© 2013 Urantia Association of Spain
Jaime Marco is vice president of the Urantia Association of Spain and head of the Murcia study group. He is an active Systems Engineer and has a Master’s degree in advanced telematics and a Master’s degree in mathematics applied to science and engineering from the University of Murcia. He is 50 years old, married and has a son. He lives in Lorquí (Murcia).
I came across EUB through a silly search on the internet late in the afternoon at work back in 1999. I think I found it because “it was what I was playing for”.
I mean, I was raised in the Catholic faith. My mother is a practicing Catholic, we lived next door to the church and I was baptized, received Communion, an altar boy, confirmed and a catechist until I was sixteen and had a crisis of faith. I questioned everything in which I had been spiritually educated and had lived. There were many inconsistencies, inconsistencies and many “just because”. When I asked, they told me not to delve into the things of God, that’s what priests and other religious castes were for. Although no mortal had taught me, I had another idea of God and Jesus and I decided to see if I was wrong. I became the seeker that I still am.
I began a long journey where I drank from where I could and they let me, I studied the great religions, I walked through esotericism, the paranormal, UFOs, spiritualism, occultism, secret societies, reincarnation, horse horses. Troy, the thousand and one theories about Jesus… I have a scientific background, but I also have an open mind and a critical spirit and from that point of view I was classifying, approving and discarding. In the end I hit a ceiling and I found myself, in my mind, with a table full of bits of truth, a great unconnected puzzle. Now it had to be formed… there was no way and I wondered, after so much walking, where have I come to? Now what’s up?
Always having God as my north, his existence and my affiliation and on the other hand Jesus as living proof of this, I decided to create my own religion and began to build my own philosophy of life. I began to internalize, I couldn’t find the key outside, then I had to be inside. “Someone” took pity on me in the face of such an undertaking and provided me with a bottle of glue and a guide to recompose the puzzle: The Urantia Book. It was the simplest and dumbest way. In 1999 Google was in its infancy, when I searched the internet at work I used a search engine called Altavista, it worked very differently from the Google searches we enjoy today. The fact is that I had to look for information about a product from Ukraine. Instead of typing Ukraine, type Urania, because of the haste and the fast typing, I assumed that I had written it correctly, the search engine first brought me a link to the Urantia book. Immediately afterwards I printed it on pages, there was no reference to where to buy it or if it was edited and I wanted to read it now.
The first great impression I took with me was reading the index. I could not believe it. There, in principle, everything about what he had been studying was referenced and more, much more. I was also very impressed by the names that appeared next to each document… Divine advisor, one without a name or number, it was super shocking. I began to wonder if it wasn’t someone’s crazy thing, like so many that exist and some that I found. Before starting to read it, look for its origins, its authors, I did not want to waste time, it was a habit that I acquired in the search processes. First it had to be approved or discarded.
Knowing that I did not have a human author/s, far from intimidating me, gave me confidence, not rational confidence, but internal confidence. That made me give him the opportunity and I started, of course, with the part that I knew the most and about which I had studied the most: The life and teachings of Jesus. I no longer kept looking for its origins and history, it literally overwhelmed me… That was the Jesus I was looking for, the sovereign of a universe, the creator, the one who lived the life of his creatures to achieve his authority and the that expanded the vision of God to infinite levels of power, glory and love.
Going from there to the rest of the parts was literally a matter of time. The first reading was excessively fast because I wanted to read it all at once, it was an unusual greed. To put it in current words, my first impression upon reading it was a real rush.
There are innumerable phrases, concepts, what am I going to say to all of you who have read it? but let’s say my acceptance of what UB really is, what it claims to be, let’s say it was in three phases. First, when discovering Jesus as sovereign and creator, both characteristics had not been found in any study about Jesus. Second, when I discovered the Father in paper 1 and then discovered his relationship with the individual, in paper 5, I was so moved that the traces of the tears I shed are still on the pages. It was tremendously motivating, no one had ever described the Father in that way, with so much authority, so much detail, so close. Third and determining, the discovery of the Thought Adjusters. Look, when I was a boy and I went to catechism to prepare for my first communion, we sang a little song that said “God sees everything, behave well, don’t sin because God sees you.” I asked the priest how it could be that God saw us all at once and everywhere to keep track of our sins. The priest asked me what I believed and I answered that the only thing that occurred to me was that God was inside each one of us. The priest rewarded me with a few blows with a palm tree stick that he used and a speech about how stupid I was and how little future a child had who said that God was inside the human being, being the human being the temple of sin and evil. God only enters the body of the human being through communion, of course, we had to justify why we were there and previously we had to purify ourselves with confession. No comment.
For this reason, when I first read that the Father gave himself to his creatures, precisely to be closer to them, to bridge the enormous spiritual distance that separates us and to share the experience of life and then the documents on the Adjusters, my heart came to me. childhood on top and that situation that marked me for life, because no one had convinced me otherwise. Alone, I continued to believe that God was within each human being… and that is why I stopped praying nonsense repetitive texts and began to talk face to face with God, which I continue to do to this day.
