© 2014 Urantia Association of Spain
| Convergences and divergences: appearance on the cosmic scene of matter-energy | Luz y Vida — No. 38 — December 2014 — Index | News from Urantia Association of Spain |
Eduardo Altuzarra is a founding member of the Urantia Association of Spain, legally constituted in 2007. He held the position of vice president in its first Board of Directors and is currently treasurer. Reader of The Urantia Book since the spring of 1994. He is 63 years old, married, has two children and two grandchildren. He is retired from a railway company and lives in the city of Miranda de Ebro (Burgos).
¶ 1. How did you get to “The Urantia Book” and why do you think you found it?
I began my journey with this book because a friend told us in the Metaphysics group to which we belonged at that time (1990, approximately) that he had found a book written in French entitled Le Livre d’Urantia. We took an interest in it, we wrote to the management and they replied that it was in the middle of the translation period into Spanish in order to publish it later, and that when that was a reality they would notify us. We waited about three years and finally in 1993 we had the book in our hands.
I didn’t start reading it at that time because at first sight so much text “clogged” my eyes.
It is true that, perhaps mainly due to my religious upbringing in my childhood and adolescence, prior to these events, I had spent about twenty years searching and trying to find “signs” that in one way or another would convince me that the existence of God is a reality, something that later in time I have already found and I have to admit that it is very difficult to demonstrate.
It goes without saying that nothing that I experienced during that long period could give me a convincing explanation. In all honesty, I have to state that I am not a person who is easily convinced.
At one point, back in the spring of 1994, probably after “unpacking”, tired of searching and wasting time on tricks from three to four, one fine day I went to the shelves of my library, caressed the heavy book, I took it in my hands and let it open randomly… Eureka! It scrolled down to 4:5 and read: 5. GOD’S MISTAKEN IDEAS. Then I began to read and I liked what I was reading so much that today is the date on which I continue with that reading, with that story that for me, today, is endless.
¶ 2. What was your first impression when reading it?
I frankly believe that I would not know very well how to express or define it, but if I have to say it somehow, I will say that when I initially read those paragraphs at the beginning of the book, at first, I would say that it was astonishing. As I got into his reading it was joyful and, later immersed in it, it was self-convincing. The book came to say what more or less I had suspected in my heart of hearts for some time, but that no one had said or written in such a similar way.
Currently, I consider that the impacts, impressions and sensations experienced were so strong that I was hooked for life. Never had anything or anyone with so few words, in such a short space of time, been able to convince me. Unheard.
¶ 3. At what point in the reading (document, sentence, etc.) did you accept that “The Urantia Book” is really what it claims to be?
This question has an easy answer. I understand that I accepted that this book is what it claims to be from the beginning, shortly after starting to read it, since if it had not been that way, I would currently be reading novels by Marcial Lafuente Estefanía and not writing this questionnaire.
¶ 4. How has “The Urantia Book” changed your life?
Actually, the book has not changed my life in its form, understanding form as structural, substantial or intrinsic variations in my person. I continue to be what I was. I consider that the book “captured” me at an age (44) in which the idiosyncrasy of a human being is quite entrenched in one’s own being.
Throughout the twenty years that I have been at it, I observe that I find myself assimilating in myself what I manage to understand from what I interpret from its reading; what I gain from study and discussion within study groups and what I learn through the opinions of other readers. I have to say that the book has given me a high and deep knowledge of reality. Currently I am convinced that God is a reality, unprovable but real. All of this is making me live a series of experiences that lead me to reflect so that I pay more attention to ideas, more respect for thoughts, more finesse for words and better manners for actions.
Because? Well, because I consider that this is the best breeding ground for my soul, that is, for “the foundations” of my future destiny, something that previously I would not have known how to start. Currently I observe a broader perspective of the horizon that my eyes contemplate. That’s as far as I get, talking about changes.
¶ 5. Has the faith you had before reading it changed? In what way?
Before I came across this book, the truth is that I was somewhat lost, clueless and confused, but I estimate that I was already a believer since my childhood, although I must admit that I was not a practitioner.
At that time I was not very aware of my faith, if it existed in me, but I believed since my educators taught me in many different ways to separate the wheat from the chaff. Possibly I was not very clear how to order the ideas that I had inside my head according to what I had learned in my religious education, surely.
I don’t know if I’m wrong, but I believe that belief is the prelude to faith. After reading this book, my life has been shaped in some ways. The religious meaning has changed. Now I know something more and better about God and I know that service to my fellow men is something very important.
In a way, I can say that if before I had no faith and it was just belief, now I do have faith, although I admit that it is not very great and consistent because doubts sometimes assail me in the face of the vicissitudes of daily living, but it does give me enough strength and hope so that with each fall I get up again.
