Spiritual Life and the Word of God

There are two directly opposite loves, love of self and love to God, also love of the world and love of heaven. He who loves himself loves his own (prop

corporeal ideas and in pleasures that pertain solely to the body, and thus in thick darkness in respect to higher things; while he who is raised up by the Lord is in light. He who is not in the light of heaven but in thick darkness, si

ove of self means especially the love of ruling over others from a mere delight in ruling and for the sake of eminence, and not from a delight in uses and for the sake of public good; while love of the world means especially a love of possessing goods in the w

l evils, and also a contempt for and rejection of all things pertaining to heaven and the church; and for the reason that man is stirred up by the love of self and love of the world to right doing in respect t

ing he does there is self and what is his own (proprium), which regarded in itself is nothing but evil. But to give uses the first place and self the second is to do good for the sake of the church, the country, society, and the neighbor; and the goods that man does to these for the sake of these are

he does not in his heart believe in the existence of God, and to the same extent he derides in his heart all things of the church, and he even hates and pursues with hatred all who acknowledg

it is so when he comes into the spiritual world, as he does immediately after dea

since they gave rule the first place and uses the second; and that which is in the first place is the head, and that whic

books, and from the light of reason, that there is a God, and thus be persuaded that he believes, yet he does not believe unless the evils that spring from love of self and of the world have been removed. The reason is that evils and their delights block up the way, and shut out and repel goods and their delights from heaven, and prevent their establishment. And until heaven is established there is on

aven from the Lord, that there is a God, who is the Creator and Preserver of the universe, and even that God is one. This then flows in for the reason that when evils have been removed heaven is opened, and when heaven is opened man no longer thinks from self but from the Lord through heave

is god, and that the inmost of nature is what is called the Divine. When such a man after death becomes a spirit he calls anyone a god who is especially powerful; and also himself strives for power that he may be called a god. All the evil have such madness

, especially those who are interiorly wise although not from knowledges; thus do all little children and youths and simple well-disposed adults see God; and thus do the inhabitants of all earths see God; for they declare that what is invisible, since it does not come into the thought, does not come into faith. The reason of this is that the man who shuns and turns away from evils as sins thinks from heav

may be seen in the work on Heaven and Hell, n. 51-86; and that

indeed so rooted out as to be no longer a possible idea; and this for the reason that they think of God from space. But when these become spirits they think otherwise, as has been made evident to me by much

e Ancient of Days. It is also from a general influx that men, both living and dead, who are called saints, are adored as gods by the common people in Christian Gentilism, and their sculptured images are esteemed. The same is true of many nations elsewhere, of the ancient peopl

r thought that God is one; they call Him one with the lips only. But those who have not been purified from evils, and therefore are not in the light of heaven, do not in their spirit see the Lord to be the God of heaven and earth; but in place of the Lord some other being is acknowledged; by some of these someone whom they believe to be God the Father; by others someone whom they call God because he is especially powerful; by others some devil whom they fear because he can bring evil upon them; by others Nature, as in the world; and b

his enlightenment, his affection for truth and good, his perception, intelligence, and wisdom; for these are not from man but from the Lord according to co

en unto Me in heaven an

en; therefore those who are in the inmost heaven are in wisdom, those who are in the middle in intelligence, and those who are in the outmost in knowledge. The idea is

form, also have their place under the heavens, and are not received until they acknowledge one God, and Him visible. Some in the place of a visible God see as it were something aerial, and this because God is called a spirit. If this idea is not changed in them into the idea of a Man, thus of the Lord, they are not accepted. But those who have an idea of God as the inmost of nature are rej