Speaking positively, it has given it more quality and meaning. I have always believed that for a person to be able to function effectively in a given context, they must locate themselves, be aware of who they are in that context, what has led them there and where they have to go. EUB answered all my questions and placed me in life. From there I am aware of life, its meaning and my role in it. Without spectacular changes from today to tomorrow, but subtly, day by day, little by little my life is changing and what is more, I am aware of it and that encourages and stimulates me to wait for each new day with expectation and drive. Knowing that I have no way of changing the past and that the future is yet to be made makes me focus on the present and squeeze it to the best of my ability. Discover free will, the power of decision, knowing that I am building the future with every decision I make and that living is nothing more than continually deciding and therefore continually creating. Being aware that my decisions affect my peers and theirs affect me, that has made me appreciate and take care of details. Believing in all that and being aware of it changes anyone’s life, I think.
Reading EUB and believing in what it tells us is to faith like physical exercise for a muscle. My faith in God, in Jesus and in my peers has not changed it if it has helped me to prune it, remove useless scaffolding and exercise it powerfully. It is as if he had gone from a childhood stage to a more adult stage. Evolution that pleases me because it has filled me with tolerance and understanding both towards lack of faith and towards types of childish faith. Before EUB my faith was weak and sometimes I doubted, I was afraid if I was wrong or not, after EUB fear has disappeared, fear and that is tremendously liberating, the Master already said, “the truth will set you free”. Today I wouldn’t know how to live without my faith, I can’t imagine how life could be without it… I think it’s evolving from faith to certainty.
To this day none. Not even those supposed date errors, scientific contradictions and other stories that EUB’s detractors use, in a bitter way, to throw it to the ground. When I accepted EUB because of the points that were to my liking and I accepted that EUB is the fifth epochal revelation of God to the human being, I also accepted the points that at the time it was difficult for me to accept. And I accepted them with the determination that I would understand them in time… and it has.
To give an example, one of them was the subject of eugenics. At first, like almost everyone with whom I have discussed it, it sounded like Nazism, extermination, and it caused me a deep rejection that even made me wonder if EUB did not imply some kind of sinister maneuver on the part of some kind of mundane or extraterrestrial secret organization or whatever. Later, with the calm that stable faith provides, everything began to unravel in my intellect. I imagine that the aid we have has been doing its part. To this day I understand and defend eugenics as it is proposed in EUB. This is not the time to go into the subject but I have finally come to the conclusion that intelligent eugenics is an act of love and as such it cannot be bad. I will only tell you that the turning point that allowed me to understand it was to think that eugenics applies to the future, so nothing or anyone should be exterminated.
There are many parts that have deeply impressed me, but there is one that I especially highlight for what it has done in me and that is understanding the fact of death. I explain. I am the youngest of three brothers. I have been the one who has lived the most with my parents. My father had a strong influence on me and understand it in a positive, very positive sense. I had admiration and respect for his being, because for me he was exceptional, he taught me to be reed in life, he taught me to live and let live, also the theory of “knowing how to fall” and genuine humility. My fear, I say fear, my panic in life was losing my father, his death. He passed away three years ago, at the age of 91. He died in the hands of my wife and mine. I never would have imagined that we would both face that trance with such strength, serenity, acceptance and “knowing how to fall.” For his part, who did not know anything about EUB, it was his wisdom, for my part it was the open-mindedness and understanding of the fact of death that EUB gave me.
All my life I have tried to give a satisfactory answer to this question. In the Catholic world in which I was brought up, the will of the Father was capricious and always harmful. If you had an illness, it was God’s will, if you lost your job, if a relative died, everything negative that happened in your life was his will because if something positive happened, that merit was his own. They only gave thanks to God when blessing the table. It’s something.
After half a century of life, of observing daily, of studying, of being attentive, I have begun to glimpse how it can be to do the will of the Father and EUB has been fundamental for it. I have previously commented that for me, life is continually deciding, from what clothes I wear in the morning, it seems banal and unimportant but I am deciding, even the help I am going to give and to whom I am going to give it, to whom I say good morning, what a face I put on my partner, how I respond or dodge when asked, we are continually deciding, I am continually gaining experience in the art of deciding, I am exercising the power of decision and my free will, then the crux to doing the will of the Father must be in the decisions I make and above all in how I make them.
The result of doing the will of the Father is truth, beauty and goodness. When we make a decision, we will know that it is aligned with HIS will because the results will have these three qualities. I have verified that my decisions have them when I take into account when making them “the greatest good for those involved”. It is a principle that helps me enormously to know what is the appropriate decision for each situation, what is more, it inevitably indicates not a solution, but the solution. And many times that solution is not to my particular liking but I know that it is the solution, any other that I take will bring me problems. And it works for me, wow.
