At first it seemed too weird
Submitted by Joseph Reza
My Father died around 1982. I was
depressed for a while after his death. I
felt sad at the loss of his company on
this earth. I was happy for the
foundation of love he left me to build
on. Both feelings made me cry tears of
sadness and tears of joy. I was
emotional at the time.
My wife at the time became disturbed
at the amount of time it was taking me
to get over my dad's death. About six
months after his death, I had a healing
dream about him. When I awoke I felt a
pressure or tightness had lifted off of
my chest area that I wasn't even aware
was there.
Almost immediately after that I
became interested in researching
spiritual things that interested or
bothered me in my life. One was the fact
that I wanted to know what happened to
the missing years in Jesus' life. What
happened between 13 and 30? I began to
ask questions of my friends, co-workers
and family. I heard about the lost books
of the bible, and the council of Nicea
around 410 AD or so where it was decided
what writings would be included in the
Bible. I wanted to know what happen to
the ones that weren't included? Did any
of them have information about Jesus'
life?
I went to library and researched and
scanned and read books. One was a brand
new fragmented translation of Cave
Scrolls recently found in the Holy Land.
It supposedly had writings of St.
Matthew. They were too fragmented, just
in the beginnings of translation and
though they had many differences from
the bible, none seemed very important.
I read a book by an American minister
from the South from about the 1850's. A
purported revelation describing a
religious sect called the Essenes and
how Jesus supposedly passed through all
their teachings and even reached the
level of Divine. One test was in a
Pyramid where he passed a test of denial
of sexual desire displaying only pure
spiritual Love. The best book I found
was Jesus, the Son of Man by
Kahlil Gibran the author of The
Prophet. He translated these
letters about Jesus written by those who
knew him at the time, from Ancient
Aramaic which he learn from monks in a
Monastery as a youth.
Around the time I was researching
Jesus, a friend of mine gave me The
Urantia Book I began to browse and
review the index. My friend liked a lot
of Science Fiction and in my brief
review I wasn't interested. He urged me
to at least read the part about Jesus. I
said O.K. but didn't.
About a year later while exploring
another interest in Electro-magnetism (I
wanted to find a source of energy that
would produced more energy than it
needed to create it.) I figured that the
earth's magnetic fields would give up
energy when something passed through
it's lines of force by changing the
polarity on the object to attract it to
the line of force and repulse it after
momentum pushed the object through the
line of force. I met a family friend at
a party and he said the Urantia book
spoke of energy like that. He also
mentioned that it spoke of other
scientific discoveries before they were
discovered and that it spoke of others
that hadn't been discovered yet.
So it was that after about a year or
so on top of my dresser I began to look
for answers to my energy questions in
The Urantia Book. Eventually I
read the story of Jesus. I can't tell
you the joy of satisfaction, the sense
of completeness that I felt after
reading that story. I told my sister who
was into the church that it was quite
simply the best story I've ever read or
seen (like movies) on Jesus. I had a
strong faith and had believed in earnest
in Jesus since I was thirteen or 14 in
Catholic School. I was truly moved by
Jesus' teachings in the Gospels. I loved
the New Testament because it was Jesus'
teachings. There were many things in the
Old Testament I couldn't reconcile in my
heart with the teachings in the New
Testament. And now I had something
fulfilled inside of me. The holes that
were empty had been filled so
beautifully by this new story.
I had read many of Herman Hesse's
books. Journey to the East,
Siddhartha, Narcissus and
Goldman, Jung, Freud, Heddiger,
Marx, Hegel, and now I finally found
something that just made me feel
content, good, at peace with myself.
Since that time I've bought and given
away the Urantia book in Spanish,
French, English and Korean, to family,
friends and co-workers. I tell everybody
to start on page 1344 (old blue book).
So they don't fall into the same trap I
did. If they read that, then I tell them
to read part 3, then part 2 and finally
part 1. My sister always seemed to have
reservations about my enthusiasm about
The Urantia Book. I told my
sister you find Truth everywhere. You
find it in Nature. You find it in
novels. You find it in movies. You find
it at work. You find it in life. It's
everywhere waiting for you to discover
it. I use to tell her "do you think
native's that have never heard of God or
the Bible or religion or church aren't
saved?" Everyone can reach God.
Now I had found a book (The
Urantia Book) that reinforced the
religion I had found in myself through
my experience in this life. And because
of this book I have become a more
spiritual person. Because of this book I
now read the bible and many translations
of it. And I get so much more out of it.
Now because of this book (and our search
for truth and fulfillment in our lives)
I'm a better Catholic. Another friend
who reads it is a better Methodist,
another a better born again Christian,
etc. etc. etc. I want more and more to
do God's will on earth as it is in
heaven. And now that means something to
me. I look forward to my progression and
spiritual evolution. I await the more
perfect unions with my heavenly father
and my heavenly and earthly brothers. I
don't fear death. Wars will come and go
and eventually we will have world peace.
Or if our world is physically destroyed
our spiritual progression will continue.
I can now see life in terms of
spiritual time, which is even much
longer than geological time. Our human
frailties are passing experiences and
our spiritual eventuality a long awaited
development. God Bless and guide us all.
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