© 2022 Urantia Association of Spain
I am Christian Figueroa Colón, university student in office systems administration, single, I live in Puerto Rico. I contribute to Radio Urantia and Urantia TV.
¶ 1. How did you get to “The Urantia Book” and why do you think you found it?
Being a Christian, my curiosity to look outside the canon led me to read different extra-biblical or apocryphal books, which eventually led me to “accidentally” find The Urantia Book (first in a playstore search for The Book of Enoch and then by searching Biblical things on Google). The first two times I found it, I had a kind of negative vision: I believed it was the work of Satan (I refused to read it), but over time, after having exhausted everything I could find regarding the biblical and apocryphal universe, I decided to reading it. I think it came at the right time when I was also doubting certain things in the Bible, in those last months I was asking myself how it was possible that reality was reduced to the Bible (and I was wondering how the infinite God was so limited and different in the biblical testaments). It told me that there must be more, that there must be a greater truth that I did not know, and that insatiable void was filled with The Urantia Book, which managed to answer all those doubts and confusions. I finally found that truth that my being longed for and sensed that there should be.
¶ 2. What was your first impression when reading it?
The first time I read it somewhat haphazardly was as a hostile believer (I had fallen for the John the Baptist document). I told myself that this must be the work of evil, a new age text, a text made to compete with the Bible, but when I decided to read it with another mentality a few months later, that’s when my mind went “boom”, all that wall limiting and oppressive of primitive ideas fell and I saw an enormous and immense reality, a truly eternal and infinite God, and at the same time so warm and close. I finally found rest after long internal conflicts.
¶ 3. At what point in the reading (document, sentence, etc.) did you accept that “The Urantia Book” is really what it claims to be?
At first I read it like any other apocryphal book (in amazement, but not with full acceptance), but as I saw how these ideas had coherence and were things that I had intuited, or that were true and I had refused to believe them because they were unbiblical… Seeing that agreement made me accept it to the point that I believed it totally. But I think it was the concept of God present that finally made me feel like I was on the right track, I hadn’t seen such a coherent concept of God in any other book.
Also seeing that faith and science were not at odds really made me take this revelation very seriously. I was hostile to ideas such as evolution and fossil records, I saw that the scientific evidence clashed with my beliefs, but deep down I knew that I was wrong, but seeing that The Urantia Book did not have that conflict made me calm down, seeing that such serious conflicts no longer exist, that evolution is a fact, and that God and his kingdom made it possible.
¶ 4. How has “The Urantia Book” changed your life?
It changed my way of seeing God, people and reality, and in turn made me take ways of acting different from the ones I had. I feel free to do things that I couldn’t because of religious taboos, it makes me happy to live under that liberalism where what matters are one’s real motives. I no longer have to limit myself to doing this or that, just to please a Church or a fragile and always offended concept of God.
¶ 5. Has the faith you had after reading it changed? If so, in what way?
My faith practically went from a blind and fearful belief to a seeking and open faith, a faith that partly doubts in order to grow and be able to correct what is wrong in vision and ideology.
¶ 6. Are there any points (or points) of the revelation that you find difficult to accept?
At first I had problems with the eugenic ideas of the book, mainly because I had a not very good tradition on my hands, but after seeing more correct translations and seeing the context, the subject is much more tolerable, although it does not stop causing discomfort at times, but you have to understand the context of the time, which helps to understand why the book says what it says and why it says it that way. But I always try to see the revelation through the lens of the highest values, that helps me to be able to see things better.
¶ 7. What is the part that has most deeply impressed you?
I believe the final document of the faith of Jesus. Being able to see inside Jesus made me see how we should see the world. That document changes your life and I think it is one of the most advanced concepts in the book. Some documents surprise you for the beauty of the universe, but this one in particular surprises you for the goodness and truth of God, for that vision so free of taboos and hasty judgments.
¶ 8. How do you understand “doing the will of the Father”?
