DP 292 - sun and rain

DP 292
The fact that everything a person thinks and wills
and so speaks and does flows in from a single fount of life,
and yet that the single fount of life, namely the Lord,
is not the cause of a person's thinking evil and falsity,
may be illustrated by the following circumstance in the natural world:

From the sun in that world emanate heat and light,
and these two flow into all vessels and objects visible to the eye
not only into good vessels and beautiful objects,
but also into evil vessels and ugly objects
and produce various effects in them. . .

They flow likewise into good seeds and also into weeds.
So, too, into bushes that serve a good purpose or are healthful,
and also into bushes that serve an evil purpose or are toxic.
And yet it is the same heat and the same light,
in which no cause of any evil is to be found.
Rather the cause lies in the recipient vessels and objects.

[2] The warmth that hatches eggs containing
a screech owl, eagle owl, or asp
operates the same as when it hatches eggs containing a dove,
ornamental bird, or swan. . .

The warmth flowing into marshy, feculent, rotten or decayed recipients
operates the same as when it flows into wine-making,
fragrant, growing and living ones.
Who does not see that the cause lies not in the warmth
but in the receiving vessel?

The same light, too, . . . shines brightly on white objects and radiates,
and grows dim on those nearly black and becomes dusky.

[3] It is the same in the spiritual world.
Heat and light exist there, too, from its sun, which is the Lord,
and they flow from that sun into their vessels and objects.
The vessels and objects there are angels and spirits . . ..
For the Lord says that

"He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good,
and sends rain on the just and the unjust"
(Matthew 5:45).

By the sun in the highest spiritual sense is meant Divine love,
and by rain Divine wisdom.