© 2024 Urantia Association of Spain
I am Jaime Marco. I recently turned 61 years old and I live in Lorquí, a small town in Murcia, in the southeast of Spain. My studies and my profession are Systems Engineer. I have been married for 36 years to María Dolores, my wife, with whom I share a son, Jaime III, and a grandson, Jaime IV. My father was the first Jaime of the clan.
I found The Urantia Book 25 years ago and I continue reading it and being fascinated because it is 25 years of new discoveries, new concepts in each new reading. Does the book change? Am I not reading well? No, my mind changes every time I accommodate what I have learned and it is ready for the next reading. This is one of the qualities that I have discovered, over time, in the way this revelation is written. I think that they know our type of mind and there is an implicit pedagogical method between its lines.
I am currently president of the Urantia Association of Spain and I am also a facilitator at the International School of The Urantia Book (UBIS), positions that I try not to inflate my ego (it is so easy for that to happen) and that I try to exercise (I force myself) from the perspective and intention of service.
¶ 1. How did you come across The Urantia Book and why do you think you found it?
I came across The Urantia Book… by chance? You be the judge!
In 1999 I had already read the six Trojan Horses published by J.J. Benítez. I loved them and they were quenching my thirst to know new nuances about Jesus, the only person outside my family that I have admired, admire and believe, at this point in my life, that I will admire.
However, this was a parallel fact between the different lines of search that I had opened to fill the growing demand for spirituality that overwhelmed me at the time. Above all, to know about the Father.
At the company where I worked, as the Systems Manager, we had received a rather special printer to print a specific type of label. The software that the manufacturer had sent us did not work. The Internet at that time was not very prolific, Google did not exist but we had other search engines. I used a Spanish one called “El Cano.” You had to write the searches in a certain format if you wanted to have some success. I put the name of the printer and the country where it was from in the search bar: Ukraine.
Because of the similarity of the word and the lack of entries in the search engine about the company’s software (I deduce), the first thing that appeared was The Urantia Book online and a brief description below that attracted me so much that I clicked on it, et voilà! There I had the 1993 edition on my computer. I was fascinated just reading the index, and since I didn’t trust that I would be able to find it again (back then things on the Internet were very volatile) I downloaded the whole thing and printed it out on one side only (the printer I printed it with didn’t have the duplex function). It took me about 4 hours and I had to solve the problem of staying in the office after 11 at night with the security guard. I went home with my two thousand odd pages on one side, with which I did my first complete reading of the book.
Why do I think I found it? Heaven knows what the reasons were, but for me I think it was influenced by a change in attitude that I had recently adopted. I changed the attitude of searching to that of finding. They are very different attitudes, even though they seem the same.
I can also think that our assistants thought I was ready to start reading it and they helped me by playing with “coincidences.” Yes, it is true that I found it at a time when I was very receptive to the type of information it contained and that made it much easier for me to read it.
NOTE: Once I found The Urantia Book, I was no longer attracted to Trojan Horses. I have never continued beyond 9.
¶ 2. What was your first impression when reading it?
AUTHORITY! What I was reading exuded the authority of knowing what was being said. I didn’t know who had written it and initially I didn’t care. I cared about what it said and what I was reading resonated on an important harmonic in my mind and soul. Was it the Spirit of Truth at work? Maybe, but at the time I didn’t know.
¶ 3. At what point in the reading (document, sentence, etc.) did you accept that The Urantia Book is really what it claims to be?
I accepted that The Urantia Book is the fifth epochal revelation from God to Urantia mankind when I read it in the book (92:4.9). I accepted it because I also read what the previous four had been. It had overwhelming logic, known elements of verification (Adam and Eve, Machiventa Melchizedek and Jesus), and a colossal sense of truth.
If the question is about when I accepted that the content of The Urantia Book was true, I have to say that there was not one moment when I went from black to white, there was a wide range of grays in between.
After reading the index and deciding to read that tome (remember that for me it was a mountain of two thousand pages or so) I took a position, an attitude regarding its reading. That attitude included two premises: I would read it in its entirety and I would assume that everything was true “a priori.”
Both premises allowed the reading to be continuous and without interruptions, since by assuming that everything was true, as long as I didn’t find something that “jarred” me, everything progressed adequately. I think that having done it the other way around would have made the reading and its acceptance quite complicated. Thus, it was an acceptance paragraph by paragraph, document by document. New concepts and ideas were validating the previous ones.
¶ 4. How has The Urantia Book changed your life?
When faced with a situation, a decision must be made, it is because there are several alternatives. When you decide on one, you eliminate the consequences of the rest and your life moves to a new state, a consequence of the decision you have made. The more and better the information you have when making a decision, the greater the probability that it will be the best one for that moment.
Throughout the readings I have done over the years, The Urantia Book has given me a multitude of “life” parameters for decision-making, and my decisions have been supported by those values and ideas over the years. I don’t know if they have been the best decisions I could have made, but I do know that I have been happy with their consequences because I have been aware of their choice.
The way The Urantia Book has changed my life has been to make me more aware of it in a new way.
¶ 5. Has your faith changed after reading it? If so, in what way?
No, my faith has not changed. It has not changed because due to my Catholic upbringing the pillars of my faith remain the same. What it has done is strengthen it and increase it in a very solid and certain way. With The Urantia Book it is easier to have faith and a better faith.
