© 2024 Urantia Association of Spain
I greatly appreciate the opportunity to respond to this questionnaire and share.
I was born in Mexico City and now live happily with my wife and our son in New York City.
I have a degree in Communication Sciences with a specialization in Advertising and Public Relations. I obtained a master’s degree in Organizational Development in Mexico and a postgraduate degree in Strategic Marketing in the United States.
I have worked in the corporate and nonprofit arenas in Mexico, Latin America, the United States, Europe, and East Asia since the early 1990s. I had the wonderful opportunity to serve as director of the Spanish-speaking office of Urantia Foundation from 2001 to 2004, as an associate trustee from 2010 to 2015, and then as an associate trustee emeritus until 2022, when I was elected to the permanent board of trustees.
¶ 1. How did you come across The Urantia Book and why do you think you found it?
I first heard about Urantia Foundation in a thank you note that Juan José Benítez wrote in one of his books. Years later, through a panel discussion on a Mexican television program, I learned of the existence of The Urantia Book. But, although I searched for the book with determination for years, I did not find it. Until one day, while waiting for a person I accompanied to a bookstore to pick up an order of books, I saw on the floor an individual box of The Urantia Book that a worker had thrown away while cleaning the warehouse. I took the box and asked a saleswoman about the book. She told me that they did not have it, but that the owner of the bookstore had ordered it by mail for himself from a publishing house in the United States.
I took the box to have the address, I wrote to the Urantia Foundation, and weeks later I received a beautiful letter from Bob Solone accompanied by a money order, which I completed and sent to the Foundation, and they sent me my copy of the book by return mail, a few weeks later. I had the immense fortune of having read and studied it together with my brother Luis, with whom I discovered the wonders of the fifth epochal revelation hand in hand. We read the texts together in English and Spanish.
I estimate that between four and six years passed from the moment I read Juan José Benítez’s first book and the moment I received The Urantia Book in the mail.
I think that, in the course of the adventure of the personal search for truth, if the circumstances and characteristics of our search allow it, sometimes we encounter someone or something that leads us to a higher source. Such is the case of my encounter with The Urantia Book and the community of its scholars.
¶ 2. What was your first impression when reading it?
That it was complex and impressive. I read it from beginning to end, with an open mind but also with a critical and objective attitude. And the more I read it, the more impressed I was by its depth, consistency and unique quality of content. But especially, by the powerful attraction it exerted on my soul, mind, and heart.
¶ 3. At what point in the reading (document, sentence, etc.) did you accept that The Urantia Book is really what it claims to be?
After completing the first reading in English and Spanish.
It was not a single, sudden moment. It was a process of mental and spiritual awareness and inner realization. I experienced a powerful inner push that helped me begin to understand the truths contained therein. I experienced a growth in my appreciation and understanding of many of the areas the Urantia Papers address. Finally, after completing my first reading of the entirety of the papers, I realized how inspiring and unique they were (and are) compared to everything I have, up to then and since, had the opportunity to read and learn in the scientific, philosophical, sociological, historical, religious, cosmological, and other areas.
¶ 4. How has The Urantia Book changed your life?
Completely. My entire life changed in multiple ways and in many senses.
First, opening my mind and soul to new and broader horizons from cosmic, religious, philosophical, intellectual and mental perspectives.
Second, contributing significantly to strengthening and elevating my inner spiritual vision, faith and desire to serve my fellow man.
Third, allowing me to meet kindred souls, people committed to the purpose and work of bringing the Urantia Papers to all peoples and races of the planet. People from whom I have learned and continue to learn every day.
Fourth, leading me to decide to change the direction of my life and move to Chicago to serve from the Urantia Foundation for several years.
Fifth, enriching my values as a human being and child of God in such a way that I have realized how small I am in the universe; motivating me in my efforts to elevate my perspective of reality, brotherly love for my fellow men and behavior in all areas.
Sixth, The Urantia Book has allowed me to better choose the type of life I will live, and the partner with whom I will form a family and build a home.
And seventh, he has been immeasurably valuable to me in my imperfect efforts to try to be a better son, brother, husband, father, and friend.
¶ 5. Has your faith changed after reading it? If so, in what way?
As the book itself states: “In its very essence religion is a confident faith in the goodness of God.” UB 2:6.1 “For a long time you will have to practice faith and depend on revelation if you hope to make rapid and sure progress.” UB 19:5.12
My faith has evolved and progressed since I discovered the book. But more than a change of faith that has resulted from reading it, I have experienced those gradual changes to which I have referred thanks to study and efforts (often failed and imperfect) to live its teachings.
¶ 6. Is there any point (or points) of the revelation that you find difficult to accept?
