AC 1554-1555 - Journeys

AC  1554

He went according to his journeys.
(Deuteronomy 13:3)

That this means according to order,
is evident from the meaning of "journeys,"
as being further progressions;
and as these were made according to order,
"journeys" here mean nothing else.
From His earliest infancy the Lord advanced
according to all Divine order to celestial things,
and into celestial things;
and in the internal sense,
the nature of this order is described
by what is said concerning Abram.
According to such order also
are all led who are being created anew by the Lord;
but this order is various with people,
according to the nature and genius of each one.
But the order by which a person is led
while being regenerated
is known to no person,
and not even to the angels, except obscurely,
but to the Lord alone.

AC 1555 [2-3]

Few, if any, know how man is brought to true wisdom.
Intelligence is not wisdom,
but leads to wisdom;
for to understand what is true and good
is not to be true and good,
but to be wise is to be so.
Wisdom is predicated only of the life --
that the person is such.
A person is introduced to wisdom or to life
by means of knowing,
that is, by means of knowledges.

In every person there are two parts,
the will and the understanding;
the will is the primary part,
the understanding is the secondary one.
A person's life after death
is according to his will part,
not according to his intellectual part.
The will is being formed in a person
by the Lord
from infancy to childhood,
which is effected by means of the innocence
that is insinuated,
and by means of charity toward parents, nurses,
and little children of a like age;
and by means of many other things
that a person knows nothing of,
and which are celestial.
Unless these celestial things were first
placed into a person while an infant and a child,
he could by no means become a man.
Thus is formed the first plane.

But as a person is not a human
unless he is endowed also with understanding,
will alone does not make the person,
but understanding together with will;
and understanding cannot be acquired
except by means of knowledges
and therefore he must,
from his childhood, be gradually filled with these.
Thus is formed the second plane.

When the intellectual part
has been instructed in knowledges,
especially in the knowledges of truth and good,
then first can the person be regenerated;
and, when he is being regenerated,
truths and goods are implanted by the Lord
by means of knowledges in the celestial things
with which he had been endowed by the Lord
from infancy,
so that his intellectual things
make a one with his celestial things;
and when the Lord has thus conjoined these,
the person is endowed with charity,
from which he begins to act,
this charity being of conscience.
In this way he for the first time receives new life,
and this by degrees.
The light of this life is called wisdom,
which then takes the first place,
and is set over the intelligence.
Thus is formed the third plane.

When a person has become like this
during his bodily life,
he is then in the other life
being continually perfected.
These considerations show
what is the light of intelligence,
and what the light of wisdom.