© 2012 Jean Royer
© 2012 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
We all know among the readers of The Urantia Book some impatient people who want to go beyond Paradise at once, to know what it will be like after reaching the post-finaliter stage. To these we would like to recall a few facts and remarks on the preceding stages.
To reach Paradise, it takes at least 200 billion years. Indeed, the first arrivals of mortals in Paradise from our local universe only date back a short time, but Nebadon has been inhabited for approximately 200 billion years as indicated by the second of the following two quotes:
The senior Mighty Messengers were chosen from those ascendant mortals of time and space who were among the earlier Paradise arrivals, many having traversed Havona in the times of Grandfanda. But the first trinitizing of Mighty Messengers was not effected until the candidate corps contained representatives from each of the seven superuniverses. And the last group of this order to qualify on Paradise embraced ascendant pilgrims from the local universe of Nebadon. (UB 22:2.4)
200,000,000,000 years ago witnessed the progression of contraction and condensation with enormous heat generation in the Andronover central cluster, or nuclear mass. Relative space appeared even in the regions near the central mother-sun wheel. The outer regions were becoming more stabilized and better organized; some planets revolving around the newborn suns had cooled sufficiently to be suitable for life implantation. The oldest inhabited planets of Nebadon date from these times. (UB 57:3.10)
How long does it take to get to Jerusem? It varies greatly. There is one particular case that poses a problem, that of John the Baptist. If, as most Urantians think, he was resurrected on the third day, he was able to reach Jerusem in a few Urantian months and be named Counselor with the twenty-three others upon Jesus’ return, around the year 33. If, on the other hand, as I think, it took him about fifteen years to get to the first mansion world, then either he was named even before his resurrection or the nomination only took place about fifteen years after Jesus’ return to Salvington. But that left him very little time to “get up to speed”.
The time spent on Jerusem is also very variable. We have the case of Andon and Fonta who are still on Jerusem after almost a million years and also that of Onagar and Mansant and the other first advisors.
You then have to go through the Constellation, then through Melchizedek University around Salvington. We don’t know how long it takes to go through these 490 worlds, but it must be counted in thousands of years.
After which we must go through the minor sector, fortunately, there is only one that concerns us. We are completely ignorant of the time necessary to understand the physical laws. Finally we will have to go through the ten major sectors, undoubtedly for a much longer time.
Arriving on the seventh circle of Havona, we will be spirits and one might think that things become easy, but… after having had more than 464 million experiences (one on each planet) on circuits 7 and 6 we land on the pilot world of the 5th circle and there, surprise: it is here that the ascending pilgrims discover the meaning of a real study and a real mental effort; they begin to discern the even-more-demanding and much-more-arduous spiritual effort which will be asked of them to satisfy the requirements of the high goal set for the crossing of the worlds of this circuit. [292:5]
On this 5th circuit, we will have to go through more than 178 million experiences and planets knowing that it will be more and more difficult and that if there was not the help, among others, of the Guides of the Trinity, we would be, by ourselves, although already spirits, incapable of apprehending the personality of the infinite Spirit.
We could continue to the first circle and even see that after arriving in Paradise it still takes time (even if time does not exist as such in Paradise) before becoming a finaliter.
Then the finaliters are called into service in the grand universe, which greatly bothered Lucifer.
How long will this last? Until the completion of the Supreme Being, which is several billion years if we are to believe Bill Sadler.
So, is it worth asking questions about after Heaven?
We know what impatience made our mother Eve do.
Jean Royer