SS 57
Enlightenment comes from the Lord alone,
and it is found in people
who love truths
because they are true
and apply them to useful life
endeavors.
Enlightenment in the Word is not found in others.
Enlightenment
comes from the Lord alone
because the Lord is present everywhere in the
Word.
The reason enlightenment is found
in people who love truths
because they are true
and apply them to useful life endeavors
is that
they are in the Lord
and have the Lord in them.
For the Lord embodies
His Divine truth.
When this truth is loved
because it is Divine truth —
and it is loved
when it is applied to useful endeavor —
then the Lord is
present in the person in that truth.
SS 61 [2-3]
. . . when self and the world are the
goals,
then when people read the Word,
their minds remain fixed on
themselves and the world,
and as a consequence they think continually
in
terms of their own self-interest,
which is in darkness
as regards
anything having to do with heaven.
A person in this state
cannot be
withdrawn by the Lord
from his self-interest
and so be raised into the
light of heaven,
and so neither can he receive
any influx from the Lord
through heaven.
I have also seen people like this
admitted into heaven;
but when
they were found there
to be without truths,
they were cast down.
Yet
even so the conceit remained in them
that they were deserving of heaven.
A
different experience befell people
who had studied the Word out of an
affection
to know the truth because it was true,
and because it fostered
useful life endeavors,
not only their own,
but also the neighbor’s.
I
have seen them raised into heaven
and so into the light
that surrounds
Divine truth there,
and they were raised at the same time
into angelic
wisdom,
and into its felicity,
which is eternal life.
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