Friday, December 13, 2024

DP 28, 29 - Heaven Is Conjunction With the Lord

DP 28

Heaven is conjunction with the Lord.
Heaven is not heaven owing to the angels,
but owing to the Lord,
for the love and wisdom which angels possess
and which make heaven heaven
come not from them but from the Lord.
Indeed love and wisdom are the Lord in them.

DP 29

All conjunction in the spiritual world
is brought about by contemplation.
When someone there thinks about another
with a desire to speak with him,
the other becomes immediately present,
and one sees the other in person.
The like occurs when someone thinks about another
out of an affection of love for him,
but this latter affection brings about their conjunction,
while the former brings about
only the other's presence.

This phenomenon is peculiar to the spiritual world.
The reason is that all there are spiritual beings.
It is different in the natural world,
in which all are material beings.
The like does occur
with people in the natural world
in the affections and thoughts of their spirit;
but because in the natural world
there are intervals of space,
while in the spiritual world
intervals of space are only appearances,
therefore that which takes place
in the thought of everyone's spirit,
in the spiritual world takes place actually.

We have said this much to make it known
how conjunction of the Lord with angels
is brought about,
and the apparently reciprocal conjunction
of angels with the Lord.
For angels all turn their faces to the Lord,
and the Lord gazes upon their foreheads,
while the angels behold the Lord with their eyes.
The reason is that the forehead corresponds to
love and its affections,
while the eyes correspond to
wisdom and its perceptions.

But still, angels do not of themselves
turn their faces to the Lord,
but the Lord turns them to Him.
And He turns them by flowing into their life's love,
and through that
entering into their perceptions and thoughts,
so as to turn the angels to Him.

Such a cycle of love,
from love to thoughts and from thoughts to love,
exists in all processes of the human mind -
a cycle which may be called the cycle of life.

 

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