It Has Opened My Eyes
I was born in 1945 to a Jewish mother and most likely an Arabic father. I never knew my father. My mother was an attractive woman, concerned mostly with her own life, so most of my basic upbringing came from the streets of the Copenhagen suburb where I grew up.
Since the time I became conscious of the world, I wondered about the questions of life. I asked myself why people seemed to be split into two groups: one group believers of all kinds, and the other all non-believers of one kind. I simply could not accept that there wasn’t a universal, cosmic truth which could somehow combine people’s views into a harmonious, global whole.
I decided to find out, to begin searching for knowledge, understanding and truth. I started reading all kinds of books – natural science, science fiction, philosophy, theoretical mathematics – and religious works such as the Kabbalah, The Book of Death, and Toward the Light. I read all through my formal education as a chief cook in the Danish merchant fleet.
After five years I returned home and became friends with a young Black musician, Jimmy Moody. We shared the same curiosity about life and interests in books, and soon we were exchanging books. Years later, he left Denmark to live in Ibiza, Spain, which at that time was the place to hang out if you were a hash-smoking, mushroom- eating hippie, which we both were. Occasionally I would go to Ibiza to see my friend, and on one visit he showed me The Urantia Book.
As soon as I got back to Copenhagen, I ordered a book from Chicago. When it arrived a few weeks later, in April of 1976, I began reading. As far as I can recall, I did nothing else for nearly four years. I finished my first reading on February 13, 1980. All my questions about the puzzles of life, love and God were answered. I was transformed into a completely new human being.
The book has changed my life. It has made order out of confusion within my mind. It has turned a young, crazy mortal into a harmonious, simple adult. It has opened my eyes, so that I now can see what is unseen. It has given me the knowledge that no schoolteacher, parent or adult could. It has made me understand what could be understood. It has made me aware of a divine Thought Adjuster within my soul. The Urantia Book has made my mind whole, repaired my intellectual horizon, inspired my creative potentials, and generated in me a craving to be like The Universal One. To the best of my ability I try to live by our Father’s commandment, “Be you perfect even as I am perfect.”
Since the people here in Denmark to whom I have introduced the book have shown no interest in it, I have started translating the book into Danish, upon the request of my daughter Catjaya. I hope thereby to make the book more accessible to the people of Denmark.