In my opinion, The Urantia Book does not invite anyone to accept it or believe in its content, but rather to consider it and live an authentic and original spiritual and human life, to study and decide personally, at every moment, how to live and serve in our aspirations to achieve spiritual progress and eternal life from the hand of God and in the company of a universe of beings created by Him.
¶ 7. What is the part that has impressed you most deeply?
The truth is that there are so many parts that have impressed me so deeply, that I find it difficult to point to just one. Without a doubt, discovering and learning more about the life and the way in which our beloved Master, Michael of Nebadon, lived his life is one of the most important for me.
Beginning to understand realities of cosmology, religion, philosophy, history, and other subjects from the amplified and expanded perspective that The Urantia Book provides is both overwhelming and sobering. So is beginning to learn more about the physical, morontial, and spiritual realities of the master universe, the central universe, and Paradise. There are many things, but three that come to mind are:
- One of the most important lessons you must learn during your career as mortals is teamwork. UB 28:5.14
- “Following Jesus” means personally sharing his religious faith and entering into the spirit of the Master’s life dedicated to the selfless service of men. One of the most important things in human life is to find out what Jesus believed, discover his ideals and strive to achieve the high goal of his life. The most valuable of all human knowledge is to know the religious life of Jesus and his way of living it. UB 196:1.3
- And finally: “…the greatest of all the unfathomable mysteries of God is the phenomenon of the divine dwelling within the minds of mortals. The manner in which the Universal Father resides in the creatures of time is the deepest of all the mysteries of the universe. The divine presence in the mind of man is the mystery of mysteries.” UB 1:4.1
¶ 8. How do you understand “doing the will of the Father”?
This is a wonderful and difficult question. I share the following four quotes from the book, which I found enlightening in my efforts to find an answer:
The doing of the will of God is nothing more or less than an exhibition of creature willingness to share the inner life with God—with the very God who has made such a creature life of inner meaning-value possible. Sharing is Godlike—divine. God shares all with the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit, while they, in turn, share all things with the divine Sons and spirit Daughters of the universes. (UB 111:5.1)
The Universal Father never imposes any form of arbitrary recognition, formal worship, or slavish service upon the intelligent will creatures of the universes. The evolutionary inhabitants of the worlds of time and space must of themselves—in their own hearts—recognize, love, and voluntarily worship him. The Creator refuses to coerce or compel the submission of the spiritual free wills of his material creatures. The affectionate dedication of the human will to the doing of the Father’s will is man’s choicest gift to God; in fact, such a consecration of creature will constitutes man’s only possible gift of true value to the Paradise Father. In God, man lives, moves, and has his being; there is nothing which man can give to God except this choosing to abide by the Father’s will, and such decisions, effected by the intelligent will creatures of the universes, constitute the reality of that true worship which is so satisfying to the love-dominated nature of the Creator Father. (UB 1:1.2)
The imitation of God is the key to perfection; the doing of his will is the secret of survival and of perfection in survival. (UB 111:5.2)
Revealed truth, personally discovered truth, is the supreme delight of the human soul; it is the joint creation of the material mind and the indwelling spirit. The eternal salvation of this truth-discerning and beauty-loving soul is assured by that hunger and thirst for goodness which leads this mortal to develop a singleness of purpose to do the Father’s will, to find God and to become like him. There is never conflict between true knowledge and truth. There may be conflict between knowledge and human beliefs, beliefs colored with prejudice, distorted by fear, and dominated by the dread of facing new facts of material discovery or spiritual progress. (UB 132:3.4)
¶ 9. Have you become conscious of the presence of your Adjuster?
This question reminds me of three quotes from the blue book:
In contrast with conversion-seeking, the better approach to the morontia zones of possible contact with the Thought Adjuster would be through living faith and sincere worship, wholehearted and unselfish prayer. Altogether too much of the uprush of the memories of the unconscious levels of the human mind has been mistaken for divine revelations and spirit leadings. (UB 100:5.7)
The more healthful attitude of spiritual meditation is to be found in reflective worship and in the prayer of thanksgiving. The direct communion with one’s Thought Adjuster, such as occurred in the later years of Jesus’ life in the flesh, should not be confused with these so-called mystical experiences. The factors which contribute to the initiation of mystic communion are indicative of the danger of such psychic states. The mystic status is favored by such things as: physical fatigue, fasting, psychic dissociation, profound aesthetic experiences, vivid sex impulses, fear, anxiety, rage, and wild dancing. Much of the material arising as a result of such preliminary preparation has its origin in the subconscious mind. (UB 100:5.10)
Those who know God have experienced the fact of his presence; such God-knowing mortals hold in their personal experience the only positive proof of the existence of the living God which one human being can offer to another. The existence of God is utterly beyond all possibility of demonstration except for the contact between the God-consciousness of the human mind and the God-presence of the Thought Adjuster that indwells the mortal intellect and is bestowed upon man as the free gift of the Universal Father. (UB 1:2.8)
¶ 10. Have you tried to put the Master’s teachings into practice? What has been the result?
