DP 32 - From Birth; DP 33 - We Have to Remove Evils First

DP 32 [2-3]   

. . . from creation and so from birth
every person has in him
three discrete degrees or degrees of height;
that a person comes into the first degree,
called the natural degree, when he is born;
that this degree can grow in him
through a continuous progression
until he becomes rational;
that he comes into the second degree,
called the spiritual degree,
if he lives according to spiritual laws of order,
which are Divine truths;
and that he can also come into the third degree,
called the celestial degree,
if he lives according to celestial laws of order,
which are Divine goods.

These degrees are opened actually in a person
by the Lord according to his life in the world,
but not perceptibly or sensibly
until after his departure from the world;
and as they are opened and then perfected,
the person is commensurately conjoined
more and more closely with the Lord.

This conjunction can grow in its closeness to eternity,
and also does so grow to eternity in angels.
But still, no angel can arrive
at the first degree of the Lord's love and wisdom
or attain to it,
because the Lord is infinite and an angel finite,
and between the infinite and the finite
there is no proportional relation.

DP 33 [2]

Now because the Lord flows
. . . into everyone's life's love and through
its affections into his perceptions and thoughts,
and not the reverse,
it follows that the Lord
can conjoin Himself more closely
only as a love of evil has been removed,
together with its affections,
which are lusts.
And because these lusts reside in the natural self,
and a person feels as though
whatever he does from his natural self
he does of himself,
therefore a person ought to remove
the evils of that love as though of himself;
and to the extent then that he does remove them,
the Lord draws nearer
and conjoins Himself with him.