I say this from the deepest and most genuine humility, yes. Not only am I aware of him, but I listen to him, I have learned to listen to him and… of course, he tells me. Ever since I stopped praying Catholic and started talking to God, face to face inside me, as an infant. This is a slippery and very thorny topic. Saying out loud that I am aware of God in me and that I talk to Him and what’s more… saying that he answers me, advises me and tells me, even when I don’t speak to him, can seem pretentious and much more so in circles of believers in EUB, I say this from experience. Most likely, and in the best of cases, they will say that they are only conversations with yourself and a matter of conscience. In the same EUB it is said that listening to the Adjuster is highly improbable in life, that only those of high spirituality and life consistent with that state can hear it. It is a rarity and the fusion in life I don’t even tell you. Well, that’s correct and I believe so. But I also believe that the Adjuster dwells in us so that, at the appropriate moment, we can make contact, so that we are aware of Him and once this is done, speak to us, orient us, guide us… it is His mission, He is in us for that, it is not a stone guest, so how is it going to be an impossible or highly difficult task? But we also have to do our part. Nothing is free. First our faith in its existence and its mission. According to our free will, our will at your disposal. We have to internalize “it is my will that YOUR will be done”. It will never do anything if our will is not for it to do so. Third, the journal exercise. Just as we look for a quiet place to talk with our confidants and friends, just as we adopt certain tones of voice and behaviors when expressing ourselves, so we must do to begin to understand, to manage this sublime relationship. In a simple and natural way. The behaviors and states of the different meditation techniques can help, although it is not strictly necessary. The beginnings are difficult and it’s easy to throw in the towel, but if we put a little bit of effort into it, it will be there. And since everything that happens to the acts of God is nothing spectacular, nor full of paraphernalia, it is like his arrival, simple, subtle and tremendously comforting because emotions soar. Once you get used to it, you look for their contact and closeness more often, just like you look for that friend or that brother with whom you spend such pleasant moments talking and sharing. I spent more than 8 years talking to myself, sometimes out loud for the concern of my parents, but knowing that they listened to me, I put everything, everything in their hands, thoughts, emotions, doubts, decisions. He also tried to hide things from her. The first time I was aware that the thought that arose in my mind was not mine, an intense emotion choked my throat and my crisis of faith began to take shape. I was 16 years old.
Of course, if you have Jesus as Teacher and God as Father, how can you not try? The result? …socially disastrous, I make a lot of mistakes, therefore I learn a lot. It is necessary, as in everything related to spirituality, to follow another rule of the Master: “Be cunning as serpents and innocent as doves.” You cannot go out into society, right off the bat, to apply the teaching of Jesus because they are going to hit you everywhere, from the family to the last homeless person you help. You will encounter abuse, disqualification, the doubt of why you do it and of course, before that, your own doubts. It’s simple but tough and as always, training is needed. I think you have to go little by little, with cunning in one hand and innocence in the other. Now, yes, what you receive in exchange is priceless… for everything else the master-card (a little humor, okay).
I don’t think there is anything “mysterious” about it, not even that new jargon that those of us who have read it and believe in it learn. If it is a revelation, if it precisely comes to shed light on the mysteries, to clarify, to tell us guys, this is what it is…
No, there is nothing “mysterious” about it, what it has is that it is done following an effective pedagogical scheme that goes from its structure, through the way in which concepts are presented and their repetition, to the new jargon that you are learning, rather apprehending in a way that, as with the adjuster, when you open your will to it, it sinks in, impregnating, like an oil that penetrates in a subtle and dense way, all your intellect.
Whether one decides to read it or not depends on the state of the individual. Imagine that I don’t know English and I get into a super interesting conference on new techniques in the cultivation of saffron. After a while, I’ll leave and perhaps comment that in that conference they speak very strangely and that I don’t understand anything, therefore I’m not interested. If, prior to going to that conference, throughout my life I have been educated in English, by attending said conference I will understand what they say but if I don’t know anything about crops, I don’t even know what saffron is, maybe my interest I decayed throughout the conference and I also ended up leaving and saying that this topic is very good but I can’t follow it because I lack knowledge about crops and saffron. And if I don’t want to acknowledge my lack of knowledge, I will say that the subject is poorly focused, that they have many errors and a thousand more inventions. But yes, I am a person educated in English and in crops and I am interested in saffron. The conference will be rewarding and will provide me with new knowledge that will allow me to continue evolving.
Indeed, EUB is for everyone, but only those who have faith (English), are interested in and cultivate spirituality (saffron) and are interested in discovering new ideas and concepts about it (new cultivation techniques) will be able to take advantage of their knowledge. and evolve. Everyone who does not have that will see mysteries, sects, errors and other various excuses.
All God’s revelations to the human being have had and still have the power to transform the world into a better world because they are intended for the human being and if he is transformed by the revelation, it is a logical consequence that the world is transformed to the same extent.
God is the best partner that the human being can have because he always gives a hundredfold. To date God, in his revelations, has put his hundred and the human being has not even contributed one. With EUB, once again God, because he believes in the human being, puts a hundred on the table of the life of the human being… we have a magnificent opportunity to contribute that necessary one to align ourselves with his divine plan. We’ll be able?. If God knows the end of things from the beginning and gives us the opportunity again, it is because, undoubtedly, we will be able to. However, the revelation has a validity date of 1000 years. How cute is this our God!!.