AC 540 - Heavenly Happiness and Bliss

AC 540

Almost all who come into the other life are ignorant
of the nature of heavenly happiness and bliss,
because they know not the nature and quality of inward joy.
They form a conception of it merely from
the delights and joys of the body and the world.
What they are ignorant of they suppose to be nothing,
the truth being that bodily and worldly joys
are relatively non-existent and foul.
In order therefore that those who are well disposed
may learn and may know what heavenly joy is,
they are taken in the first place to paradises
that surpass every conception of the imagination,
and they suppose that they have arrived
in the paradise of heaven;
but they are taught
that this is not true heavenly happiness,
and are therefore permitted to experience 
interior states of joy
which are perceptible to their inmost being.
They are then transported into a state of peace,
even to their inmost being,
and they confess that nothing of it
is at all expressible or conceivable.
And finally they are introduced into a state of innocence,
also to their inmost feeling.
In this way are they permitted to learn
the nature of true spiritual and celestial good.