Like many of us do, I try to put them into practice in all areas of my life on a daily basis, with greater or lesser success, with successes and failures. It is a process that begins in this life, but goes beyond that.
The results are immense and I have described them in some way in some of my answers to the previous questions. Although it would be impossible to detail them in this space, I would like to offer the following reflection: putting the Master’s teachings into practice constitutes the challenge and objective of human life, striving and working individually and as a team in accordance with them, including seeking to do the Father’s will, yielding the fruits of the spirit in our daily lives, and being of service to our fellow men in accordance with his example and guidance. Now I share some quotes that I have found inspiring and guiding:
Jesus founded the religion of personal experience in doing the will of God and serving the human brotherhood; Paul founded a religion in which the glorified Jesus became the object of worship and the brotherhood consisted of fellow believers in the divine Christ. In the bestowal of Jesus these two concepts were potential in his divine-human life, and it is indeed a pity that his followers failed to create a unified religion which might have given proper recognition to both the human and the divine natures of the Master as they were inseparably bound up in his earth life and so gloriously set forth in the original gospel of the kingdom. (UB 196:2.6)
Jesus brought to God, as a man of the realm, the greatest of all offerings: the consecration and dedication of his own will to the majestic service of doing the divine will. Jesus always and consistently interpreted religion wholly in terms of the Father’s will. When you study the career of the Master, as concerns prayer or any other feature of the religious life, look not so much for what he taught as for what he did. Jesus never prayed as a religious duty. To him prayer was a sincere expression of spiritual attitude, a declaration of soul loyalty, a recital of personal devotion, an expression of thanksgiving, an avoidance of emotional tension, a prevention of conflict, an exaltation of intellection, an ennoblement of desire, a vindication of moral decision, an enrichment of thought, an invigoration of higher inclinations, a consecration of impulse, a clarification of viewpoint, a declaration of faith, a transcendental surrender of will, a sublime assertion of confidence, a revelation of courage, the proclamation of discovery, a confession of supreme devotion, the validation of consecration, a technique for the adjustment of difficulties, and the mighty mobilization of the combined soul powers to withstand all human tendencies toward selfishness, evil, and sin. He lived just such a life of prayerful consecration to the doing of his Father’s will and ended his life triumphantly with just such a prayer. The secret of his unparalleled religious life was this consciousness of the presence of God; and he attained it by intelligent prayer and sincere worship—unbroken communion with God—and not by leadings, voices, visions, or extraordinary religious practices. (UB 196:0.10)
The modern age will refuse to accept a religion which is inconsistent with facts and out of harmony with its highest conceptions of truth, beauty, and goodness. The hour is striking for a rediscovery of the true and original foundations of present-day distorted and compromised Christianity—the real life and teachings of Jesus. (UB 195:9.5)
The consciousness of the spirit domination of a human life is presently attended by an increasing exhibition of the characteristics of the Spirit in the life reactions of such a spirit-led mortal, “for the fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.” Such spirit-guided and divinely illuminated mortals, while they yet tread the lowly paths of toil and in human faithfulness perform the duties of their earthly assignments, have already begun to discern the lights of eternal life as they glimmer on the faraway shores of another world; already have they begun to comprehend the reality of that inspiring and comforting truth, “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” And throughout every trial and in the presence of every hardship, spirit-born souls are sustained by that hope which transcends all fear because the love of God is shed abroad in all hearts by the presence of the divine Spirit. (UB 34:6.13)
¶ 11. Do you think that The Urantia Book has something “mysterious” that makes not everyone decide to read it?
No, I don’t think so. I find the Urantia Papers to be enlightening and clarifying, educational and revealing. In my opinion, the reasons why some people who encounter them decide not to read them, or postpone reading or studying them fully, are varied and of a nature not related to the “mysterious.”
¶ 12. Is there anything else you would like to say regarding The Urantia Book?
I understand that some of the most important things that humans can do, according to the Urantia Papers, are:
- Develop spirituality and a personal relationship with God, cultivating a connection with the divine presence of Heavenly Father within us.
- Pursue truth, beauty and goodness.
- Love and serve others selflessly; love and serve others with compassion.
- Strive to grow spiritually and intellectually.
- Cultivate a living faith, which is essential for personal spiritual progress and eternal survival.
- Develop strong ethics and morals.
