HH 512 - The Third State After Death

HH 512

The third state of a person after death,
that is, of his spirit, is a state of instruction.
This state is for those
who come into heaven and become angels.
It is not for those who come into hell,
because such are incapable of being taught,
and therefore their second state is also their third . . ..

Good spirits, on the other hand,
are led from the second state into the third,
which is the state of their preparation for heaven
by means of instruction.
For one can be prepared for heaven
only by means of knowledges of good and truth,
that is, only by means of instruction,
since one can know what spiritual good and truth are,
and what evil and falsity are,
which are their opposites,
only by being taught.
One can learn in the world
what civil and moral good and truth are,
which are called justice and honesty,
because there are civil laws in the world
that teach what is just,
and there is interaction with others
whereby a person learns to live
in accordance with moral laws,
all of which have relation to what is honest and right.
But spiritual good and truth are learned from heaven,
not from the world.
They can be learned from the Word
and from the doctrine of the church
that is drawn from the Word
and yet unless a person in respect to his interiors
which belong to his mind
is in heaven
spiritual good and truth cannot flow into his life;
and a person is in heaven
when he both acknowledges the Divine
and acts justly and honestly
for the reason that he ought so to act
because it is commanded in the Word.
This is living justly and honestly
for the sake of the Divine,
and not for the sake of self and the world,
as ends.

But no one can so act until he has been taught,
for example, that there is a God,
that there is a heaven and a hell,
that there is a life after death,
that God ought to be loved supremely,
and the neighbor as oneself,
and that what is taught in the Word,
ought to be believed because the Word is Divine.
Without a knowledge and acknowledgment
of these things
a person is unable to think spiritually;
and if he has no thought about them
he does not will them;
for what a person does not know he cannot think,
and what he does not think he cannot will.
So it is when a person wills these things
that heaven flows into his life,
that is, the Lord through heaven,
for the Lord flows into the will
and through the will into the thought,
and through both into the life,
and the whole life of a person is from these.
All this makes clear that spiritual good and truth
are learned not from the world but from heaven,
and that one can be prepared for heaven
only by means of instruction.

Moreover, so far as the Lord
flows into the life of any one
He instructs him,
for so far He kindles the will
with the love of knowing truths
and enlightens the thought to know them;
and so far as this is done
the interiors of person are opened
and heaven is implanted in them;
and furthermore,
what is Divine and heavenly
flows into the honest things pertaining to moral life
and into the just things pertaining to civil life
in a person,
and makes them spiritual,
since a person then does these things
from the Divine,
which is doing them for the sake of the Divine.
For the things honest and just
pertaining to moral and civil life
which a person does from that source
are the essential effects of spiritual life;
and the effect derives its all
from the effecting cause,
since such as the cause is such is the effect.