CL 302 - Married Love Ascends and Descends

CL 302 [1-2]

To those considerations we should add also the following,
that by the order engraved on it
truly married love ascends and descends.
It ascends from its first warmth progressively upward
towards people's souls
in an effort to form conjunctions there,
and this by continually
more interior openings of their minds.
There is, moreover,
no love which strives for these openings more intensely,
or which opens the interior recesses of minds
more forcefully and adeptly,
than conjugial (married) love;
for it is the soul in each which impels it.
On the other hand,
in the very same moments that this love
ascends toward the soul,
it also descends toward the body and invests itself in it.

People should know, however,
that conjugial love is of the same character in its descent
as it is in the height to which it ascends.
If it soars aloft, it descends chaste;
but if it does not soar aloft, it descends unchaste.
That is because
the lower elements of the mind are unchaste,
while its higher elements are chaste;
for the lower elements of the mind cling to the body,
whereas the higher elements
divorce themselves from such things.