- Try to understand the nature of the universe and reality; value the acquisition of a cosmic perspective and understanding.
- Study the life and teachings of Jesus, especially the way he lived his life. The life and ministry of the Master are the supreme model to emulate.
- Work as a team and contribute to the progress of civilization.
- Prepare for eternal life.
Let us all make together, in union and faith, a vigorous effort to live and serve according to the teachings of this wonderful treasure called The Urantia Book. I leave you all with some of my favorite quotes:
These are the angels who foster and promote the teamwork of all Orvonton. One of the most important lessons to be learned during your mortal career is teamwork. The spheres of perfection are manned by those who have mastered this art of working with other beings. Few are the duties in the universe for the lone servant. The higher you ascend, the more lonely you become when temporarily without the association of your fellows. (UB 28:5.14)
While your religion is a matter of personal experience, it is most important that you should be exposed to the knowledge of a vast number of other religious experiences (the diverse interpretations of other and diverse mortals) to the end that you may prevent your religious life from becoming egocentric—circumscribed, selfish, and unsocial. (UB 103:1.3)
Jesus’ earthly life was devoted to one great purpose—doing the Father’s will, living the human life religiously and by faith. The faith of Jesus was trusting, like that of a child, but it was wholly free from presumption. He made robust and manly decisions, courageously faced manifold disappointments, resolutely surmounted extraordinary difficulties, and unflinchingly confronted the stern requirements of duty. It required a strong will and an unfailing confidence to believe what Jesus believed and as he believed. (UB 196:0.14)
“To “follow Jesus” means to personally share his religious faith and to enter into the spirit of the Master’s life of unselfish service for man. One of the most important things in human living is to find out what Jesus believed, to discover his ideals, and to strive for the achievement of his exalted life purpose. Of all human knowledge, that which is of greatest value is to know the religious life of Jesus and how he lived it.” (UB 196:1.3)
The great challenge to modern man is to achieve better communication with the divine Monitor that dwells within the human mind. Man’s greatest adventure in the flesh consists in the well-balanced and sane effort to advance the borders of self-consciousness out through the dim realms of embryonic soul-consciousness in a wholehearted effort to reach the borderland of spirit-consciousness—contact with the divine presence. Such an experience constitutes God-consciousness, an experience mightily confirmative of the pre-existent truth of the religious experience of knowing God. Such spirit-consciousness is the equivalent of the knowledge of the actuality of sonship with God. Otherwise, the assurance of sonship is the experience of faith. (UB 196:3.34)
“I have come into this world to do the will of my Father and to reveal his loving character to all mankind. That, my brethren, is my mission. And this one thing I will do, regardless of the misunderstanding of my teachings by Jews or gentiles of this day or of another generation. But you should not overlook the fact that even divine love has its severe disciplines. A father’s love for his son oftentimes impels the father to restrain the unwise acts of his thoughtless offspring. The child does not always comprehend the wise and loving motives of the father’s restraining discipline. But I declare to you that my Father in Paradise does rule a universe of universes by the compelling power of his love. Love is the greatest of all spirit realities. Truth is a liberating revelation, but love is the supreme relationship. And no matter what blunders your fellow men make in their world management of today, in an age to come the gospel which I declare to you will rule this very world. The ultimate goal of human progress is the reverent recognition of the fatherhood of God and the loving materialization of the brotherhood of man. (UB 143:1.4)
In answering Nathaniel’s question, Jesus said: “Yes, I will tell you about the times when this people shall have filled up the cup of their iniquity; when justice shall swiftly descend upon this city of our fathers. I am about to leave you; I go to the Father. After I leave you, take heed that no man deceive you, for many will come as deliverers and will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, be not troubled, for though all these things will happen, the end of Jerusalem is not yet at hand. You should not be perturbed by famines or earthquakes; neither should you be concerned when you are delivered up to the civil authorities and are persecuted for the sake of the gospel. You will be thrown out of the synagogue and put in prison for my sake, and some of you will be killed. When you are brought up before governors and rulers, it shall be for a testimony of your faith and to show your steadfastness in the gospel of the kingdom. And when you stand before judges, be not anxious beforehand as to what you should say, for the spirit will teach you in that very hour what you should answer your adversaries. In these days of travail, even your own kinsfolk, under the leadership of those who have rejected the Son of Man, will deliver you up to prison and death. For a time you may be hated by all men for my sake, but even in these persecutions I will not forsake you; my spirit will not desert you. Be patient! doubt not that this gospel of the kingdom will triumph over all enemies and, eventually, be proclaimed to all nations.” (UB 176:1.1)
¶ References
- Index of the magazine “Luz y Vida” of the Association of Spain
- This article from the magazine “Luz y Vida Online”