For me it implies the great challenge of understanding others, their motivations and contexts, as well as adapting to their own world in order to share something from their own personal world. It is difficult and it costs, but that is the great challenge to achieve the state of divinity.
As one internalizes what one has learned from The Urantia Book and experiences in life, one sees the best methods to do the will of the Father, one realizes that this goes beyond the search for new readers, this it also implies that there are other worlds and other faiths where one can contribute something that can enhance that person’s faith and one’s own vision. I think it involves respecting that other world to some degree, and not trying to force others into unattained holiness.
I also believe that within the will of God there must be trust in God, and at the same time honest, examining and experiencing doubts. Do not doubt the central but the interpretations and forms, always achieve that our vision is idealistic but in a realistic scenario, that those supreme values of truth, beauty and goodness are the north. I think it is a way in which one can grow, become stronger and find the best ways for that personal religion. We are constantly growing and that is what God asks, that when we are reborn we grow and evolve, and it cannot be done with a blind belief in everything that our belief implies.
¶ 9. Have you become aware of the presence of your Adjuster?
I can say yes, and the experience is like a slap on the ear, a unique feeling that hits the ego. You then feel that you need more action and less self-complaint. At that moment you realize that you need to change your strategy.
¶ 10. Have you tried to put the Master’s teachings into practice? What was the result?
It costs, but over time one sees that they are valid and real, that the message of Jesus is really necessary and useful, and that they are not just beautiful phrases (this is how one sees them in the initial stasis). Having the eyes of Jesus makes one less selfish, one manages to understand that one does not live only for oneself, and that selfishly saving one’s life implies being left alone, is corroding the soul with the acid of constant selfishness. By wearing the glasses of Jesus, one takes the golden rule seriously, but in a way that is still hard to accept. I realize that one should do for others what one would like them to do for one, not with the hope or expectation that it will be reciprocated, but with the central idea that I would like it to be so with me because it feels good.
¶ 11. Do you think that “The Urantia Book” has something “mysterious” that makes not everyone decide to read it?
I believe that The Urantia Book is not for everyone, at least the book (the message is universal), and for that reason it is in our hands to adapt the knowledge to the different contexts so that the message reaches. There are many difficulties, such as the translations or the style that prevent some from being able to grasp it or read it at ease, so it remains to share some of it in other ways, as J.J Benítez and his book saga have achieved. It is true that sometimes you have to sacrifice some concepts so that the truth reaches people who otherwise would not accept it. We have William Sadler Jr.'s Simplification of the Prologue where some concepts are sacrificed or simplified to make them understandable for the initiated, and I think that’s an act of empathy. So I think we can make the message reach more people and less people resist reading it (so it appears to be). Although we should worry more about the message getting through than about the book being read in its entirety by everyone.
¶ 12. Is there anything else you would like to say regarding “The Urantia Book”?
I want to share three quotes that have become part of me and my vision, and that can also be of use to others:
the truth never suffers from honest examination. (UB 153:2.11)
But the fetish of factualized truth, fossilized truth, the iron band of so-called unchanging truth, holds one blindly in a closed circle of cold fact. One can be technically right as to fact and everlastingly wrong in the truth. (UB 48:6.33)
Jesus led men to feel at home in the world; he delivered them from the slavery of taboo and taught them that the world was not fundamentally evil. He did not long to escape from his earthly life; he mastered a technique of acceptably doing the Father’s will while in the flesh. He attained an idealistic religious life in the very midst of a realistic world. Jesus did not share Paul’s pessimistic view of humankind. The Master looked upon men as the sons of God and foresaw a magnificent and eternal future for those who chose survival. He was not a moral skeptic; he viewed man positively, not negatively. He saw most men as weak rather than wicked, more distraught than depraved. But no matter what their status, they were all God’s children and his brethren. (UB 196:2.9)
¶ References
- Article of the Magazine Light and Life Online: https://aue.urantia-association.org/2022/11/29/cuestionario-urantiano-christian-figueroa