was the result?
Not especially, or at least not as Master’s teachings. But I understand that trying to do the will of the Father is also following the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
¶ 11. Do you think that “The Urantia Book” has something “mysterious” that makes not everyone decide to read it?
No, I don’t think there is anything mysterious about TUB. Simply, there are people who have the mental “molds” prepared to receive it and others do not. And that says nothing for or against one or the other.
I read a long time ago an evolutionary theory that defended that, in the chain of evolution, the characteristics of the offspring of a species are those that the adults of the successor species will have, but that they lose them when they become adults. Those of us who read TUB may not have “adulted” by the standards of this evolutionary stage of humanity. Since it seems that TUB is not for this time and that it will flourish in the humanity of a more or less immediate future, we can think that we read TUB because we have not become adults in the present society, because the characteristics of our mind correspond more to the adults of the future than the adults of today.
And I wonder is this a blessing or a curse?
¶ 12. Is there anything else you would like to say regarding “The Urantia Book”?
Yes. I consider that TUB’s teachings are today the tiny seed of a gigantic sequoia that will give shade to all humanity. When it is that big tree, it will be able to withstand winds, rains and all kinds of circumstances. But what the tiny seed needs today is the protection of a fertile and favorable humus. We, the ones who read TUB, the ones who have the mental molds prepared, are that humus. As I understand it, our job is to make the seed germinate, sprout and begin to grow. It seems to me useless, even counterproductive, to try to spread the teachings of TUB massively today; most people would not accept them. I think it is much more productive today to try to find the book for others who already have the mental molds prepared. It would be a pity and a regrettable waste of resources if some of those people already prepared today to accept it were left without finding The Urantia Book.
¶ References
- Light and Life Magazine (all old issues): https://aue.urantia-association.org/numeros-antiguos-del-lyv/