¶ 6. Is there any point (or points) of the revelation that you find difficult to accept?
As of today, no. At different stages of these 25 years there have been points that were difficult to accept, in principle, but after meditating on them, researching them and studying them, over time I have accepted them and I also consider them to be correct.
Examples include: eugenics, people with mental disabilities, the origin of The Urantia Book, the lack of information about homosexuality, the extinction of the dinosaurs or the flood.
Whenever I have encountered something that was a priori unacceptable to my mind and training, I told myself that, if I accepted from The Urantia Book everything that satisfied my mind and training, I would also have to accept what was difficult for me, because I was reading a revelation from God to man and if you accept that it is a revelation, everything is true.
He told me that he simply did not have enough information to understand that point of conflict. Most of the time, as the reading progressed, the understanding became more subtle and almost always, with meditation, rereading and consulting external sources, he reached good agreements of acceptance.
¶ 7. What is the part that has impressed you most deeply?
There have been many points that have impressed me in a striking way: the soul, the personality, the Adjusters, the angels, reality, the Father’s plan for mortals, the new vision of Jesus/Michael… but what has satisfied me the most, what has touched me the most deeply has been getting to know the Father a little better: the first five documents. I knew so little about Him that reading those documents was really comforting. I think that later I understood the concept of worship as what I felt and mentally expressed while reading those documents.
¶ 8. How do you understand “doing the will of the Father”?
For me, it is not about blind obedience to do, once I have discerned, what I understand to be the Father’s will. It is not about SUBJECTING my will to His, ANNULLING my will in pursuit of His. Rather, it is about working in my mind so that my will aligns with HIS will. Fostering that longing in my soul to want to be like Him.
The essence of His will for me is in His command, “Be ye perfect, even as I am perfect,” and I can attain a certain degree of perfection in my decisions and acts from the manifest imperfection of a mortal barely above the animal state. I can become perfect as a mortal, later I can become perfect as a morontia student and pilgrim, and so on until I reach Him. If all has gone well, I will have progressively attained perfection in each state of being, I will have done His will.
How do we achieve perfection as mortals? By making the best decisions. What are the best decisions? Those that are most abundant in Truth, Beauty and Goodness. Which ones are most abundant in those values? Those made from LOVE. And what is LOVE? The sincere desire for the greatest good.
There is a saying that, in this case, I apply to the Father: “I don’t want you to love Me because I want you to love Me. I want you to love Me because you want to love Me.”
And that’s why He gave us free will.
¶ 9. Have you become conscious of the presence of your Adjuster?
…In any case, it is always preferable for a human being to mistakenly reject an Adjuster manifestation as a purely human experience than to commit the blunder of exalting a reaction of the mortal mind to the sphere of divine dignity… 110:5.5 (1208.4)
According to this quote, I prefer to say no. I have the conviction that it is there and sometimes, in sensitive states of consciousness, I think I see its subtle trail in the results of my thoughts, but so far it is a matter of faith. Very strengthened by details, but faith.
¶ 10. Have you tried to put the Master’s teachings into practice? What has been the result?
I try to do it whenever I can, because I keep them very present in my daily activities. It is a beautiful way to live life because it allows you to be at peace with yourself knowing that you are doing the best you can “and he who does what he can is not obliged to do more.”
The result has always been and is a new source of learning. With its lights and shadows, with its successes and its errors; if not, there was no learning. But whenever I follow those patterns regardless of the consequences, I obtain the satisfaction that I have done and decided the best I could at that moment.
Facing life with the attitude of “what would Jesus do in this case?” and finding the answer aligns us perfectly with the will of the Father.
¶ 11. Do you think that The Urantia Book has something “mysterious” that makes not everyone decide to read it?
I don’t think it’s the mystery it may have. I think rather that it’s the attributes with which they have adorned it.
The origins of the book, the names of beings and places and the narrative used do not help, they do not invite its reading and acceptance. You have to have a strong will to find in order to overcome all these obstacles.
If the book had arrived, for example, brought by a seraph wrapped in light in the middle of a Madison Square Garden packed with people and broadcast on all the televisions in the world, everyone would want it and would make immense efforts to read it and understand it.
If you overcome the obstacle of the origin, with all the prejudices that it may entail, and you decide to read, then you encounter the Ancients of the Days, the Lanonandek, the chronoldeks, the Nameless and Numberless, the Powerful Messengers, Sonarington, Divinington, etc., and another cascade of prejudices assaults you.
Once you overcome this obstacle, you try to understand what you read and you come across a dense, complex narrative, where sometimes you don’t advance more than two paragraphs in each reading if you want to understand what they tell you and with a marked mental fatigue. Narratively speaking, no, it is not a novel by Tolkien or Ken Follett. It is easy to throw in the towel if you don’t get to savor the fruits of reading it.
It is not so much a decision to choose which book I am going to read as it is to be prepared to be able to read that book.
¶ 12. Is there anything else you would like to say regarding The Urantia Book?
I thank God, every time I can and remember, for having helped me find it and read it. I believe it is a blessing for every human being who wants to receive it.
“The church bells ring for everyone, but not everyone goes to church.”
¶ References
- Index of the magazine “Luz y Vida” of the Association of Spain
- This article from the magazine “Luz y Vida Online”