¶ 6. Is there a point (or points) of the revelation that you find difficult to accept?
Yes, many and very recalcitrant, this will be due to my stubbornness.
It is difficult for me to accept suffering in all its scale as a “partner” in life, happiness is relegated to a dream, an illusion, something transitory.
It’s hard for me to accept purging for the ineffectiveness and irresponsibility of the unscrupulous.
I find it hard to accept that we inevitably have to evolve based on experiencing calamities, mainly due to ignorance of reality.
I find it hard to accept that we are deprived of more and better “help” because we have to be more patient, more understanding and more humble.
It is hard for me to accept that, being all children of the same Universal Father, some are lucky enough to find him and others are not.
And the most difficult thing for me to accept is how a Paradise Son, Michael of Nebadon, made a man on earth like Jesus of Nazareth, had to die crucified and not of old age like most mortals on this planet.
¶ 7. What is the part that has most deeply impressed you?
If we understand by part, one of the four of which the book consists, I will say with resounding certainty that the first part. Especially the first six or eight documents. I had never heard that of the Universal Father. Nowhere had I read what is said at the beginning of that book, much less in that way. I had never heard anyone say what is said in those documents. Every time I read, I read and reread again because my understanding did not give credit. I saw myself as Bastian, there in a dilapidated attic at school, “devouring” paragraphs from the book, The Neverending Story, enthusiastic and “fused” with him. My imagination dragged me to unsuspected limits.
¶ 8. How do you understand that of doing “the will of the Father”?
I think the answer is easy, it is simple: it is to understand the message and put it into practice.
Of course, said like that it sounds like pedantry, but if we reason it a little within a logic it has an explanation and its consequent understanding. It is said: God has made human beings in his image and likeness, and on top of that, he has endowed us with a unique potential, I would say, to be able to become perfect as He is. So we have to know as much as we can, both of Him as of everything that surrounds us, to do things as He would do them in our place. It is also said that God, our Universal Father, is the father of all creatures and that, as a father, we are all his children. And if we are all his children, we are all brothers. What’s more, as a father he loves and respects us in an infinite way, because we must love and respect each other in the same way or the closest thing. From this it follows that we must adore and love our Father and love each other as brothers. Now it only remains, in accordance with these messages, to set some goals and put them into practice. This is how I understand doing the will of the Father.
¶ 9. Have you become aware of the presence of your Adjuster?
So, so, more or less, I would say. On two occasions I have experienced moments in which transcendental ideas have come to my mind that I cannot imagine coming out of my brain, the truth is that staging changed the meaning of certain behaviors in my life. I would not be able to discern if those moments and ideas were “the work” of him. I think so, but as a human, today, I have my doubts.
¶ 10. Have you tried to put the Master’s teaching into practice? What was the result?
If we refer to the general statement that being children of the same Father we must love one another as He did not teach, as brothers, then I must answer that on occasions I have put it into practice. What I have not come to know very well, at times, is how my neighbor has taken it, since sometimes I have left super happy and other times I have had the feeling of leaving disappointed. Surely in the latter I have not been able to apply the will of the Father well. I am currently still practicing.
¶ 11. Do you think “The Urantia Book” has something “mysterious” about it that prevents everyone from reading it?
No, The Urantia Book is not mysterious at all. The mystery for me is why some devote themselves to reading it and others don’t? I think that the mystery is found on this earth, among humans. I think we are fearful and selfish by nature. Some surpass in time and due to circumstances those… traits? and others not.
But the book is not dark, nor enigmatic. The book reveals reality. The book tells it all. The book is quite transparent. The book is coherent. Due to I don’t know what circumstances of life that I don’t fully understand very well, despite having read the book, a large sector of today’s society dedicates the vast majority of time to materialism, to the banal and very little to trends. that expand behavior and service, in the face of human needs and hardships.
There is no time, nor responsibilities to look for “the pearls” of life and wisdom; it is easier to live “free” and without commitments turning your back on reality, without being fully aware that everything has “its price”. Then comes the lament.
¶ 12. Is there anything else you would like to say regarding “The Urantia Book”?
It’s just that after having read The Urantia Book I can no longer say that: Ah, well… I didn’t know that! Currently I am aware that I have acquired an eternal commitment, I am involved in it up to “my eyebrows.” I feel very proud to have found the book, for me, of an endless story.
In the end I believe that God created eternity to keep us eternally entertained.
¶ References
- Light and Life Magazine (all old issues): https://aue.urantia-association.org/numeros-antiguos-del-lyv/
| Convergences and divergences: appearance on the cosmic scene of matter-energy | Luz y Vida — No. 38 — December 2014 — Index | News from Urantia Association of Spain |